Belated Thanksgiving Update

As the saying goes, it's better late than never. Therefore, I'm finally writing about Thanksgiving.

For Thanksgiving this year we decided not to go home to family and we politely said "no" to all the dinner invitations (thank you to everyone who invited us). We decided to go on an adventure to Catalina Island. We took the Catalina Express from Long Beach the day before Thanksgiving and came home Thanksgiving afternoon. The water in Long Beach is so dark brown and yucky, and then Catalina has water that is clear blue and you can see orange fish swimming. We had Thanksgiving dinner at the yacht club there. It was yummy, but nothing beats homemade.

We sat on the back of the Catalina Express and froze on the way over. This is the view from the back of the boat heading to Catalina, Long Beach is in the back ground.

We got up early on Thanksgiving to walk all over the little town and saw a rainbow hitting just behind the casino. It was beautiful!

Our package we bought came with a trip on the "Underwater tour". I will admit I was a gigantic kid and loved every minute of it. How it works is we got on a semi-submarine like boat and then go below deck which has seats and windows that look out underwater (hence the "underwater" part). Then we went out into a little cove and they feed the fish so they swim around like crazy. We spotted a seal following along for the food.







We had fun, but we actually ended up coming home early. If you ever go, plan just a day. I would love to go back when its warmer and go snorkeling.

Fire!

I am writing to correct the myth that there are no seasons in Southern California. In fact, we have spring, summer, and fire. Fire is my least favorite season.
It just began for us. Currently we are surrounded by two fires; the Yorba Linda fire and the Brea fire. Apparently Carbon Canyon Park, where Mike and I went for a walk a few days ago is burning.
The sky is an ultra eerie mixture of grey and orange. I think I'm going to need one of those ugly white face masks soon.
I ran outside to grab some pictures, and noticed that there is so much ash falling it looks like snow (see the pictures below, the white stuff on the ground and on mygerber daisy leaves is ash).

Decorating the House

Well, I think I had better update my blog. Isn't it funny, I really thought no one read it. I've ignored it for a long time. So, imagine my surprise when I got on this evening and saw that people actually read it.

Anyone that has been to my house in the last 2 years knows that I have slowly been moving my living room color scheme to red and black. I think I have finally finished. I painted 2 bookshelves, the coffee table and some shadow boxes.

It makes me so happy to come home and see my fun decorations. Notice Mike's Robosapien on the bottom shelf. That is one serious robot--he whistles, burps, throws, talks back and dances. Who needs kids when you have a robot?

I just relocated my shadow boxes, and I got bored mid-way through hanging them. Hence the reason two of the boxes are sitting on top of each other.

All of these are nice, but the piece de resistance of our collection is the newly acquired painting we picked up from Deseret Book. I love, love, love it (did I mention love?).

4 Years Together

Last Wednesday was our 4 year wedding anniversary (and, of course, Leslie's birthday). Unfortunately, we spent the majority of the week with severe colds. We decided mid-week on celebrating Saturday night.
We went on a romantic dinner-dance cruise (we found super discounted tickets on my favorite website www.goldstar.com). It was by far one of the coolest things we have done. We ate a yummy 3 course meal and danced on the beautiful ship. At one point we were standing by ourselves on the bottom deck on the very back of the ship, when we saw a sea lion swimming along with us. The evening ended with Mike and I dancing all by ourselves on the top level of the ship under an enormous full moon and twinkle lights. It was memorable!

Day 1 Bloggin'

I'm beginning a blog as part keep people updated and part professional development. I can't imagine people really wanting to read about Mike and I. I always figured blogs were only for those who have cute kids. But, what the heck, here we go.