Thanksgiving

this is way late, but whatev. at least i try. we went to bishop and had a grand ol' time.

i made a pie for the first time. no one got sick from eating it. point, April!

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Mexico Trip

In October we took a little trip down to mexico for about a week. the occasion for this trip was to celebrate our two year wedding anniversary. we had a great time. we stayed in playa del carmen, which is about 45 minutes north of cancun. neither of us had ever been to the area. we mostly wanted to hang out on the beach and relax. unfortunately there was a little storm called hurricane omar off in the distance and the mexican riviera got the very outskirts of that storm. nothing too bad, just a few clouds and rain here and there. the biggest thing we did was take a trip to the mayan ruins and playa paraiso. we visited tulum and coba. tulum was a mayan city built right on the coast, atop a bluff. it was absolutely gorgeous and very interesting. the mayan people were definitely ahead of their time. coba was in the middle of a jungle. the biggest sight to see at coba was the temple, which we were able to climb all the way to the top. once false step on that climb and one would surely fall to their death. it was quite the climb, but once at the top we were able to see the entire jungle and all the way to the ocean. we got caught in a small rain cloud while we were walking back to our bus. however, we were already wet with sweat so it really didn't matter much. the trip was great and we would definitely return to the area. there were many other things to do that we didn't experience, so perhaps we will be back there in a few years.

Win a FREE handbag!

ok ladies (or gentleman, if you are so inclined)...who doesn't like free stuff? i know i do. I am entering this contest to win a free handbag from Handbag Planet. all you have to do is enter your email address and pick the handbag you would like to win and see if you are the lucky gal (or guy) to win. Follow this link to enter...http://www.handbagplanet.com/ Good luck guys and gals! i hope we all can win!

Viva Mexico!

after much hemming and hawing...cameron and i finally decided that we are going to the cancun area for about a week in october. we will be celebrating our 2 year wedding anniversary! our real anny is actually in november, but we work at a sweet church and school that has a random 2 week break in late october, so we can take off without dipping into our vacay...it's rad. our flight has a layover in mexico city...so we are a little worried about that. cameron's dad said that we shouldn't go to mexico because "all white people get shot on sight by the policia." psssshh! we will be fine.

needless to say...we are excited!

Somebody had a birthday!

it was cameron's birthday a while ago. he turned a whopping 25 years old! he says he's going to have a quarter life crisis, but i think he's full of it :) we had a great time. we had some friends over, learned how to bbq tri-tip (which was sooooo yummy!), had some homemade & healthy carrot cake cupcakes, and went swimming. if anyone knows cameron, they know he is OBSESSED with sports. he thought it was the greatest things that the olympics were during his birthday. in honor of the olympics, we did a little synchronized swimming: wives vs. husbands. the girls had it in the bag. we used the best talent we have: sex appeal. it was a great day!

July 4th...I mean 26th

So, I am lame and forgot to post about our really fun July 4th experience. Cameron and I drove over to Arizona to hang out with my fam for about a week. It was fun. First, we had all of our family and our extended family rent a cabin up in Greer, AZ. It was absolutely beautiful! The weather was more than 30-40 degrees cooler than the valley during the day. The rainshowers up there - amazing! It reminded me of when i was a kid and would go up to Rock Point, AZ on the Navajo Reservation for mission trips with my church. I always thought they had the best rain storms up there - but Greer has matched it. We did a lot of fishing (my fave), and my brother-in-law, Donny, taught all of us how to fly fish (thanks Donny!)

this is the lodge with one of a few ponds surrounding the area.

Yours truly :)

Cameron wishing he could be a cowboy. He looks more like a farmer with that shirt on.

The first fish I caught FLY FISHING! YEAH!

We also rode horses around the area. My dad is such a tourist with his camera.

This was my first time riding a horse. I was scared to say the least.
What? I didnt want to end up like Christopher Reeves (may he R.I.P.)

I REALLY wanted to wear a helmet, but not many of the fam was down with that - too worried about fashion. So I ask, "what's cuter: a helmet or a breathing tube? "

I never did get the helmet...

Vegas

Right after Cameron was finished with the school year, we headed out to Vegas to relax at the pool. We aren't gamblers or driners, but we like it there for some reason. So, this year we were able to stay at Paris...it was nice...nicer than we expected. Here are some pics of our room.

We also took a chance and went to a show. We of course wanted to see Cirque du Soliel. Well...there are a lot of Cirque shows there. We picked one. Don't see Zumanity unless you want to feel uncomfortable for 2 plus hours. By the way, the Drag Queen host of the show says hello. But we got dressed up and went to Sushi and that was fun.

we also did a lot of walking and found a lot of weird things...perr usual for a Vegas trip. For instance. take a look at this awesomely ugly and nightmare-inspiring doll that i wouldn't wish on any child or grown adult to EVER receive. I hope my child does not look like that.

Fashion Lover's Delight!

you all need to check out Steve & Barry's. It is the most amazing apparel store for the fashion and price conscious consumer. most people who are bored enough to read this are probably youngish, newly marriedish and living on somewhat of a budget. well, if you don't fit that description - then i hate you. and you suck. just kidding.

so, last weekend cam and i were at good ol' Birthuation. the last day we were there we hit up Steve & Barry's. usually this store lives by the rule that nothing in the store costs over $19.98. well, i am sold on getting any new item of fashion for under $20. to our delight, this particular day we walked in and right before our eyes was a sign nothing short of heaven on earth

EVERYTHING IN STORE $8.98 OR LESS!

now, usually when one sees a sign of this magnitude it ends up being some crappy clothes that are all in the sizes that no average human can fit into. NO- THIS WAS NOT THE CASE!

they had cute stuff, that fit me. for cheap.

and to make matters even more heavenly, cam looked over at me and said, "whatever we do, let's just not look at the total when we get to the register. let's get whatever we want."

if any of you know my hubs - he is NOT a fashionista, nor is he one who justifies buying new clothes just to look as if he cares about his appearance. i almost peed myself at his reaction.

we bought an entire summer's (and fall and spring) worth of clothes and spend around $300 (about 50 items - shoes included!).

you all need to check it out. cute, non-sluttish clothes for an inexpensive price. what more could a young-budgeting-her-pennies-girl ask for?

Birthuation

i can't wait for this weekend! it is basically here, but tomorrow is the day that cameron and i are going down to orange county for a short r and r break. we owe this jaunt of vacay to none other than tim tatum and his fiance lesley. tim is graduating with his master's tomorrow and lesley is having a birthday. they are calling the festivus "birthuation." i totally love it. i have big plans of hitting up laguna beach to soak up some rays...maybe hitting up "Sprinkles" for a cupcake or two. i can't wait to see some old friends. as Borat would say, it's gonna be "very niiiiiiiice."

Cam & Ape go to Washington...

so, way back in the middle of April we took a little trip to DC with some students from our church and school (we were chaperones). it was an awesome time! every american citizen should take a trip there at least once in their lifetime. the trip was too amazing and inspirational to put into words, so i will share a funny story that happened the day we arrived in DC followed by some pictures from the trip.

soo... it began when we had to be at our church at 6:30 in the morning to head for LAX. Our flight left at 10:40 am - no big deal. so, we get on the plane and fly over to DC. 4.5 ish hours later we land. we get off the plane and it's about 7:00pm. we hear that our bus that is to pick us up is running a tad behind - about 30 minutes. we think, this is not a probelm, we will just think of something to keep the students entertained. 30 minutes is washington DC is not the same amount of time as it is in the rest of the country, because our bus didn't come until 3 hours later(or so). we find out that the bes had a flat tire and it needed to be changed. ok, we think, that makes sense, it must be difficult to change a tire on a vehicle of that size. so, the bus that picked us up was a DIFFERENT bus than the one we had told we were getting, so we load up our luggage and ourselves and head for the restaurant for dinner...it's about 9:30pm...oh yeah, and they didn't feed us on the plane. we are a tad famished. we are a bit excited to eat, but we find out that the restaurant is another hour away. so, we put on our brave/no-complaining faces to be good examples to the students - bad attitudes are contagious and we didn't want that. finally we pulled up to the Old Country Buffet...and we STUFFED ourselves. in the state of being fat and happy, we load that bus that we originally were sopposed to be picked up from with airport and headed to our hotel...2 hours away! we couldnt' believe it - this was the longest travel day in history! so, we pop in a movie hoping it will put the student asleep. we get to the hotel and realize that our luggage is not there yet - it was on the other bus that RESCUED us from waiting at the airport while the other one was getting its tire changed. at this point it's about 1:30 in the morning. the kids are tired, so we send them to bed and the adults wait up for the luggage. it's finall arrived at about 2:30 am. we are happy and looking forward to sleeping at this point. so, we drop everyones bags in their hotel rooms, get ourselves ready for bed, and climb into bed at about 3am. then........................THE FIRE ALARM GOES OFF! the entire hotel is evacuated. we stand outside for about 1.5 hours more, trying to entertain ourselves. cameron ended up sleeping on the grass at one point, i tried to take pictures of the firefighters. it ended up being a faulty alarm - NO FIRE! we head back to our rooms, it's about 4:45, and the alarm goes off AGAIN! this time for only 10 minutes, no evacuation needed. the sandman finally came and was with us until our wake-up call at 6:30am. it was a great way to get rested before a long day of walking...non-stop. needless to say, nothing else went wrong with the trip. and in total we walked about 30 miles in 4 days. not too shabby.

from top to bottom, left to right: 1)atop the lincoln memorial w/ washington memorial in background; 2)lincoln memorial; 3)iwojima memorial; 4) mt. vernon w/ potomac river in background; 5)space underpants (hehehehehe); 6) standing in the very center of washington dc - capital building; 7)FDR memorial (awesome!); 8) in front of the white house - the pope was coming that day, security was high; 9)wwII memorial; 10)george washington's house - mt. vernon; 11)pretty flowers that were all over washington; 12) arlington national cemetary; 13&14) how tall we are in $100 bills; 15)national cathedral; 16&17) the lovely fire truck from the first night; 18-20) colonial williamsburg