Birthdays

Having Jordan and my birthday pretty close together is really fun, but it also makes it easy to keep it fair.  We have decided that for our birthdays--it's up to the birthday person to decide how the birthday budget is going to be used and how the day is going to be spent!

Since my birthday was first, we'll start with mine!  I just kept telling Jordan that I was going to worry about my birthday and that he wouldn't have to worry about it, but he didn't believe me until he woke up that morning and saw that I already had our lunches packed, the diaper bag ready, was showered and make-upped, and was ready to go!  I'm trying to live it up that we're in Los Angeles so we went to the California Science Center!  It's a museum with lots of hands on stuff that gets you to interested and excited about the science in the world around us!  To get an idea of the kind of place it is, here's what's even just outside the museum.  It's a lever where you can lift a truck!  If you look closely you can see the truck is off the ground, just by Jordan pulling on it!  It was a blast.  There was a space/air museum in another building that was also part of it, and that was so neat!  After that, we went to Santa Monica Pier, rented bikes and rode around for an hour or so.  We then walked on the beach, got a little wet, put on warm clothes and walked along the Pier.  We were going to go to dinner, but I didn't really want to, so we went to Costco and got ravioli and pot stickers (pretty much the same thing, but from different countries).  We came home and they were fantastic!  Jordan's mom made me cupcakes and we blew out a candle!  All in all, it was a wonderful birthday!

 

And now for Jordan's birthday!  There's a donut place a few miles away that Jordan really likes, so I went before he got up and got him some.  There's a trail above Jordan's house that he wanted to hike so that's what we did!  It was a blast.  Jordan hadn't been up this one trail since he was like, 11, when he and some buddies got a door, dragged it up the mountain, and started to build a tree house.  The next day they all got poison oak so they never went back, but we found the tree house and the door was still there!  We put Porter in his carrier and he was happy for part of it, but really wanted to walk around so when we got to the top we let him get out.  The hike took up a good chunk of the day, so by the time we got home it was time for dinner!  Jordan's favorite food of all time is crab, and he went on his mission to Louisiana (the GLBRM), so The Boiling Crab was the answer!  You order the seafood you want (there's shrimp, crab, crawfish, salmon...and I'm sure there are others), order the spices, they cook it in a bag, and bring it out in a bag!  There's wax paper on the table which replaces plates, and while it's very messy it's soooooooo good!  Jordan got 1 1/2 pounds of crab, and I got 2 lbs of crawfish, both of which we split.  It was so yummy and I wish we could go everyday.  One of Jordan's favorite ice creams is chocolate malt crunch from Rite Aid (um....what?) so I made an ice cream cake with chocolate ice cream, broken up whoppers, oreos, and whipped cream.  I think he had a good birthday too, and Porter and I had a blast too!

Job Update

We don't have a job yet.  That's pretty much the gist of it.  We've been working on it and thought we had one in the bag, and we didn't.  So, we're looking at our options, praying about it, and we'll see.

We were in an earthquake!

There was an earthquake this morning that I was finally in! There was one in New York a few years ago that my Dad was in, but we were on vacation--bummer. This morning everything changed! It happened at 4 this morning, and while I was partly asleep I felt it and was aware that it was an earthquake--AWESOME. If you Google "california earthquake," something similar to this will come up:

There was also an article in the Wall Street Journal online :

Earthquake Shakes Southern California

LOS ANGELES—An earthquake east of downtown Los Angeles rippled across Southern California before dawn Tuesday, jolting millions of people awake and putting first-responders on alert but causing no damage, injuries or power outages.

The magnitude-4.4 quake, centered about 10 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, struck shortly after 4 a.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

"It was a shake, but not bad. Our inmates slept through it and we had a few calls, but not as many as you would think," Pico Rivera sheriff's station Sgt. Jacqueline Sanchez said. Deputies were immediately dispatched to check on bridges and dams, she said.

Los Angeles County Fire Department supervising dispatcher Andre Gougis said there were no reports of damage or injury and the department was at normal operations.

Mr. Gougis said the quake was felt as his east Los Angeles headquarters.

"There was an initial jolt, then mild shaking after that," he said.

To continue the story click here.

All in all, it was pretty rad and we can say we were in earthquakes!

Brett Glen Campbell

Jordan's greatest friend in the history of mankind, Brett, has requested a post about himself. So, here it is.

So tired...but here's Disneyland!

I am so tired I can't stand it, but our friend Brett's over, and they're watching the Jazz/Suns game before we watch The Office where Jim and Pam have their baby, so here we are until that happens.

I'm not putting in a super lot of details about our Disneyland trip a month ago (we went again Thursday, both times for free [I know...right?]). Mostly I'll just talking about the pictures that I'm putting up.

I took Porter on his first ride while Jordan and his Aunt Theresa (who was the one who got us in for free) went on Soarin' California (on paper, not that cool of a ride but when I went to it myself I was grinning from ear to ear the whole time...if you have the chance you've GOT to go on it). The ride we went on was the Monsters Inc ride (so fun!) and it was a blast! Porter just kinda looked around--no crying but no smiling either. When we got out we saw Porter's first "characters" and they were from the Incredibles! We saw the mom and the ice guy--again, no crying from Porter, but no smiling either.

We saw Mary Poppins! It was so rad--I was like a 5 year old. We then followed my next section of happiness--the Peter Pan ride! I love that ride--it's my favorite book, story, everything--I just love Peter Pan, and the ride is great too. We then took Porter to It's A Small World (which he loved...danced to the music), and then Jordan's aunt took Porter and watched him the rest of the day so we could have a day at Disney to ourselves--it was wonderful! Something else that was GREAT was that our friends the Deans just HAPPENED to be in California that week and just HAPPENED to be going to Disney the same day we did! So we went on a couple rides with them, including the Tower of Terror (so fun) and the ride where you get wet (not Splash Mountain...the other one). It was great! We also went on Splash Mountain (I looove that ride), and we should have gone a little earlier because the sun had JUST gone down, so we got a little cold, but it was ok. That day we went on EVERY single ride we wanted to. We didn't have to wait in one line for a long time. The only one we were going to wait in line for, a guy came and gave us a FastPass for it! It was super rad. We had never been to California Adventure, and the tickets we had were park hoppers, so we explored California Adventure to its' full advantage. Anyway, we went on every ride we wanted: Big Thunder Mountain, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, and so many more!



Last week, we were given two free tickets to Disney again, so we went and since we got to go on all the rides we wanted the time before, we decided to spend this trip exploring the Disney we had never experienced (Jordan had never been on the Jungle Cruise and most of the kiddie rides). So, we kept Porter the whole day (maybe NOT our best idea...), went on lots of kiddie rides (which was a BLAST), spent a lot of time in ToonTown and Bugs Land (toddler areas), and went to things like The Enchanted Tiki Room. It was really fun! We took Porter on a couple rides like Pirates which he didn't really understand but didn't cry about! He only had a half an hour that he was having a hard time with, but other than that he was a PERFECT child the whole day! The last couple hours he was pretty lethargic, so I think he was overwhelmed and exhausted so the next time we go we'll probably only keep him a half day, but I'm glad we had the experience of taking him in the first place. We went to a pretty cool Aladdin show, met Mickey, and so much more!

There's also a ride called Soarin' California which is a ride that "flies" over the different parts of California, including "smell-o-vision" where you smell the orange groves. Now let me tell you that everyone that went on it said it was so cool, but I could not see how great it was going to be, so I didn't make it much of a priority. Jordan FORCED me to go at the end of the day, and let me tell you that it is one of the absolute, COOLEST rides of all time--it may not sound cool, but it is AWESOME. Good job to all the engineers who were in charge of putting that ride together.

New

My genius friend Lindsey has a photo blog (she's such a good photographer and I've already had a post of her pictures of Porter), so you should go see it!

If you live in Rexburg, call her for your pictures because her style is perfection and she has an eye for good pictures.

Her photo blog is lannphotography.blogspot.com/. Go check it out!


I've also starting working for Jordan's cousin who owns a quiltshop called Cranberry Quiltworks, a pattern company called Threaded Pear Patterns, and a fabric shop (connected to her quiltshop) called Fresh Picked Fabrics (she has a website called QuiltersBuzz that she updates semi-often but she writes it like she's writing a magazine--it's pretty interesting). I am her tech department and along with that responsibility comes a blog (I'm also in charge of their e-mail updates which I really enjoy...)! So, if you want to look at that blog you can go to freshpickedfabrics.blogspot.com and see what's up. You really don't have to because most of you (hello, friends) aren't quilters, so it probably won't be super interesting to you. But if you want, go right ahead!

Update II--St. George & Etsy Progress

We went to St. George the beginning of February to visit Jordan's grandparents and to see our FANTASTIC friends who live there (this is their great blog). There's a dinosaur museum (not super big but AWESOME just the same), and we went and spent a lot of time there. They found all these dinosaur imprints in the rock and that's what the museum is all about! We went to a great little restaurant that had fun cupcakes.

We did spend a good amount of time with Jordan's family. Here's a picture with his grandparents with Porter in his new church clothes that my family bought for him while we were in NY. I don't know how, but while we were at church, a woman said about Porter "Look at her, she looks just like her mother!" Jordan and I looked at each other and we were like THERE IS NO WAY HE LOOKS LIKE A GIRL RIGHT NOW...HE IS IN A FULL ON FOUR PIECE OUTFIT. Whatever. He's a boy.

It was a great trip and we're really glad we went!



Etsy progress, I made a couple clutches. I don't have pictures up just yet but they'll be up soon. They're inspired by Crown and Crumpet Tea Room colors. Love it! There'll be a pattern of it available through Threaded Pear Patterns.

Update...The Beginning--Theresa's Renovation & New York!

Update: Rach sent me a really pretty picture of her, so I inserted it where it was before. Enjoy!

Part I: Jordan's aunt, Theresa, wanted us to do some things to her house while she was on vacation. This included tiling a back-splash in her kitchen! She liked the mosaic, glass tile which Jordan and I had never done, and while it ended up looking good...it definitely could have been better. The space in between the mesh gives a lot of room for give. Here are some pictures...not great but you can see them! We hadn't put the grout on it yet, but you get the picture.

Part II: We went to New York! My brother Dan turned 12 the end of January so we went for his ordination to a deacon. It was great to be there for both that and for his birthday! These are not pictures of my brother's birthday, but he is the one on the right (Sam's on the left and Porter's in the middle eating a waffle). My sister Callie's baby also had her baby, Brooklyn, blessed so we went for that too. Even though the whole family was there (including Rachel who came from Provo), it doesn't seem like I took very many pictures! Here are pictures from when we went to a great Italian place to celebrate Will getting into BYU-Idaho (he got into BYU a few days ago and can't decide which one to go to!) Here's a picture of Rachel: Here're my parents
We went to Boston to take Dan to do baptisms in the temple for the first time. It was a blast (even though it was really cold)! We went to the Wharf to look at the ocean. We also went to Harvard--it was speectacular. You could practically feel all the intellectual-ness oozing from everyone walking on the streets. We just walked around Harvard Square and enjoyed being there.

It seems like we did 16,000 things while we were there but I just can't remember what they were! What we did do is went to Will's play practice where he's playing Cornelius in Hello Dolly! He's super talented, and the whole cast seems exceptionally cast. He is a giant person, and at times like this reminds me of Mr. Hyde. Yes or no? . Most of the time he looks very much more normal.

I can't remember what else to write about about our trip, but it was great, Porter did a great job on the plane both ways and it was a good trip all the way around.

Valentines Day Card Swap Part II

Even with my mistake of sending blank cards, I still loved sending and receiving them!

Here are pictures of the cards I sent from Joanne's Ready Set Craft blog.

As of today, I've gotten 3/5 of the cards that are coming, but here are pictures of them! I got a great one from Erin with a packet of tea (does she know me, or what?), one from Angie, and one from Ally--all so beautiful!

OH MAN---Horrible Valentine's Day Card Mistake

I have made a mistake with the Valentine's Day card swap...I thought we were swapping cards so we would have unique and creative cards to give out to other people. THAT WAS NOT THE CASE! I got one a couple days ago and just COULDN'T help myself (From Erin, and I'll put pictures up after I open the rest...). I found that instead of a blank card, I received a wonderful card that said Happy Valentine's Day on the inside! "Maybe it's just a mistake on their part...oh blast, what if it's a mistake on my part?" I thought with a little bit of worry. I received a card today, and while I didn't open it, it absolutely does not feel like a card with a separate envelope inside.

Blast.

So, to the 5 girls who I sent blank cards with a separate note saying Happy Valentine's Day to, I'm sorry that I made that mistake.

Not really an update

Here are things that need to be updated on:
Theresa's Renovation
New York
St. George
Etsy Progress
Videos of Porter
Deans Here
Disney (happening tomorrow...!)
Valentines Day Card Swap (mine and received)

However, the only thing I'm going to do is say that it's SUMMER in California, and here is a song that I've been singing everytime I walk outside because it makes me feel summer INSIDE when I hear it.

Tagged

I've been tagged by Lindsey, and here are my answers!

10 Things that make me happy are as follows:

1) The Gospel of Jesus Christ (thank you, Lindsey)
2) Walking in when Porter wakes up and he smiles when I come in
3) Jordan going out of his way to do something nice for me (even a drink of water is lovely!)
4) Sun, sun, sun!
5) Swimming
6) The beach
7) A cup of tea (not to mention the tea kettle that goes with it)
8) White collar (the show...loooove it!)
9) When both the top and the bottom of Porter's pajamas match especially if they're long sleeves!
10) Watching MASH with Jordan at the end of a day

If you read this then you're tagged! You can do this if you want, but if you don't want to, don't stress about it! Happy posting!

Also, if you read often leave me a comment because I want to know who's reading, and if you have a blog I want to know about it too!