San Diego

We just got back from a great trip to San Diego. Travis had a work conference down there and we thought it would be fun to make a little vacay out of it.

The beautiful view from our hotel room.

Our first day started with Travis' best friend, Brad, and his wife picking us up for lunch. We wanted to try a pizza place that we saw on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. That show hasn't let us down yet. It was delicious!!

We spent the rest of Travis' lunch break by walking around an outdoor mall. Kirstie and I met two hotties while walking through one of the stores.

The next day we walked around our hotel and Seaport Village. This picture doesn't do it justice, but we saw the biggest yachts outside our hotel. I can only imagine what they cost.

We tried going to Hodad's for dinner the first night, but the line was out the door and down the street. We also saw a sign that said they were out of bacon! That's the whole reason why I wanted to eat there. We tried again the next night and got there earlier. We walked straight in and got a table and they had bacon a plenty! It was pretty good except their burgers were giant grease balls and I somehow spilled all over myself. The bacon "pattie" on my cheeseburger hit the spot though!

We visited Old Town, got some fudge samples (our husbands wouldn't let us buy any) and got scared to death by a man who we thought was a mannequin, but was real.

Saturday we saw some seals at La Jolla Shores and then headed over to Torrey Pines Gliderport to watch hang gliders do tricks.
Unfortunately, it wasn't very windy and we only saw two paragliders take off and they didn't do anything special. We then headed back to Brad's to watch BYU get their butts kicked by TCU.

On Sunday we went to Balboa Park to see the world's largest outdoor organ. They give free concerts every Sunday so we enjoyed a few songs and the nice weather.

Thanks for everything Brad and Kirstie!

Our New Tradition

Travis loves football. When we moved to this area he wanted to start a tradition of going to one high school football game every year. We started this tradition last year by going to a neighboring city's game. The team we saw had a BYU recruit, so he has reasons for what game we decide to go to. It was a just regular high school football game. Nothing special.

This year, Travis decided to watch our city's high school team because he knows a boy from church who plays on the team. We couldn't make it to a home game, but last Friday they were playing a neighboring city 10 minutes away. We showed up on the visitors side and didn't expect anything out of the ordinary.

It was the home team's homecoming. They had an awesome half time show where they turned off all the lights in the stadium. All the band members' and color guards' uniforms glowed in the dark and I have to say it was pretty cool! After the band played they had fireworks!! Legit fireworks, too! I thought the schools were in a budget crisis.

After they announced the homecoming queen and were getting ready to start the second half, their water polo team streaked the field! They weren't completely naked-they were wearing their tiny Speedos. Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of that. They were running really fast!

Our team actually pulled out a win. It was a really close game, which made it interesting.

I don't know what team we will go watch next year, but I can't imagine that they can live up to our most recent experience. It was the funnest high school game I've been to and that includes all the ones I actually went to IN high school!

Goodbye 2nd Trimester

I have reached the end of my 2nd trimester! I have a feeling these last months will go by faster than I had anticipated. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I keep going back and forth.

I am 7 months along and he will be here whether I'm ready or not!

There is a reason why the 2nd trimester is known as the Honeymoon stage. I've enjoyed the increased energy, not having a raging appetite, and being able to eat most foods without getting sick.

And the thing I've enjoyed the most is my face clearing up! For once in my life I've gone months, yes months, without any zits! Also, my face used to get really oily and for months I haven't had to worry about it. I'm actually hoping this isn't pregnancy related because I don't want my face to go back to "normal" once my time is up. I did start using a different face lotion about the time my face started clearing up and being less oily, so I'm hoping that's my golden product. We shall soon see.

Now that most foods don't automatically trigger my up-chuck switch, I've been enjoying eating again. Also, my hankerings for certain things have gotten stronger and most recently include bacon, cheeseburgers, mexican food, and of course chocolate and peanut butter. I watched an episode of The Best Thing I Ever Ate, Bacon edition, and I was dying!! My mouth was salivating, my tummy was rumbling, I couldn't concentrate. It all looked so good and I needed to get myself some bacon! One of the things they featured was a bacon cheeseburger from a place called Hodad's in San Diego. We just so happen to be going to San Diego soon and I will be insisting that we go there-maybe more than once.

During my first trimester I couldn't stand anything sweet. Just seeing commercials on TV would give me that sick feeling in my stomach. It was the weirdest sensation knowing how much I love anything sweet, but feeling like I would throw up if it got near me.

Travis' sister, Michelle, has a theory about this. She thinks that if you don't crave sweets and crave salty things during the beginning of your pregnancy then you'll most likely be having a boy. And it's just the opposite for a girl. If you crave sweets at the beginning then you'll be having a girl. She is 3 for 3 (2 boys, 1 girl) and I'm 1 for 1 based on her theory as well.

I was starting to have anxiety over if I would ever be able to eat anything sweet again. Luckily, I'm proud to say that I have been cured. Since about the 13-14th week I slowly started to want sweets again. Now it's back with a vengeance. Almost like I'm trying to make up for all those weeks of not being able to eat anything sweet.

Some things on my sweet list are gooey brownies with chocolate sauce, peanut butter rice krispies smothered in chocolate, and chocolate cupcakes. Also those small, innocent cartons of Haagen-Dazs chocolate ice cream with peanut butter swirls, I just can't get enough of. I can down a whole carton in one sitting when supposedly there are three servings in there. Don't ask how many I've purchased in the last two months. Let's just say, don't worry about them going out of business any time soon.

I can't believe I'm nearing the end-7 down, 2 more to go! AHHH!

Halloween Wreath

I finally got around to making a Halloween craft this year. It will probably be the only one I get around to though. I love decorating for Halloween and there are a lot of things I'd love to make, but I feel like October is speeding by.

I've been seeing black feather wreaths here and there and I contemplate getting them. Some are too expensive and others, in my price range, look cheap. I went to Michael's to find some black feathers and to get as much as I would need would have cost a fortune. I decided to buy a feather boa instead. It wasn't the exact look I was going for, but I thought it would work. I bought two 6ft boas and headed for home. I still had a ton of wire left from my card/picture holder to use as the wreath form.

I made a form out of the wire, wrapped the boas around it and secured with twisty ties. I also used hairspray to make the feathers more stiff.

Here is the finished product. Travis lovingly refers to it as the Black Wreath of Death.

Wedding Fun

A couple of weekends ago, we drove down to the LA area for Travis' cousin's wedding. It was nice to see family and be apart of a lovely wedding. JR and his wife were sealed in the Newport Beach Temple. The area and temple were beautiful.

Here is the gorgeous couple!

This is the pregnant lady line-up. Suzanne, my cousin, (on the left) is due the beginning of December, I'm due the beginning of January and my sister in law, Michelle, is due the beginning of February. Oh, and we are all having BOYS! We all hope they will be the best of friends!

They had their reception on a boat called "Eternity", which we thought was appropriately named. The harbor looked absolutely picturesque at sunset.

The event was 'black tie optional' and let's just say lots of fits were thrown, not only by me, about trying to find something appropriate. To try to find a modest dress that is fancy enough for a large pregnant woman was not the funnest experience. I still don't know if it was worthy enough, but I at least I wasn't wearing skinny jeans and converse, like some dude there.

Here is a picture of the immediate family that came to the event. We took up a whole row.

We had a little too much fun taking pictures of ourselves...

We had a really fun night and probably the highlight for me was watching a drunken lady dance in a dress that was a little too short.

The next day we walked around Laguna Beach and had to have lunch at BJ's Pizza. It's the home of the original Pazookie. It's basically a freshly baked cookie with ice cream on top. Michelle has been making them for years in ramekin dishes. I loved having the original, but I like our version a little better. I think our ratio of cookie to ice cream is perfected.

While we were walking around down town we saw this cute telephone booth. This was our first picture attempt and as we were walking away we saw a couple getting their pictures taken with the telephone booth and they did cute poses. So, we went back after they left and tried again to take a cuter picture. Against Travis' will, I might add. That's why he is not smiling!

JR's wedding was a great excuse to get together with family, who we won't be seeing for Christmas this year, thanks to my little bun in the oven.