Salt & Pepper: January 2011

Thursday, January 20, 2011

January???

This past weekend Luis and I took advantage of the California January weather. It was above 80. Have you ever worn capris in January? I have!

Monday, January 17, 2011

Anniversaries come around so fast. I remember the time we celebrated the first anniversary of my birth. I was like, "What?" and mom was like, "My little girls are growing up!" and Amber was like, "Nose." (She was an unfortunate child.)

Luis and I just celebrated our first anniversary, or as I like to say Anniversary Numero Uno. We decided to drive down to San Diego for the weekend. Unfortunately, we didn't plan very well, which made for a short trip and hungry bellies.

We decided to drive down on the 8th, stay until the 9th, and come back home. Since we could sleep in, which doesn't happen very often around here (at least for Luis), we did. Then, we still had to pack up before we left. We ended up not leaving until around 2 in the afternoon. Our first stop was the San Diego Temple for a session. Since they only occur every hour on the hour and we got there at 3:56, we had to wait around for another hour for our session, which was fine.

The session ended around 7. As I waited for Luis in the lobby, I was surprised to find him coming INSIDE from OUTSIDE to meet up with me. Apparantly, someone got lost and went out the wrong door. Immediately, several security guards intercepted him and kindly informed him he had exited a non-exiting door (he he he). I find that rather funny, but I digress. Moving on.

We then headed for our hotel. Never again will we stay at the Sheraton. Can anyone say, "Rip off!" When we were checking in, the clerk asked us if we would like the continental breakfast in the morning, which is held on the very exclusive 13th floor. If so, it would be $20. Don't even the crumbiest hotels at least have free stale bagels and juice? We declined. Then, he asked us if we would like valet parking or if we would like to park ourselves. Thankfully we're not so lazy we need someone to drive our car 50 ft. from the door to spare us the exhaustion. Again, we declined and he said, "That will be $22.00 to self-park." So basically we had to pay them for driving our car into a parking spot. He then told us which elevators to use to access our rooms. I had to bite my tounge before asking what the elevator-usage fee was going to cost us.

After checking in we decided to drive around, find some fast food, and eat. We were quite famished. Being right next to the airport, other hotels, and downtown, we thought it would be no problem to find some food. Wrong! We drove around for over an hour trying to find someplace to eat. Apparantly we're idiots. We ended up going back to the hotel and dining in one of their restaurants. It ended up being yummy yummy yummy so we were happy. Also, we were able to acquire this souveneir. I'm betting it will last us at least 14 fries.

There was one good thing about driving around for an hour. While we were in downtown San Diego, I noticed a couple riding in this cart/carriage thing. Looking beyond the couple, expecting to see a horse and driver, I was shocked to see a person on a bike. Can you imagine walking down the street, seeing that contraption, and saying, "Honey, let's ride this!

Back to the hotel. As we waited for the elevators to take us upstairs, I found myself wondering, Boy, if the fire alarm goes off, how will we know? I mean, we don't even know what it sounds like. Thankfully, the hotel had it covered.

The next morning, knowing the breakfast options would be limited, we checked out early and drove to one of Lu's mission areas (Escondido) where he knew we could find an IHOP, which is pronounced "ee-ope" in Spanish. Have you ever had a 15 min. wait at an IHOP? Apparantly it was a "hoppin' place." Get it? IHOP...Hoppin'? That's a good one right?

That night we homemade tortillas and had tacos. (Basically I hadn't gone grocery shopping since December 8th so we were pretty limited.)

For the record, this little senorita creates tortillas that resemble a circle much better than her Hispanic Counterpart. I'm just sayin'.

Happy One Year Luis!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

The Rest of Utah

I don't have much motivation to blog about what I did in Utah since all my sisters have beat me to it, yet here goes part 2. Mostly pictures again. Enjoy it anyways.

Christmas Eve

Me and the girls at the kid table.

Dave trying to be me with the girls at the kid table.

Once again...my mother. I had a traumatizing childhood and prefer not to talk about it.

Christmas Nativity

Christmas

We decided to watch our FAVORITE music video ever...the Michael Jackson special that comes on before Free Willey. As kids, we loved to watch it and dance along. We thought it was the funniest thing in the world.

Then, we decided to really groove and have a dance party.

New Years Eve

Days 1 2 3 4 in Utah

Looking through the thousands of pictures I received from our Utah trip, I realize that there is something very strange about my family. You're lucky to know us. The following pictures took place on only our first 4 days in Utah. It was CRAZY hectic.

Our first day in Utah began with a grown-up date night with the siblings, their mates, and mom and pop.

Day two was a progressive dinner - breakfast style. I must say, that my jammies are the best.

Luis got some talk time with Jason.

And I got talk time with the kids.

Afton is the smart one. She was trying to get away from us crazies.

This is my mom. Do you wonder why we are the way we are?

I was the designated Polar Express narrator.

As you can see, everyone was mesmorized.

We decided to make our own stockings, but when Luis told me he wanted his to be Mexican, I wondered if I should just make his for him. He got really into it and even sewed on his jingle bells. They turned out really cute, if I do say so myself.