California Adventure!

No, we didn't go to actual San Francisco. But yesterday we went to Disney's California Adventure! Doug won tickets at the local radio station that allow us to go to both California Adventure and Disneyland on separate days. So yestereday we went to California Adventure. We decided we would use the tickets to celebrate our 2 year anniversary, since we're saving up money for getting married. We drove down yesterday morning and after getting through traffic and the crazy parking system they have, we made it!

Us almost in front of the giant orange. You can kinda see it to the left. We didn't go on the swings inside, but we did go on the free fall tower that's right behind us

These were our two favorite rides. We went on each of them twice. Soarin' over California was better than I had remembered it when I went on it a couple years ago. We enjoyed being able to recognize all of the different places form Yosemite, San Francisco, Los Angles, Lake Tahoe, Malibu, and even Camarillo, which was random.
The Tower of Terror is always a blast. We felt bad for a little girl who was sobbing at the end of the ride the first time we went on it. Now I have to get Doug to see the Disney Channel movie based on the ride.

There was a 3D muppet show that we went and saw. Here we are just showing off the stylish glasses

Turkey legs!! My family always got these when we went to Disneyland or the Magic Kingdom. I was really craving one when we were there and we finally found some! It was Doug's first time having one and he liked it. They filled us up fast though.

This is the view from Mickey's Wheel of Fun (a fancy ferris wheel.) You could see, from the right, Tower of Terror, Grizzly Peak, Space Mountain, Soarin' Over California, and the Matterhorn. Thundermountain was a little more to the left of the Matterhorn, but I couldn't fit all of them into the same picture. And we could see Splash Mountain too, but once again, they didn't all fit.

Me in front of a plastic tree log you could climb though. Cause you know, we didn't live in a forest of these...that weren't made out of plastic...or anything like that...

We would have had more pictures but my camera battery died shortly after this last picture. Oh well. All in all it was a really fun day. Now it's time for Disneyland!! (At some point.)

Summer is here!

Okay okay it's been forever since we've done an update. And boy do we have so much to update everyone on! I guess we'll start with the most present stuff and then just fill in the last two months. So here's the main news:
1. I got a job at American Eagle in March and absolutely love my job

2. Doug got a job at Wood Ranch as a runner and the store opens on the 1st

3. We both got AA degrees and graduated from Santa Barbara City College!

We were originally planning on walking in the graduation together. Uncle Keith and Aunt Barb flew in for the weekend to celebrate with us. But Doug got scheduled to work and could not get out of it because it was training week, so I didn't want to walk by myself. I figured that we'll have the 4 year college graduation in 2 more years. But we had an awesome barbecue with brats (Doug's request), corn on the cob, potato salad, chips, and beef ribs. It was so good. And then we had a berry tart from a really good nearby bakery. There's a picture of it below. We hung out a lot in between working.

My mom got two balloon bouquets for us

Happy graduates. No more city college! It's off to Cal Lutheran for both of us!

The family

Us with our berry tart

It was sooo good. It had a cookie crust and a thin layer (everyone thought it should have been thicker) of chocolate fudge

In other news, my poor civic had an accident. While driving Devonna and Reagan to the airport one weekend, in stop and go traffic, the car in front of us slammed on their brakes and unfortunately Doug didn't see them in time. Thankfully, and most importantly, nobody was hurt. Reagan was sleeping and was upset he was woken up, but everyone was fine. So we swapped information with the illegal immigrant without a license or insurance (sigh) and kept trekking to the airport. We were probably around 25 miles from the airport and right when we pulled up to the airport to drop them off and then my car started smoking. The engine overheated. We tried to just take it easy and drive home but we didn't make it five miles. My dad and Uncle Grant came out and fixed my car enough to get it home without overheating. Unfortunately it was then pronounced totaled. Such a bummer!!! This past weekend while Uncle Keith and Aunt Barb were in town we got a really good deal on a Jeep Patriot. So now I don't have to bum rides off of people, especially Doug. I am so happy with it! It's perfect.



Such a bummer



The new car!

A couple weeks ago Santa Barbara was on fire again. We were in class and the power went out so our next two classes were canceled. It was a nice break, but really sad for everyone who lost their homes in the fire. We did get some cool looking pictures though.

Another thing that we did was color eggs for Easter. No one in my family really likes hard boiled eggs enough to eat all of the ones that we wanted to color so we just colored raw eggs instead. It was a good idea!

And of course there needs to be a Reagan update. Devonna, Joe, and him were in town for a few weeks and we had a blast with him. I know there are a lot of pictures here, but trust me, there could be a lot more. These are some of the favorites of Doug and me. He's from 6-7 months in these photos.

My mom got Reagan watching Mary Poppins. He mostly likes Baby Einstein, but he loves the song "Feed the birds" and repeatedly will fall asleep if it is hummed to him or if he's watching that part of the movie

Now that he's active it's harder to feed him without a high chair. Here he was eating spinach and carrots and hit the spoon to his forehead.

He can now stand up if he is holding onto something. He's also on the verge of crawling.

He loves hitting the metal bowls with the wooden spoon. He also just likes chewing on the spoon

He also gets a lot of baths at our house. This is from his first bubble bath.

I'm not sure what I'm feeding him but he was easily distracted

He also got to go in the pool for the first time. This was when Mimi just put his feet onto the top step to let him stand when it was really hot out. He's also been in with us and likes it enough. I think he's still unsure.

Like I said, he loves baths. He really likes watching the bathtub fill up

This is right after Easter. We put him in the basket and he liked playing with the plastic grass

And of course since his daddy is a Harley Davidson fanatic we had to get pictures of Reagan on the bike. My dad picked up some Harley Davidson stickers and decorated a "helmet" for Reagan with a metal kitchen bowl and a hat underneath.

Reagan with his helmet

Reagan with his Great Uncle Grant

We've also been having some ducks stop by our pool in the morning. They seemed pretty confused once we put the cover on. They probably think it froze over or something. But they're so much fun to watch.

This is a video of Reagan in a sink bath. He's trying to figure out how to grab the stream of water




Reagan discovered the camera. And loves it! (Notice his teeth!)

Now that it's summer hopefully we'll be able to update more. That's the plan at least!

Hume Sweet Hume

This past weekend Doug and I got to go up to Hume for a conference. They called it Unite, and it was open for college age kids, staff alumni and Joshua alumni. A lot of my class went and it was a lot of fun. We mainly just hung out with people, but there was some broom hockey involved also. It was so weird being a conferee though. Neither one of us had been a true conferee since high school. So strange!

The beautiful mountains above Hume Lake

While we were waiting in line to get gas to drive up

I don't know...

Doug played Broom hockey on two different teams: one with some of my Joshua mates and one with his cousins. Both teams did well, coming in second and third place. I opted out of broom hockey to be the photographer

Doug shooting a penalty shot

Picture that our photographer friend, Mark, took of us

All in all it was a good weekend just to be back up there breathing the fresh, cold mountain air. We both would love to be able to work another summer up there but we just don't see how it would be possible anytime soon.

El Tango

We finally received our dvd copy of the dance performance that we were in for our ballroom dance class last semester. You should be able to spot us. We're the first couple that walks down in the very beginning. Enjoy!

Reagan is now at that fun age where he's playing with toys. He loves holding and shaking his rings and rattles. He can almost sit up completely by himself for more than ten seconds. One of the toys that he likes is a car set up. When you honk the horn it makes the sound and then states "Out of the way!" It really is hilarious. We also think he may be teething, cause he enjoys biting his toys and drools a lot. He also just got through his first cold of his life. He was miserable. But he was kind enough to give it to everyone else. He's also into making faces. Some of his faces include the "old man face" and the "joe face". He also learned how to smack his lips and finds it quite amusing when you do it back. Here are some picture updates.

Reagan with his car

What Reagan actually likes doing with the car

Reagan playing with a rolling penguin. When it's moved on is spherical bottom, it plays music and laughs. He loved grabbing at it and does an excited screech.

Making faces

Cute video of Reagan with his attachable elephant rattle from Nana and Papa.

Other updates with us: I found my wedding dress! I won't tell you what it looks like, you'll have to wait and see. But I love it! I also was accepted to California Lutheran University (following in Devonna's footsteps) and received a nice scholarship with it for academic achievements. Doug and I have started our pre-marital counseling and are really enjoying it. We also became members of our church and are going to be starting the Crown Ministries Financial study soon. Doug has been enjoying substitute teaching at the school my mom works at and the kids there love him. We've also been hitting the gym lately to get back in shape. Other than that school's been keeping us busy and we're both still job searching. Please pray that we both find good jobs. All in all we've just been enjoying the ride of life.