Thanksgiving in Califronia

Disclaimer: I am the worst picture-taker ever. I always forget to take pictures and when I do they are on my iphone. Not the best quality, but here's what I captured during our four days in California.

We drove to California Wednesday afternoon. We met my family for dinner and then went home and were put to work preparing for the next day's feast. Watching Zac, Carli and Justin tear the bread into small pieces for the stuffing brought back such tramatic childhood memories of my mom making me tear apart like 500 loaves of bread. Maybe not that many but at least a dozen huge loaves. Who needs that much stuffing? It's probably my least favorite part of Thanksgiving. So much sage-yuck.


Since Carli worked so hard the night before, she felt like she deserved the turkey leg that all of the grown men usually fight over. Actually when she wasn't looking Rob grabbed it from her plate and shortly after that she was forced to move to the kid table becuase there was not enough room for her to eat with the adults. Rough day for her. Rob has never really been one of her favorites, so he chose the turkey leg over their relationship. Poor Carli. Luckily she's still pretty resilient.

Zac tried to force out a smile for a photo before he dove into his plate of food.

Here we are together. My mom took family photos for her Christmas cards that day so that's why we are in green and red instead of Thanksgiving colors.

We had a great time spent with family going to Roger's Gardens. It's a fun place to go at Christmastime. The Santa there was awesome, so nice, I almost believed he was the real thing. We went to Crab Cooker, the San Diego Zoo, a fast trip to the crazy Mission Viejo mall on black friday, and got our nails done. It went by too fast and was a ton of fun. We are off to Utah for Christmas to spend the holiday with the Freestone's. We can't wait!!

Feliz Navidad!

A couple of Saturdays ago Zac had to work and so I went here: the mall. They have this little holiday lane in the back corner of Macy's every year. It's on the second floor and I visit it whenever I'm needing a little Christmas cheer. Don't forget, A Christmas Carol comes out tomorrow. I think it's going to be good, but don't blame me if it's not, I haven't seen it yet obviously.

I did not intentionally skip over Halloween pictures just to get to Christmas faster, honest. I just don't have any taken from my phone and so blogging those ones just takes more work. I'm lazy sometimes, it's true, but I will get to it. In the meantime, time is fleeting away from us as Christmas is fast approaching. I feel so unprepared this year for some reason. Zac and I went and bought our first normal sized Christmas tree. 6.5 feet to be exact. We, no, I was very thrilled about it. I was a nice wife though and made sure we went to In-N-Out afterwards for dinner so he could get just as excited about something too. As soon as we got home we got to work decorating the beautiful new tree that is ours. It fits perfectly in our our new little house. A lot of firsts this Christmas. First time celebrating the holidays in a house. First time we've had an actual tree to put presents under. First time we've been married 4 years on Christmas. Ok, that one's lame, but there really aren't as many firsts as I thought so I had to stretch it a little. This holiday season we will be travelling to California for Thanksgiving and Utah for Christmas. I can't wait!

Update

Usually with a title like "Update" you're expecting something exciting. I'm afraid I may have mislead some readers. I just didn't have any other creative juices flowing at the moment and so that one seemed safe. Zac just finished his internal medicine rotation. I love the third year of medical school. One test once a month, home by five or six every night, sometimes as early as one or two in the afternoon. We get to hang out in the afternoons now. I am substitute teaching now and so I am home by 4:00 everyday. I am really enjoying it actually, mostly because the schedule is the same as Zac's. I am also working with a little three-year old boy who is speech delayed. I only see him twice a week though. He is so cute and sweet. Other than that we haven't been up to a ton. I am getting kind of excited for the holidays, mostly Christmas. Actually I take that back, I am getting reall excited for Christmas. I weakened and listened to a Christmas CD I bought for $4 at Big Lots the other day. I was having a really hard day and need some comfort. Some people reach for Twinkies or ice cream when times get tough, but my magic comfort tactic is Christmas music. It instantly warms my soul and makes all my worries go away. It's a real blessing for me. Enough about that, the weather is trying to cool off here in Arizona, but I think the state is confused. We'll have a few nice days of high 80's low 90's and then it gets scared and isn't ready to say goodbye to summer and so it shoots back up into the 100's. It's October, time to move on desert. It's going to look weird when I have Christmas lights and a snowman in the front yard when it's still 100 degrees outside. I'm starting to make soups and drink hot chocolate, but it's not helping. Anyway that's what we've been up to-not a lot.
P.S. Does anyone have any good couple costume ideas? We are going to a Halloween Costume party this weekend and have no idea what to be. I'd love any suggestions. Thanks ahead of time.

Family in Town and finally some pictures

Well my sweet parents, sister and brother decided to come spend the weekend with Zac and I. It was so nice of them and I was so excited to have our first overnight guests. My dad and Justin took the reclining chairs as you can see and left my mom and I squished in the middle-wait, what's wrong with this picture??


Here are Justin, me and Carli. I love these two kiddos. I would adopt them if my parents would let me.


We spemt most of Saturday shopping for cars. We've done this several times the past couple of years, but never had any luck finding one we could afford. One good thing about the economy being horrible is that cars are really cheap right now. We traded our old "clunker" in and bought a new Saturn Vue. I love it and am so excited to feel safe and secure in a car that doesn't have so many crazy problems. My Rodeo was a great car, but it was getting tired and it was time to say goodbye. It was actually a little sadder(is that a word?) than Zac and I were anticipating as we parted with the car we first talked about marrying each other in. It treated us well for so long and then within a matter of minutes we abondoned it and drove off with a new and better car. Poor thing.

And here is the car we chose. As you can see I am pretty elated about it.

Unfortunately, Carli had a misunderstanding and thought we were shopping to find her a car. She was jumping in every car pretending to drive and saying, "Oh yeah, I like this one. I think this one will be fine." She demamded I took a picture of her in every car. I spared you all with only one.

Once reality set in and she realized this was not her lucky day, we found her like this inside of the car dealership. Drama Queen!!

Justin couldn't find his bread when we got home from church because he left it in the car and forgot about it. When Zac found it this is all Justin could do to express his relief. He gets a little cranky and uptight when he doesn't get his bread fix.

One day a very sleep-deprived Zac came home from working a long shift at the hospital and decided it was time to buzz his head. He kept asking for my approval. I never said no and I never said yes, so what did he do? He took matters into his own hands, literally. I found him in the backyard doing it himself. Here is the final product. It took some getting use to for both of us. We are liking it better now that it has grown out a little. Sorry about the way blurry picture.

BYU football season started again as I'm sure you are all aware. Here is Zac trying to contain his excitement by acting way cool for the camera. Too bad inside he was like a little boy jumping for joy when they won their first game of the season. He's been a little depressed since the loss against Florida State, but after about a week he started talking again and he's just now able to get himself out of bed-jk. He really does live for BYU football though, no joke about that.

We got awesome BYU shirts to wear to the awesome BYU party our awesome friends hosted. I think I should use a Thesaurus. Anyway, it was a lot of fun-good food, great company, and BYU crushed Oklahoma first game of the season. What more could a fan ask for?

Here are the girls posing for some nervous husbands. They were giving us a hard time about missing a second of the game while taking our pictures. FYI-There is a thing called a pause button.

Waterskiing Trip

One of the highlights of the trip to Lake Mead was helping Carli ski. She was so excited to try that she demanded she go first. It was hilarious. She made two attempts and in her mind she was so close to getting up she practically did. From our perspective she did a nose dive as soon as she yelled "hit it". Her skis flew off instantly, but she held on submerged under water for a few seconds until she realized she was simply dragging and swallowing a lot of water. It was a lot of fun to be in the water with her though. I kept telling her just to take deep breaths and relax because she was shaking she was so nervous. Every person who went after her she would just scream out to them to breath deep and relax and they'll get right up. She is a riot and I love her so much.

Here I am enjoying an epic day on the lake.


We got so lucky and the water was glass both days. I love Lake Mead!!

Here I am attempting to jump both wakes. It didn't happen.

For some reason while I am skiing water pelts me really hard on my leg, just on this one side. Here are the bruises to show for it.

The trip was so much fun. I didn't decide to go until last minute, but I am so glad I did. I hadn't been waterskiing for four years so it was definitely time for me to remember how much I love it.

As of late...and then some

So this is what we've been up to lately...hanging out with friends and going to the temple. Not a whole lot here. Zac is done with his boards and so he has a lot more time to hang with me. He is doing his OB rotation now in labor and delivery and loving it. His schedule is kind of demanding, but still better than classwork the first two years. He gets home and he is done. I love it. We get to eat dinner together and watch our favorite shows everynight. It's awesome. I feel like I have my husband back. We get to go over to friends houses and don't have to leave early so he can study. He doesn't have to meet me there because he has to come late. We just go places together. I think things are looking up...

As for this picture...I don't know where we are looking. For some reason it's really challenging for us to take a picture where we are looking in the same direction. I don't think it's our fault though. It's our husband's fault. They struggle big time. They are too impatient to take them one at a time and so we get overwhelmed with flashes and "say cheeses" and we buckle. I am sure this is the problem because this is isn't the first incidence we've had such as this. I can count a handful of awkward, unprofessional pictures and it's always the one's of just the girls. Ironic? I don't think so. We just know the guys are not taking it seriously enough. You may be wondering why we don't just take another one if we have digital cameras, right? Oh, we do, they are all the same. Nothing changes, confusion, frustration and anxiety occurs with each flash just to capture a memory like this. I give up!!


The temple was beautiful and relaxing as usual. This was the view we had as we were walking to our car. I always love going, especially since we go to Cafe Rio afterwards. I, no, we LOVE that place. Somehow, our forgetful selves, forget how amazing it is. The first bite is like an explosion of pure bliss in between two salivating, spoiled cheeks. We both pause, look up at each other, share our joy, and fall in love all over again. Everything in the world could be upside down, but for that moment life is good. Thank you Cafe Rio!

Unemployed

I think it's time I start looking for a job. Anyone have any ideas? Usually I get lucky and just stumble upon one, but no luck this time. I've come to a dead-end with ideas and am humble enough to admit that I need help. Please let me know, especially my Arizonan friends, if you know of any job openings. My long-distance friends-maybe you can help me think of something I might enjoy. I hate the job-hunt. I just want babies!!