Gary's new girlfriend, Xena 360 . . .

As a reward for all the time that Gary put into fixing up our Midvale house he has decided that he deserves to buy a new XBox 360. Normally I am kind of a hater when it comes to video games. Every time a new game is brought into the house I feel like I have lost my husband completely for the next two or three weeks while he works on beating the game to a bloody pulp. I had nicknamed his old XBox "Xena" (hence the title to this post), and referred to it as his other girlfriend. Usually I would NOT be excited about the idea of a new gaming system, but we talked about how he should let loose for a couple of months and then be more available when our new baby comes. We'll see how it goes. Besides who can deny that face? He has been looking forward to this for months now, and now that the house is officially SOLD (I love writing that!), the day of the XBox purchase has finally arrived! He has spent the last few weeks researching different XBox packages and prices and has settled on Costco as the best bang for the buck. We headed out for Costco last night right after work and picked it up. It was so fun, Gary was just like a 5 year old kid on Christmas morning!

Look at that excited face, I love it!

I drove home so he could tear into the box and start examining his purchase in the car. The rest of the night was spent in plugging everything in and playing some games.

Big mess, Happy boy! I think the two go hand in hand

This last Monday he had bought Guitar Hero Aerosmith from Game Stop for $10 (Normally $30) and it came with a free guitar (normally $40), all in all an amazing deal. That was one of the first games played. I will have to play during my lunch hour everyday to build up my skills and be good competition for him.

Getting in on some Guitar Hero action

Going once . . . going twice . . . SOLD!! . . .

That's right people, our Midvale house is officially SOLD! Everything went through yesterday and Gary and I are now "house-less" and looking for our next home, this time in sunny SoCal. Please keep the positive house-buying vibes going out for us. We are heading up to Fallbrook this weekend to check out the selection and see what we can see. Fallbrook is about 15 minutes north of Escondido on the freeway. Everyone says it is a great place to have kids because there is a lot of open space (read as "real backyards") and better schools. We will keep you updated and let you know if we finally make an offer.

Poor Jackie (baby in training) . . .

Poor Jack! He is such a good sport! After going through a box of baby stuff and seeing how cute and tiny newborn baby diapers are I just had to try them on something, and sweet Jackie looked like he just might fit in these tiny diapers. He just let me put one on him and then he let me take this embarassaing picture of him too. I was having a great time and couldn't stop laughing! You can tell he isn't really happy about it, but he puts up with me and sometimes lets me have a laugh at his expense. What a good boy!

Adventure at the Tide Pools . . .

On April 4th we went to Point Loma to visit some tide pools. This was our first time at the tide pools and we had been waiting for April 4th because, according to our tide chart, low tide was going to occur around 11:30, so that would be a perfect time to see all the tide pool creatures. Well, it wasn't such an easy feat, let me tell you more. Point Loma is some sort of state or national park, so you have to pay to get in, but of course they don't take plastic (which we found out after waiting in line for 10 minutes), so we had to drive two or three miles back up the road to find an ATM so we could get into the park. Luckily the nice lady taking people's money said that we didn't have to wait in line again after visiting the ATM, she told us just to come up the side of the line and save us some time. So nice! After we finally got in, however, and drove down to the tide pool parking we found out how RIDICULOUSLY tiny the lot is and how many other people had the same idea (of course we couldn't have been the only ones who were smart enough to know about mid-day low tide on a beautiful Saturday). So we waited in line for a parking spot and, luckily enough, got one before the tide had made it's way back in. We had brought Jack with us (is he the most spoiled puppy, or what?) and we all headed down the path toward the pools. Jack was a trooper. He is NOT a water dog and doesn't have a ton of rock climbing experience, but he went along with us while we clambered all over the rocks and explored the pools.

This is a cluster of shells, but when you touch it you find that it is actually squishy and when the water come in it turns into . . .

. . . an anemone looking thing (can you see it, kind of blueish-grey, under the rock at the top of the photo?)

We saw need birds too.

Here is a picture of me and our little trooper Jack.

After we were done exploring the pools we hung out on a little rock cliff and watched the tide come in. Here is a picture of Jack and Gary enjoying the sunshine and listening to the waves. What a beautiful day!

More and more visitors . . .

Sunnie and Cozy came into town the weekend of March 28th. Our house was one stop on a long road trip that they had put together. First stop, Los Angeles for the "America's Next Top Model" try-outs (crazy and ridiculous from the sounds of it, but great for the memories). Next stop, our house in sunny SoCal. Third stop, visiting friends in Arizona. Last stop, visiting Grandpa Joe in St. George and then on towards home. Talk about a huge weekend!

They got into town early on Friday afternoon. We went to Ulta and shopped for a bit (Gary ducked into the sports equipment store next door to pass the time). It was nice to do some real girly shopping with my sisters. We headed out to Sushi for dinner. Sushi Yama has a bunch of 50% off rolls, so we all left feeling stuffed but not poor, it was awesome! We hung out at the apartment for a bit and just chatted and caught up and then we went to Peterson's. I guess out post about Peterson's was pretty awesome, because it seems to have peaked every one's interest. We take all of our out of town visitors there.

When we got back we pulled out our queen-sized blow up mattress for them to sleep on (I believe the air mattress is actually larger that Gary's and my temporary IKEA bed). For those of you who have been to our sweet apartment you will understand that the mattress took up the rest of the floor space that we have available. Our living room was just bed and mattress. Kind of like a huge slumber party. Awesome! We watched Batman & Robin, the Batman movie staring George Clooney as Batman/Bruce Wayne. I don't think I had ever watched it before, but it is the most corny Batman I have ever seen! We pretty much decided that we won't be watching it again.

The next day we took Jack to the dog beach. The weather looked okay when we left, but by the time we got to the beach it was windy and chilly, so we didn't stay for long unfortunately. Jack didn't mind, but everyone else was freezing. Of course, as soon as we got a bit more inland the weather was really nice, perfect for driving to Arizona! We ate some lunch and then the girls had to hit the road. Fun visit, short and sweet! Thanks for stopping by ladies!

The next night Sam, Katie and Robbie Grigg came to visit. They were on their way into town to visit Sea World and Disneyland and to celebrate Sam's 30th birthday (Happy Birthday Sam!) They just stopped by for dinner but it was great to see them!

The last time we hung out with them was when we were in Salt Lake for Christmas and we went to their cute new house and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. Gary had never seen it and we visited so long with them (you know those friends that you just click with and can talk, and talk and talk to FOREVER?) that it was really late by the time we started the movie that at one point I think everyone kind of drifted off. So much for Gary seeing the whole movie, oh well. Maybe next year we will try watching it again.

Anyway, we BBQ'd some chicken (using the apartment's grill for the first time) and had a really yummy dinner with some really great company. What more could you ask for? This time, however, we didn't go to Peterson's. I know, big surprise, huh? Instead we ate peanut M&M's from the Grigg's road trip stash.

They are expecting a new baby very shortly and we can't wait to hear how everyone is doing!

Visitors and Sea World . . .

Steve and Gloria came into town to see us on March 18th (has it really been that long ago?). They brought us a spectacular gift, money from friends and family for some much needed baby gear! Now we can buy the Peg Perego stroller we have fallen in love with! (It is so awesome! It only weighs 9 lbs., has a huge basket on the bottom, and can collapse down and be opened up using only one hand! So cool!) We went to the temple that night. I love doing temple work with family, it is the best! Before we went to the temple though we ate dinner at this pizza place called BJ's, which is just on the other side of the freeway from the temple. It was really good. When we first moved here some friends told us we should check it out, but we didn't until that night. What were we waiting for?! It was fantastic!

The next day we went to the Oceanside Farmer's Market. We brought Jack with us. He was good and he loves to get out of the house. The weather was okay. It was nice, but a bit chilly, which is what you kind of have to expect when you get that close to the ocean. We walked around and saw all the booths and ate some good Farmer's Market food. Yum! After that we headed over to Peterson's. Steve is a fan of maple bars, so of course we had to give him a taste of the maple bar loaf at Peterson's!

He loved it! But what is not to love?

On Friday we took the day off of work and headed out to Sea World! I hadn't been to Sea World in forever, probably about 15 years or so, I was really excited! The only sad thing was that the sea lion show wasn't playing, something that Gloria and I were especially looking forward to. I guess that means that we will just have to go again later this year. If you buy a ticket to Sea World you can return as many times as you want until the end of the year, so, besides the cost of parking, we can go again and again and again until December 31st for free!! (Thanks again Steve and Gloria!) By the way, if anyone wants to go to Sea World just let us know, we would love to join you! We had a great time, even without the sea lion show. We saw the Shamu show and the dolphin show. We called Cozette after the dolphin show because we could totally see her working as one of the trainers and we wanted to let her know that if she decided to become a trainer at Sea World then she could stay at our house while she was there. It was during that conversation that we were told that Sunnie and Cozy would be coming to visit us next weekend. Probably good that we called so we would know to clean the house! I think my favorite part of Sea World was watching the penguins have lunch. There is a little enclosure outside of the penguin house and a bunch of little penguins were gathered around lady that had a bucket full of fish. She was feeding these smallish penguins these good sized fish and it was amazing to see them eat. You would have thought that they were going to choke on the fish, but it was almost like they had a dis-jointed jaw and they just swallowed the fish whole. It was crazy! Gary's favorite part was being able to touch the rays. There are a bunch of them in this shallow pool and you can reach into the water and touch them as they swim by. They feel so interesting; really smooth and slick.

On Saturday morning we went to Boomers. It is one of those places where you can play arcades, go mini golfing, drive go carts, etc. We did a round of mini golf. Steve was the winner, of course, but everyone played a pretty good game. It was a neat little mini golf course, with a kind of castle/adventure theme. After mini-golf Gary wanted to play some arcades. We had a couple of games of Guitar Hero and a few others. (We have lots of arcade tokens left over, so if anyone wants to head out to Boomers you know who to call.) After Boomers Steve and Gloria needed to hit the road. Steve had a golf tournament and work conference up in Anaheim that they needed to get to.

Having people come visit is the best, it's like bringing a piece of home with you.

Thanks again and we will see you soon!

We haven't done a post in how long?

I apologize to anyone who happens to be following out blog. We haven't posted in FOREVER! But there are reasons. I used to do the posts at work, but then my computer was hooked up to the "Corporate Network" which decided to block all things blog (which meant not only could I not add new posts from work anymore, but I couldn't follow anyone else's blogs either), then our laptop . . . well, what can I say about our laptop? For some reason it seems to work okay for Gary, but anytime I am trying to use it for something it is I - N - C - R - E - D - I - B - L - Y S - L - O - W !!! I want to toss it out the window!!! (Gary has promised that once our house sells we will be getting a new computer) Blogging should be fun and enjoyable, not maddeningly frustrating. So I gave up on the laptop.
Then suddenly, out of the blue, I was able to log onto my blog again!! And I was able to visit other people's blogs as well! Wahoo!!
So I believe we are back in business. And I have a lot to add, but I wasn't prepared for this excellent turn of events, so I don't have any pictures ready. But stay tuned, I will be updating soon!