Sleepy

Last night Hal elbowed me in the back of the head.

Yup, there is a little looksie into how I slept last night. He has been kind of a crazy sleeper lately. He will have conversations with me that he has no recollection of on the morning. He has even started talking in his sleep. Normally it is just makes me giggle a bit before I fall asleep, but for some reason last night it was not so good.

At least he seemed all bright and chipper when woke me up to kiss me goodbye this morning.

I need a nap.

Oregon

Here are a few of the pictures from our family reunion on my dad's side. We stayed in Shady Cove Oregon, it is a little outside of Medford. It was really nice to have almost all 8 of us together again (Angela got sick right before so her family stayed home).

This is me and my sisa Marianne getting ready to get wet.

While we were waiting for the rafts to get set up the kids found this very friendly gossling. He ate out of their hands. This is my nieces anna and triniti and the blondie is my brother Jason.

Here is Tyrel with Triniti and Brayden, two of his children. Michelle stayed back with Kaleb because he was too small. Triniti wouldn't let go of my hand the whole time, except to squirt her dad, josh, and jason in the face.

I just threw it in for Hal. I love his face. I was on a boat with Hal, Josh, Jason, Tyrel and his kids. The boys all pushed each other in. I was glad I was safe in the middle as the water was really cold and we were on the edge of a big storm coming in.

This is Amy and Terry's dog/child Isa. If you look close you can see Terry. She is so funny. Every time she sees me she pees. That may have been to much info, but it's really funny. At least I know she likes me. We drove back to Utah, through the night with them and then they continued on to Colorado. I was glad we got to stop where we did, I was almost crying I was so tired.

San Francisco

 Yay, here are a few of the pictures from our drive up California up to San Francisco. I am pretty sure Hal gets the best husband award of 09 for thinking of adding san fran into our trip just so he could take me to see Wicked which I had been dying to see.
We tried to take pictures at places we stopped along the way. I'll post more pictures on facebook so you can see our journey. We had so much fun traveling through California and Oregon. We did miss taking pictures at a few stops, our favorite was probably the Olive Hut in THE olive city in northern California.

I thought these old gas pumps were so cool. The gas station bathroom was another story though. This gas station was in the middle of nowhere on our journey through wine country.

This is the view from our hotel in San Fransisco. We stayed in Hotel Kabuki in Japan Town. The hotel was so beautiful, and had so many interesting elements, like sliding rice paper doors, and a traditional Japanese bath. I think the bath was our favorite part of the room. Oh and we got a great deal which made it even better. P.S. if you ever stay there. You can park your car yourself in the same parking garage as valet, and you save a ton.

Yay WICKED! This is the Orpheum Theatre in San Fran where we saw it.

Shhh, don't tell we took this picture inside the theatre. I actually took a bunch because it was beautiful inside. I just hid my camera and took the flash off, and it has this cool do not shake feature. There were a ton of ushers holding no photography signs...well, I guess I'm lucky I survived unscathed.

I am pretty proud of this picture. I thought it turned out so cool, especially from taking it inside the car through the windshield. This was the awesome weather we drove through from Northern California into Oregon. It made the drive better I thought, but, I'm a rain girl.

We also stopped in Santa Rosa to see Hal's Grandpa. It was really nice to see him again. It was totally worth the huge detour it took us on. We had to take some little highway to get back to the main freeway, but the highway took us through switchback country roads. We even stopped at the Petrified Forest which was cool. We spent so long deciding if we should take the time to go see the forest, that by the time we left we could have gone...oh well, it was pretty and we were able to get Judy some sulfur from Indonesia.

Next I'll post the final pictures from our family reunion in Oregon.

Red Velvet help

I need help!

Do you know how hard it is to find a recipe for red velvet cupcakes that don't have red food coloring in them?!
Hal is allergic to red #40, and I don't want to make something he can't eat...so, I need your suggestions. I'm going to stop off at whole foods after work to see if they have any organic mixes that don't use it, but if you know of any or if you have any easy suggestions for substitutes, please let me know.

San Diego

Here is the second post of pictures from our vacation. Most of these are from our day trip to San Diego. We had such a blast in San Diego.

Hal really liked the Hippo...

Why yes, we did wear matching outfits. Meagan and I were actually unintentional, and heather already had on brown shorts, so she borrowed my other yellow shirt so we could be really big dorks. Hal was the first one to notice, it took him a while to notice, but then he was mad he was wearing brown shorts also.

We were so determined to go to the beach while we were there. It was so cold, but we had such a blast. It was actually warmer in the water than outside. Meagan and I went out pretty far with Hal and Rob. We were able to watch the sun set while inside the ocean, it was beautiful.

This is Hal and I saying goodbye to the house we stayed at in Venice. The house we were in was so cute, and it was big enough for all of us. We left everyone else and drove on up to San Francisco to see Wicked and then continued on up to Oregon. So that will probably be my next post.

California

So I am looking at the pictures from our vacation and I am having a hard time choosing, so I think i'll do it in just a few posts.

If you can't read it, it says Gene Kelly. He is my favorite!

At Santa Monica Pier. We ate at Bubba Gumps and then we went on the ferris wheel. We were freezing and it was kind of scary, but it was still cool to go on a ferris wheel at night and get to see the ocean.

Hal and I rode the bikes at the house down Venice Beach and up to Santa Monica Pier. It was actually really fun, even though my bum was kind of bruised from the seat.

Jessi was amazing and drove us up to the Hollywood sign.

This is the shoe shine station outside of the House of Blues. Meagan has an angry face because she wanted to eat there so badly, but funny story....We got there and walked in and no one was in there...weird. They were closed on Monday and Tuesday. What kind of restaurant is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays?! And what kind of restaurant doesn't lock their doors when they are closed? Apparently someone forgot...It was a bummer, sorry Meagan

Works for me Wednesday

So I am not going to link my post because chances are I won't remember to post every Wednesday, I just thought of something that has worked really well for me and so I thought I would share it.

Since we have gotten married I do all of the laundry. That is Hal's least favorite and I don't really mind doing it so thus by default I do the laundry. I don't know what made us pick it when we were at the grocery store, but for stain fighting we bought a bottle of SHOUT. We are still on the same bottle, but it has worked so well. It has gotten out pretty much every stain we have so far encountered. Sometimes it looks like one my be too set in and stick around after I am done scrubbing it, but after letting it soak in soapy shout water overnight it always comes out. It's pretty much amazing. I am sure everyone has their own laundry stuff that works for them, but for me...SHOUT works.

Also, we bought a new naturalish laundry detergent and it has made our clothes even better looking. We have only used it a few times so far because we just bought it, so maybe if it keeps working I'll share.

Keep your eyes open for my posts about California...I'll get around to it eventually.