We started off the wonderfully busy weekend at Rio Del Mar Beach near Santa Cruz. It was so beautiful! The weather was perfect and sunny, the water was cold but refreshing, and the girls had so much fun! Jon’s sister, Rebekah came for the weekend and we really enjoyed her company.
The girls had some fun with sand castle smashing before we headed out.
The super famous Mystery Spot! (There are so many cars around here with the bumper stickers…)
We stopped off at the Mystery Spot. It was so strange! There is some type of gravitational/magnetic/optical anomaly surrounding this little cabin in the middle of the woods. Look at the height differences! The level says that the board they are standing on is level. Brandon is definitely the tallest until they all switch places.
And this little T that Jon and Jenna are on is level as well, but if you want to be taller, you just stand on the right side.
For the 4th we went to an Oakland A’s game. It was much more fun for me, being closer to the field this time. It’s amazing how your taste for something can grow when your spouse likes it so darn much.
We have lots of fun in the pool at Jon and Jenna’s apartment. Maggie loves playing the the hot tub, since she can only last about 4 minutes in the normal pool (and yes, it’s heated to 78*) before her lips turn blue. She loves when the jets turn on because then she can play with the bubbles. And of course we love the hot tub as well. Who doesn’t? 
We had a the BBQ going as well, and ate some delicious burgers before heading to San Ramon for some beautiful fireworks. They get more creative every year! There were some smiley face ones and the blue looks like blue, instead of purple.
All in all it was a wonderful weekend that left us all a little sunburnt, but remembering and enjoying lots of family time together. I am so grateful for this country! We have so much opportunity and freedom, when others are left in destitution and poverty. I try to keep in mind that I have everything I could possibly need and most of the stuff I want. It’s amazing how blessed I am.
Stay grateful.
I really love living in California! It’s just so beautiful here. And I truly love having family close by. Jon and Jenna have made our time here so much fun! June was a fantastically busy month. We went on lots of little trips and enjoyed lots of outdoor time. Jenna, Katelyn, Maggie and I were intending to meet up with some people from Jenna’s ward at the beach, but we took the wrong road and ended up at Half Moon Bay. Can’t really complain. We decided to go scope out the tide pools instead of driving the 2 more hours to meet up with friends. The tide was high when we first got there but we had fun playing on the beach, watching the sea lions bask in the sun and dropping rocks into the little stream flowing into the ocean. 
Our stake had a 50th Anniversary Party weekend. Friday night there was a SWEET carnival. There were little games for the kids, fishing and biting the donut off the string and bean bag tosses. AND….. it was catered by Coldstone Creamery!!! You could choose from 4 different kinds of ice cream then go to the topping table and have you way with it. Oh it was so delicious! I got Strawberry and Cakebatter ice cream with graham crackers and lots of caramel syrup on top. There was chocolate and candy pieces and sigh, it was just so fabulous. The little ones LOVED the ice cream, check out their faces and tell me they didn’t love it. We brought Jon and Jenna and met up with Monica and James. Monica and Jenna actually went to high school together in Sandy, UT. Small world, eh?
Jenna turned 24 the day after the carnival (the eleventh). We had a fun time swimming and thrifting and eating cake. Her half siblings and dad came for the swimming, presents and cake :D
Brandon is one of the hardest people to buy for, because when he wants something, he goes out and gets it or if I have actually gotten the chance to buy it he already knows what it is. Sigh. Sometimes, however, a genius thought hits me. This was one of those times. Growing up Brandon had a cat shaped syrup pitcher. As the syrup came out the mouth there ensued lots of puking sounds while syrup was being poured. I found a puking duck on ebay for Father’s Day! It has an awesome hat, a little suit coat and a tie. It’s so cute! And he didn’t even guess what it was beforehand! I was so proud to have come up with a good present that he didn’t already know about. Of course…that left his birthday (July 30) sadly lacking in anything resembling a cool present. Sometimes you just can’t catch a break.
A couple weeks later we were able to meet up with people from Jenna’s ward. A bunch of moms get together and take there kids out to play so that everyone can have a good time. This lake was so neat. It was like a swimming pool – life guards and roped off deep ends and a diving platform for the older kids, but it was sandy and wonderful. We had lots of fun playing with other kids and getting to know other moms.
A friend got some free tickets to a San Jose Giants game, so of course we went! I have to say, I really enjoy minor league games better than major. The atmosphere is more fun, it’s cheaper, and you can actually see the players because you’re not sitting forever away. I’m much more inclined to pay attention to the game when I am close to it, and I can’t afford to be close at a major league park.
We found a fantastic splashy park in Dublin. (I actually just found one in our town-so we’ll start going to that one now) It has little fountains everywhere and the water pressure varies, making it so much fun for the kids! Maggie really loved it, and Katelyn could not have been more happy.
Our summer has been so wonderful so far! We are excited to have so much to do, and fun people to do it with! Yay!
One of the best parts about the camping was the little park right in the middle. All the kids could come and play and the girls really loved it!
She loves her daddy so much! And he is such a sucker for her every whim. It's just adorable.
That's Jenna's words. We have used our tent before, a couple times. But not for a whole weekend. I really do enjoy camping.
And to the beach we go. Cold and windy, but so much fun!
Even some rocks for the kids to climb on.
Experiencing the tickle-tickle of a crab on their little hands.
The glass was beautiful and so smooth. 
And this is how we finish! Ok, not finished. I still have lots to do, but SO much better! Oh, and how do I accumulate piles of stuff when I've only been here 3 months? Whatever. PS: Can you find the baby? She's in both the messy and the clean house. So, we've got (from the top left, read it like a book) the living room, the kitchen, the dining corner, the craft corner (they're the same "room" just opposite corners), then our room, and Maggie's room.
And here's a corner of Maggie's room. One of the places that still need work. Sigh. Oh well.
So yesterday was a fantastic day. I will only brag a little. I started by exercising for 45 mins (Thanks again Brian and Ruth for the Kinect!) Showered myself, then bathed Maggie. Planted some lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers in big pots, and parsley, basil and little zinnias in tiny pots. I'm starting a little porch garden. Maggie and I walked to Target to get some apples, where I found a bunch of stuff on clearance. I love clearance! We got home and read books and sang songs, then I did the dishes, swept and mopped the kitchen and vaccumed the rest of the house. By the time Brandon got home from work, we were reading more books. Maggie really likes to read and sing. She would have me talking with her all day if she could. Oh wait! We do.
When Brandon got home we went to the park to "slide to the gwound" and "swing wif Mommy." She finally likes to play at a park! Which is nice since we live down the street from a great park.
Today we (Maggie and I) got to go to the quilting club in our ward. It was fun to get to know more people and get super awesome free fabric.
I know! So cool! Looks like she's looking at the camera...and spitting.
Life has been pretty busy of late. Brandon now has a job! He works for First Source as a conduit between patients and hospitals, mostly dealing with Medicare and MediCal. It's not the most exciting thing, but he's still in the process of getting enough cases to keep him busy. We are living in Hayward, California and are super happy to be here. We have a pretty nice 2 bedroom apartment that is within walking distance of a Target (YAY!), a Joann Fabrics (which is very important to me), the library (love to read for free), and the most fantastic park ever. For about $6 you can ride the carosel, the small train that goes around the park, visit the bouncy house, go to the petting zoo and ride a pony!! Maggie is still a bit small for most of that, but the playground is great (and that part's free) and it's a half block from our apartment. I am very excited to spend much of the summer there.
Maggie is growing up so fast! Not literally, because she's about 8 months behind, size wise. She's almost 20 months old and still too small for a few 12 month cloths. But she is SO smart! In just the past few days she has started saying words for real, like more than one syllable! She says "bay sa baaaoow" that's baseball, and "caneee" = candy (what we call fruit snacks) She'll just pick a word out of what she hears and say it, usually the one that the most emphasis was put on in the sentance. She loves explatives, if we swore we would be in big trouble, but she'll just sit there and say OH MAAAAAAN! over and over again. It's SO CUTE! Oh! and she can say her name now! Starting like 2 days ago, she switched from calling her self ma ma to maaa geeeeeee.
She is getting all around the house now, into the cupboards (which she could open and bang closed for hours - I usually have to stop her because I get a headache from the constant slamming) pulling DVDs off the shelves, into the bathroom cupboards (luckily not the toilet - yet), turning on and off the Xbox because it makes a ding everytime she touches the button...yea we love that, playing with her toys, which she can differentiate between. She'll ask for specific different things, which I think is incredible! She just cruzes along the walls and chairs and couches and tables exploring everything around her. If you can't tell, I am enchanted by the strides my daughter is taking. She's just so amazing, and the sweetest little girl EVER! Sadly this does not extend to her sleeping habits or very small palate. Luckily I am great at taking naps and the things she does like to eat are at least semi healthy. Milk (like a quarter gallon a day!), apples, chips, pretzels, graham crackers, some cereals, popcorn
and anything sweet or chocolatey. Yes, she is my daughter. In the late evenings she's taken to asking for brownies or ice cream. Curse my sweet tooth, but at least she's getting calories so that she'll grow bigger...Sadly this means I am also getting calories.
I have been working on that though. Not so much the not eating sweets, because I've tried that, and all it does is make me cranky. There are plenty of other good things I can do to be healthy, that won't make be angry at the world for taking away something I love. So we got a Kinect for the Xbox for Christmas and since then I have worked out 3 times a week and since I'm bothering to exercise, it gives me more incentive to eat healthier foods so that my efforts and sweating is not going to waste. I have lost 8 pounds and I have more energy. Which is being combatted by the lack of sleep thanks to Maggie, but I guess it's all equaling out. I am proud of myself, having made it into March while still keeping my new year's resolution to exercise more, though to be truthful, there was about a 2 week break when we were moving and didn't have our stuff set up, but moving is quite a bit of exercise its self. So I feel good.
I am keeping myself busy by trying to start a business at etsy.com. I think the name will be Maggie's Closet, and I'm going to make little girl dresses
and skirts 
and probably skirts for women too (see post of last summer when I made a purple one for myself). I love sewing, we all know that runs in the family - on both sides for me, and I want to make some money to fund my crafting habits. I am also an unofficial wedding planner to Brandon's brother. It was a lot of fun to talk with my future sister-in-law and bouce ideas off each other and help her plan out her reception. 
I have also taken charge of making the wedding cake. Kendra did mine, so I'm just following in her footsteps and hope mine turns out as well as hers. I am hoping to get some more practice in the month or so before the wedding. I'll be heading up to Washington again about a week before the wedding (April 16th) so that I can help with the set up and preparations. I really love doing this stuff, so all you teeny cousins, when you get married in 10 or 20 years, know that I am here to help with your weddings. (Jason, Garet and Trais I will except your applications within the next few years, I won't make you guys wait).
We have been lucky enough to be recruited here by Brandon's cousin Jon and wife Jenna - who is wonderfully crafty and fantastically spiritual, therefore a great friend (Jenna's step mom is actually Brandon's boss), so we even have some friends here. They have a little 2 year old girl that loves to play with Maggie. Maggie is not a big fan of Katelyn though, I think she knows that when little hands are touching her they are not as gentle and sometimes take her toys from her. She's gotten better the more we are around them though. We've yet to see how she does in nursery...we want to wait until she can walk so she can at least hold her own against all the crazy kids.
Speaking of church, our ward seems great! Today was our second week and we've been very welcomed by everyone. We got to meet with the Bishop last week and got our records trasferred over by the end of the day. There are younger moms in the ward that get together and have play groups at parks, which is good to get Maggie and I out and socializing. The samoan ward in the stake actually meets right after ours, so as we are getting out, they are coming in and Brandon has very much enjoyed being able to speak with Samoans again. We were even luck enough to be assigned talks today on personal revelation(mine) and prayer(Brandon's). He of course managed to finish his fantastic talk in less than an hour (broken up by looking at cars and furniture on craig's list) and I took like 3 days. I'm still not totally satisfied as I got so much information that I think it came out a bit disjointed, but I learned so much that I think it works out.
We're super greatful to be here and excited to start a new chapter in our lives (Being grown ups? A real job? Potential to being in one place for more than a year or so? Weird but fantastically thrilling.)
