I Left My Heart in San Francisco...

Last month Jared and I celebrated our 10 year wedding anniversary. March 9th to be exact. Our anniversary is very special to us so we always try to do something memorable. We take turns being the one who plans everything. It's just something we've done from the very beginning and it's been a really fun tradition. I like being the one to plan but I love being the one who just gets to celebrate. For some reason, every year it's my turn I get a little stage freight and have a hard time planning. I feel like it has to top the year before. I absolutely know that is not what it is about but I fall into it every time. It never fails that a month before I am asking Jared can this be the year that we plan together!! Oh my. But thankfully he never agrees to it. :) I digress..

For our 10 year I wanted to do something big. And being that Jared works from home now and we homeschool I knew a trip away sans the littles was just what we needed.

I've always wanted to go to California. There are so many cities that I know we would love over there so I chose San Francisco.

Our first flight was a 4 and half hour flight to Denver.. not too bad. Here's the beautiful view once we got over Colorado. I think at this point I started to miss Andon and Adelyn! ha! The next flight from Denver to San Fran was a quick 2 hours.



Riding the BART from the San Francisco airport to downtown. I love my man...



By the time we got checked in and settled (we had a few issues back home with the babysitter, no need to mention here but everything worked out) we were completely exhausted. We got quick showers and went and grabbed a bite and came back to our room and crashed. Thankfully, the beds in our hotel were amazing!

The next morning we were up bright and early. Well, I was.. 3:00 in the morning to be exact! I am so used to getting up early at home that my internal clock felt it was time. Heck to the no, I made myself stay in bed and rest until it was 6:00 California time and 9:00 Florida time. Every day that we were there I got up an hour later. But still, even on the last day I was up at 6:00am Cali time!! :)

The first day there I think we walked 100 blocks and there are some steep streets! Mama must have burned a ton of calories!

Thank goodness because the food there was amazing. Our first stop (right after breakfast:)) was the fisherman's wharf. We saw the sea lions playing (more like fighting) on the decks. Then we headed over and got some delish clam chowder and a beer from a street vendor. It was so fresh and loaded with clams. yum! From there we just kept walking and exploring. It was so great to just walk the streets with my babe. The weather was perfect. High 60's to low 70's during the day with the sun shining. Love it!

Some of the different sights..



Jared and I riding a cable car.



The Bay bridge.





One of the nights we just took dinner back to the room and watched movies. Perfect.



The day before we went home we planned a trip to Napa and Sonoma Valleys. I can't say enough about how amazing this day was. We were picked up at our hotel in the morning and dropped back off in the evening.

My babe, catching up on a few emails before we left that morning.



Before we went to wine country we stopped off at Muir Woods National Monument. It was a beautiful park with some of the tallest redwood trees in the world.



Then we headed to Sonoma Valley first to a sparkling wine tasting. The valleys looked just like you would picture. So beautiful!









And last but not least. A stop at the Golden Gate Bridge. It was so beautiful. I don't know why but it was something that I had to see and was so happy when I did.





We flew out early the next morning and didn't get home to our babes until late that night.

It really was such a romantic trip. We packed a ton into 4 days but it still felt relaxing and fun.

Happy 10 Year Anniversary babe. Looking forward to what you have in store for our 11th!! :)

Pirates and Pumpkins

Last weekend, my sister and her family came to visit. She has three kids, Cody, Kylie and Cayden and she also brought along my other sister's kids, Jordan and Briana. We packed as much as we could into 2 and 1/2 days and had so much fun doing it!

Kylie getting ready to carve a pumpkin.



Andon checking out the face that Daddy drew before he starts to carve.



Here are two of the finished products.



We also made caramel apples, rode bikes, scooters and tricycles all day. Went for wagon rides around the neighborhood, played at the playground, played football, basketball, wii and hide and go seek.



Another fun thing we did was photo sessions for both of my sister's kids. I wouldn't call myself a photographer but some of the pictures came out great. I'll do another post this week with some of the finished products.

And last night was Halloween. We had so much fun taking the kids trick-or-treating in a near by neighborhood. Lucky for Andon, Jared is all about Halloween. They really get into the costumes and what Andon is going to be each year. This year he was a Skeleton Pirate.



Jared was an Army Ranger.



And Adelyn was just a precious girl wearing Halloween colors! Haha! Maybe next year i'll get her a costume.







Here she is trick or treating for her first time. It was so cute hearing her say it! At least we all thought it was, the guy handing out the candy was a little, i don't know. Just funny. He didn't see the big deal in our sweet little one saying "trick or treat" for the first time. :) But we certainly ate it up!





Today is November 1st, looking forward to spending the month focusing on Thankfulness. And also, celebrating my boy turning 8!!

Vacation Recap

I love the weekends, actually we all do around here. Andon loves it so much he calls it vacation.

When we're talking about the upcoming weekend during the week he'll ask what are we going to do on vacation? At first I was a little confused now I know that he doesn't think we're headed off on some vaca, just looking forward to the weekend!

We love it because Daddy is home. Yes, he is working from home now but he's still working during the week. We get all of him on Saturday's and Sunday's.

We love it because we get to relax. The schoolwork is out the door and the normal schedule we stick to Monday through Friday go with it.



We love it because of Sunday dessert night. We don't have dessert around here every night so it's fun to go all out one night of the week.



We love it because if we wanted to we could stay in our p.j's all day. We usually don't but we could. Andon usually stay's in his swimming trunks!

We love it because the meals seem so much better. Maybe that's just me. I pretty much do all the cooking around here and on the weekends we almost always grill something. And guess who man's the grill... Not me! :) MMMMmmmm.. I love grilled food.

I love it for early morning long runs with friends. I love getting up really early (5:30) and going for a long run and getting home just as the rest of my family is getting up! I already feel so accomplished and the day is just getting started.

We love it for night time swims in the pool. As i'm typing this Jared just told Andon to hurry and get his trunks on so they could go for a quick dip!

Here's a quick photo recap from this week's end vacation.

We challenged Andon to read 100 books this summer and he did!! (thanks for the great idea Brit!) I think Jared and I had just as much fun (maybe more!!) as him doing this challenge. At every 10 books we celebrated. The prizes ranged from anything from the dollar stop at Target for 10 books to go to the movies for 40 books any restaurant of your choice for 90 books and the last prize was the big one. We told Andon he could pick out anything from the store! We knew it wouldn't be a flat screen t.v or anything so we felt safe throwing that out there. And here is what he chose... He still loves all these Imaginext toys and I love that he does. He's getting so big and I just want him to stay my little guy forever! :)











Our vaca has come to an end. :)

We are heading into our second week of 2nd grade this week. Last week was spent trying to figure out our schedule with Adelyn being older now and SO busy. And waiting on some curriculum to still be shipped to us. So here's to hoping that the coming week goes a bit more smooth and organized!

Gone for a Month

It seems as though i've been pretty quiet lately. But really life has been extraordinarily busy and full of change for us.

To name a few...

My husband has made a huge change in his career. He has been the Creative Director for a great company for the last 12+ years. Over the past year we all have been feeling like the season in our lives call for us to spend more time together, focused on the important things. To say we are excited is an understatement. He will continue to work for them but on a part time basis and from HOME! He also started his own design business a few years ago and is going full force with it. I am so happy for him and so proud of him. It is a lot of hard work and stress for him right now but I know the payoff will be great!

We are so happy to have him home with us. He's in his office A LOT but that doesn't stop us from visits throughout the day and family lunch together.

The next thing is that we moved...again. When Jared's company moved us to Tennessee a couple of years ago we rented out our house. When we moved back her lease was still in effect. So some sweet friends of ours rented us a house that they owned. After lots of thought and prayer added with the job change and our tenants lease coming to an end we decided to move back and put our house on the market. So when this house finally sells we will be looking to rent a small cottage style house with a fenced in yard for the kids to play in. We are in the process of simplifying our lives. Focusing on what is important to us.

Some other news.. Andon started 2nd grade this week!! We are very excited about this school year. With Daddy working from home he is going to be able to be a little more involved in school. He is going to be covering Science and of course, Art. His office looks half way like a school room too with Bones of the Body posters and books and posters of the solar system. (Sorry no pics tonight.)

And our sweet Adelyn is literally running around the house all day just a talking up a storm. She attempts her ABC's and 123's! She loves to say "Mom" "Mama" "Ma" over and over. But my favorite thing she say's right now is "I LOVE YOU"... Oh my, it's adorable.

Thanks to anyone who hangs with us here on this blog. I certainly love having a place to update and talk about our life (just not the most consistent blogger out there!! :))

The only pics I have tonight are a couple of Adelyn I snapped before she went to bed. I haven't even used my camera in the last month. But don't get me started on Instagram! Love it! So those will probably the majority of pics I post for a bit! :)







To anyone who's interested. Here's the link to my hubby's website!

Beach Days

Last weekend our little family headed to the beach for the day. The kids and I have actually gone quite a few times this year already with our friends. But it's so nice to be able to go with Daddy. And not just because he can help haul all that stuff down there!

He loves to play in the water with the kids and make sand castles and buy ice cream from the ice cream truck that drives by with the obnoxious music. I never buy it but Daddy, he always buys it.

There is always a moment for me while sitting there listening to the ocean, feeling the breeze and just relaxing in the sun that I think... this is perfect. I love going to the beach and lucky for me so do my kids. They aren't the ones who don't want to get in the water (except this last weekend when I thought I felt something on my foot and started freaking out and Andon was watching me the whole time and starts running like a wild banchee out of the water. :)) But we recovered when I told him that I think it was some shell or something. Really, i'll never know what it was but it was weird feeling.

I never really like to take my camera to the beach because I don't want to get sand in it but I decided to take it with us this time.

I can only get pictures of the back of her because once she sees the water, she's gone!





And he lives for boogie boarding now. He will do it the whole time we're there. Come home with a rash all over his belly from the board and the salt water.







Playing with daddy in the water.





And just for fun here are a couple pics from our beach trip last year on Memorial Day.

What a difference a year makes!





We are getting into the swing of summer around here. Since we homeschool we don't take the full summer off but we do chill out on the daily grind of keeping to the schedule and getting our work done. Let's just say we're pretty relaxed about it during the summer and it feels so nice!

Family Pics

Right before Adelyn's first birthday we had our sweet friend/photographer Paula Herko take some pics of our family. We're always taking pics around here but we hardly have any of the four of us. The pic in my new header is my favorite of all the the family ones. Here are a few of my other fav's.




I sure do yub him... :))