Last week in Pleasanton

I am a little late in writing this post.We have been out of Pleasanton for 2 weeks now but we have been super busy moving. We have not moved to Portland yet but we are really close. We took a detour to Hawaii and now Tim is finishing working in Southern California to finish out the summer. It has been a busy month but a really fun one too. For our last week in Pleasanton we finally went to San Francisco and to the Oakland temple. It was my first time going to this temple and I was really excited because I hadn't been in a long time. When I was younger I would go there for baptisms. This is the temple that my parents were sealed in so I was really excited! It was very pretty. After we were done with our session we wanted to take a picture and I wanted the whole temple to be in the picture so I jimmy-rigged a place for me to use the timer on my camera, and it was kinda difficult. Let's just say it involved Tim's wallet and our keys. Well after I finally found the right angle these two guys come up and ask if they can take it for us, I thought YAY now it will actually be a good picture. Ugh! I thought wrong, before they even tried to take the picture they decided the sun was in the wrong spot and it would not turn out. They wouldn't even attempt the picture! It was really annoying and a waste of our time, I mean what do they know really? So then we proceeded to wait for them to finally walk away so I could re-set up my contraption. I got it at the perfect angle again when this nice woman came and asked if she could take our picture and she took a really good one...the first time! I had to really focus on not giving my annoyed smile, I do this more often than I realize and it always ruins the picture.


On our last Sunday we finally went into San Francisco, we were living so close to the city but we just never had time to go. Basically we just drove around to all the main touristy spots. We didn't have a lot of time and we really didn't want to have to find parking on a weekend. We drove through china
town then Lombard street. of course it was crowded and it was really intimidating having to stop and go on such a steep hill. After that we went to the golden gate bridge. I read online that there is this light house not too far away, where you could get really good pictures of the bridge so we went there and it was really pretty but since there was fog it was hard to see the bridge. It was definitely a fun trip. I will have more posts coming but I forgot my camera in Hawaii and I'm waiting for it to come in the mail so I'll write more once I get that...hopefully it comes soon, blast you Matsumoto shave ice!!!

Weddings and Camping

Two weeks ago we went to Portland for America and Tyler's wedding and also for Steve and Michelle's baby blessing. It was a super busy weekend and way too short of a vacation! America's sealing was really sweet, I have only been to a few sealing's but I especially enjoyed this one. I don't really remember what was said during ours but it is so nice being able to go to our friends sealing's and relive how special the ceremony is.

Last week we were able to go camping with my family. We went to Sunset beach which is in between Santa Cruz and Monterrey. My family picked that campsite because it was close to Pleasanton where me and Tim are living for the summer. Tim wasn't able to take any time off work but he came every night and was able to stay most days till about 4pm. It worked out really well, because we weren't sure how much time he would be able to hang out with us.

The beach was so much fun. Our campsite was really close to the beach so it was nice being able to wake up and have the beach be 2 minutes away, we could've walked there but we always drove. Some days were kind of cold but the beach was always sunny. Each day we were also able to see seals in the ocean. It was really weird seeing how close they would come up to the shore. We also went to Natural Bridges which is a State Park that is close by. It was rocky and cliffy, but really pretty. It was really really windy as you can see in the pictures.

My family planned in advance some new s'mores for us to try. My favorite was oreo, white chocolate, and raspberry....so yummy!!I loved being able to hang out with my family, play games and eat s'mores!

Answers

1. It's a Small World
2. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
3. Pirates of The Caribbean
4. Buzz Lightyear

Disney trivia

Right now my parents and my sister, Jessica, are in Disneyworld. It goes without saying that I am extremely jealous!!! Well this morning my sister text me this picture saying guess which ride we just went on??? Of course because of the "tel" in the picture I could tell it is my favorite ride Tower of Terror! Throughout the day they continued to send me pictures as clues. Some were easy and some were very hard! See if you can guess.

Ride #1

Ride #2
Clue #1


Clue #2
Its the wildest ride in the wilderness!

Ride #3
Clue #1

Clue #2

Clue #3

Clue #4


Ride #4

7-11

Last Saturday was free Slurpee day at 7-11!! I tried some Wolverine Slurpee and it was so delicious! The cups were pretty small but it was free, so I don't care. I haven't had a Slurpee in so long and I'm kinda craving one right now. Yay for free stuff!

Fourth of July and BBQ's

This year on the 4th Tim had to work, of course. So we didn't really do much. Luckily he came home pretty early but the rest of our friends were working till about 8 so we waited for them to go out to eat. We went and ate at Chili's and I ate way too much! We really wanted to eat at California Pizza Kitchen but they decided to close at 6pm that night which was really lame. We were both really looking forward to eating there, it is sooooo GOOD! The whole day didn't really feel like the 4th of July and we even forgot to take any fun pictures so I made Tim take some random ones with me because I liked my hair.
Sunday is when we actually made plans to do something fun! Everyone got together and we had a BBQ. I was so excited because we BBQ'd ribs. We have never cooked ribs before so it was a fun and delicious new experience. The next day we even went back to the store and bought more because we liked them so much!

Hobbies

Last week my mom came to visit! It was so much fun, I haven't really had the chance to spend time with her by myself in a long time. She was only here for 3 days and we spent the whole time sewing. I have really wanted to learn how to sew and last October, for my birthday, she bought me a sewing machine. Well I finally learned how to sew and it is a lot of fun. While my mom was here we worked on 2 dresses. They are super cute! We only finished one but the second is practically done. I am so lucky that my mom wanted to spend so much time sewing with me! We worked really hard but I enjoyed our time together so much!!! Since my mom left I made a pair of pajama pants all by myself. They have some errors but I finally finished and they are super cute. It is kinda hard to see the dress in the picture but I love it! It is a retro dress and my little sister, Jocelyn, picked out the pattern for herself but I stole it! I'm glad Jocelyn has such good taste.

The Bachelorette

So I watch The Bachelorette and I need to vent about it. I can't believe Wes is still on the show. Basically this is my first season watching the Bachelorette and I am totally sucked in! I really like Jillian she seems very genuine, funny, down to earth, and real. I like the way she is going about things. She doesn't seems to have unrealistic expectations, and she knows what she wants. She has narrowed it down to 4 guys and 1 of them is a huge jerk and I can't believe she keeps picking him. I totally don't understand how he can keep being such a punk when he knows that Jillian has genuine feelings for him and he doesn't have the same feelings. How can he keep using her? Why are some people so heartless? This week Michael got kicked off and I liked him so much. I guess I can kinda understand why she kicked him off, he is pretty young and she wants to get married and start a family pretty fast, but he was crazy about her and they seemed compatible. I just don't understand why you would want to keep a shady bad boy over a guy who would be so nice to you because he is truly in love. Ugh, I hate this show because even though it is reality TV I am so hooked and I am just getting so attached....UGH! I just want a happy ending!

Father's Day

For Father's Day, which was also Tim's Birthday, we went to my Family's house in Folsom. It was really nice being able to come back, I really missed everyone. Abella was a lot less shy around Tim which was really nice. As soon as he came home she kept calling him Timmy. No one calls him that but it was so cute hearing her say it!! She kept saying "Happy birthday to Timmy, happy birthday to Timmy" over and over and over again...haha. Abella just couldn't get enough hugs from him, it was so cute! The whole day was a lot of fun, we were able to play lots of games and eat lots of good food. My mom made each Father/Birthday Boy their own cake. So there was a yellow cake with chocolate frosting, a white fruit cake with lots of strawberries, and boston cream pie cake. They were all so delicious!! After we ate cake my dad opened the present we got him which was a fire pit to go out in our backyard. It is really cool and we used it that night. We roasted marshmallows and played a camping game. It was a lot of fun to have most of our family together, it is really nice being so close to my family!!

Chanel

Have you ever longed for something knowing that you will never get it? Right now I am longing for this Chanel perfume. It is the most amazing perfume I have ever smelt. I think the fact that I will never own it makes me want it even more. The only way that I will ever own any is from the mini samples that Nordstroms gives me. Oh how I love Chanel Chance Eau Fraiche.

Tim's Birthday

On Sunday it was Tim's birthday! He turned 27!!! Tim doesn't really get a lot of free time during the summer. So this year we planned on doing a BBQ and playing games with a few other couples who are working with us this summer. It is really hard to plan things during the summer since I never know when Tim is going to be done with work but luckily he got home at a decent time on Saturday. We BBQ'd shish kabobs and they were really good, but the weather was pretty cold the whole time we were outside.


After eating Nick and Tim were trying to see if they could stick a whole cupcake in their mouth. For Tim this is a common occurrence, this is basically the way he always eats cupcakes (and Krispy's) but for Nick it was a lot harder because he has a very small mouth.

I think the highlight of the night was a unicorn Pinata that Matt and Jessica brought for Tim. It was so much fun watching Tim try and break that thing! We had to improvise a little with it though. We hung it outside off of the stairs at our apartment complex and the neighbors probably hate us now! We also had to use a shower curtain rod instead of a bat and a blanket as the blind fold. When he did break the pinata a lot of the candy broke also.
Since it was so cold we wanted to get inside fast so we went back to our apartment and played apples to apples. It is such a fun game especially with a big group, we played for about 2 hours. That game is just so entertaining! One quick side note, I ended up with the most green cards -which is a good thing-, I pretty much blew everyone else out of the water. Not like i'm competitive or anything I just thought you should know how good I am at that game....sometimes.

Although the BBQ and games were really fun and everything worked out really well (Thank you Danielle!!) I think Tim's favorite part about his birthday was the present from his Mom. She sent him Tiger Woods Golf 2010 for our Wii. I know he is so excited about this game and will become a pro at in no time, which essentially means he probably won't go to bed until about 3am for a couple weeks till he is a pro!

Late Nights

Since I still don't have a job (UGH!). A couple days ago I went through all of my photos on my computer and deleted a whole bunch of random pictures to free up so more space on my computer. As I was looking through all of these pictures I realized how many pictures I have with Mary! We always took the weirdest pictures and it was always so much fun!!! I thought I would post some of these pictures just because....


PS we didn't know those guys, Mary convinced them to take a picture with me. We thought they looked very interesting in their greaser outfits, they were just hanging out in the In-N-Out parking lot.


Yes we would go out in public wearing these outfits, mostly just to Dairy Queen in Rexburg.

I sent one of these gothic pictures to Tim when we were first dating, i'm surprised this didn't scare him away.


Sorry Mary if I embarrassed you by these pictures, I just couldn't resist.

I miss my niece

I went home to visit my family about two weeks ago. Jared came home from his mission! I spent a little over a week there. Most of the time I just played with my niece, Abella. Every time Tim and I go home to visit she is always so shy around us but since I stayed for so long she was no longer shy around me, it is so cute because she talks TONS! So Abella calls me Panessa, it probably wouldn't have stuck except that Jocelyn totally encouraged it and now i'm pretty sure Abella really thinks that is my name. Basically what happened is...My mom has a picture of me on her fridge and my picture is in a Princess frame, so whenever my family would ask Abella who was in the picture she would say princess ness and I guess one day it morphed into Panessa. So instead of Jocelyn correcting Abella she encouraged her and now I am Panessa. I miss Abella and sometimes when I am bored I want a baby also, but that is probably not the best reason to have babies....

Pleasanton

We have finally made our last drive from Orange County to the Bay Area. We ate at the in-n-out along I-5 for the last time (we ate there every time we drove up). I am so excited that we are officially moved in to our new apartment in Pleasanton, but it is also sad that we won't be going back to Southern California after the summer. It is time for us to move on and hopefully we'll be moving on to Portland soon. Pleasanton is the 4th place we have lived since we have been married!!

Photos part 2

Ok part 2. The other post was way too long, who really wants to read a blog that is as long a a novel, ok maybe a short story? Basically I left off at spring break. Tim had a week off of school so we went to Utah and Omaha. We had so much fun! I love being around family. It was so much fun being able to spend time with Tim's Mom and with Bill and Chiara. I love being able to play with my nephews. They are so much fun and I kinda want to move there just so I can play with them whenever I want! While we were in Utah my Mom called me from Hawaii (totally jealous), and she told me that my older sister Jessica was in Utah also, I had NO IDEA!! It would have been awful if i didn't find out till weeks later that she was in Utah at the same time as me. We also found out that we were like 5 min away from each other, so weird. So we met up and went to the Mount Timpanogos temple, it was windy so that isn't the best picture ever. We also had time to meet up with Chad, who recently moved to Utah. Also we saw Amy, America, and Tyler. We had a Arrested Development Marathon and played some Wii.

From Utah we flew to Omaha to Jon and Lacie's wedding, it was a lot of fun. We were able to hang out with the Gibson family and I finally met Jen and Monty and their kids. It was a really short trip but it was fun. Our flights were really early, so I took Chiara's advice and just slept in the airport. Well this post was a lot shorter and hopefully we will get more pictures soon. Oh! So the last picture is a little random but it is a candid shot of the guys and I think it is so perfect, except for maybe Ryan's closed eyes!!! Steve's look is just so typical, basically I love this picture!!!
We have done a lot of traveling lately and it seems like there is no end in sight. You might think that is a good thing but lately we have been driving to the Oakland area every weekend and it is not fun at all. We are doing this for Pinnacle and summer installs, Tim is a tech for them, so for the next couple weeks we have two apartmenst, its weird. There are two perks of course. First Tim is making great money and Second we get to move in stages, I really like this because I don't have to do it all in a week instead I get to do it over a month.

Photos

I have not blogged in a while and mostly I blame it on the fact that I don't have internet at home, but since I do now...kinda. I am going to write a post. Mostly this post is going to be pictures and they will help show what we have been up to. So we went to Portland to visit Steve and Michelle, and Steve's family. I have never been to Portland and it was sunny for me the whole time, I think it rained once for about 5 min. I'm sure Tim prayed very hard for the weather to be nice. He wants me to love Portland like he does. We went to the beach and it was really really windy but it was really pretty. I was kinda shocked, I know that sounds mean but i'm spoiled with California beaches. When we were at the beach we went into and arcade and there I found my favorite game!!! Police Trainer!!! I used to play this game with Lisa when we would play mini golf at the mine shaft. When I was in high school I was a life guard and they would give us $5 of fun money in each pay check and they had this game so I would always play it!! One time I was playing the game and the screen froze, I reported it and the next day it was GONE! Basically I broke it and I was so sad! This is a pretty old game so I never thought I would find the original version, they did have a newer version also. While we were there we found a new game also, it is called Deal or No Deal, yep just like the game show. It is a lot of fun! You get to pick the brief cases and you can win TONS of tickets. I really enjoyed going to Portland, It was a lot of fun and it was really nice being able to hang out with married friends, even though it will be weird when they have a baby!! Basically I'm just jealous. We were also able to spend a lot of time at the Gibson's house (Steve's parents). I never really realized how close Tim is to their family.

A couple weekends later America and Amber came to visit. We had so much fun!! We rented a hotel room in LA and I showed them my favorite shopping place, the Alley. The only thing we didn't get to do is get Milkshakes...I'm so obsessed with this milkshake shop in LA, it's amazing...mmm. We had a bon fire and had a lot of fun hanging out before Amber left on her mission.

A couple weekends after that we went to San Diego to visit Tim's Aunt. She took us on a tour of the USS Midway. It was so HUGE, I'm claustrophobic and during some spots I kinda got nervous but it
wasn't too bad, as long as I could keep walking. I could never live on a ship like that! Later the night we met up with her son, Adam, and ate dinner. When we went back to her house Tim and Adam made our dinner for the next night. Adam is a chef and I think Tim had a lot of fun helping him in the Kitchen. Little known fact: Tim is a better cook than me, well when he follows the directions. Also...I really wanted to take a picture on this chair in the ship but when I took a picture it was not as cute as Tim's picture. Ugh! Tim loves taking goofy pictures, he becomes someone totally different when he is behind a camera, anyone who has watched his videos with Steve and Jon knows this!!

I think the next weekend was when my sisters, Jasmine and Jocelyn came. It was Jasmine's birthday and Jocelyn was going off to Rexburg so they came to have fun before she was off to The Burg. We went to Disneyland which was so much fun!! Jasmine hurt her foot a day earlier so we got a wheelchair. Having a wheelchair at Disneyland is absolutely amazing!! You get to the front of the line so fast. The wait for space mountain is a 60-90 min wait and we waited 15 min!! We were able to do everything at both parks in one day! Wheelchairs are amazing.
We also went to The Alley and we decided that everyone hated us and tried to rip us off because we are white, basically they thought Jasmine was loaded so they wouldn't barter with her...it was really annoying. That weekend I FINALLY got another of my FAVORITE milkshakes!!! I know, I know, I talk about them way too much but if you had one you would too. When we were in LA we decided to wait in line for a Pink's hot dog. Basically, they are famous and they have some crazy creations, I think Jocelyn's had onion rings on it. Right next to the hot dog place was a vintage store and I got some really really cute 7 jeans for super cheap I think they were $25, they were exactly what I had been looking for in other stores!

Well I have more pictures but this blog is ridiculously long and I need a break so I will post Part 2 soon. Soon meaning a couple of days not a month, promise! Why do I love the exclamation marks?? I don't know why...

March Madness

So its march and of course this weekend was the start of March Madness. Ever since being married my sports knowledge had grow, a lot! I had never watched ESPN before I was married but now I find myself actually enjoying Jim Rome is Burning and Around the Horn. This is strange I know. Last year was my first year filling out my bracket and it was a lot of fun. We watched a lot of the games with Steve and Michelle and since I am very compative it was very enjoyable. This year has been a lot different. I filled out a bracket. I even went online and read some articles tried to learn a little bit about the teams so that I could make a good bracket. Well as I learned last year there are always upsets in fact that is Tim's favorite part. This year has been awful, there hasn't been hardly any upsets and my bracket sucks!!! I made the mistake of picking UCLA, basically the only reason I picked them is because they have been in the tournament a lot and they are from California. I hate the my bracket sucks because I am so competitive and I don't like watching the games when I don't even care who wins ugh! I guess the good thing about this years tournament is that there have been some really close and really good games. GO Tar Heels!!

V Day

Valentines day isn't something super huge for us but this year we tried to make it fun. We didn't even get to celebrate Valentines Day on Saturday because I had to work so instead we celebrated it early. After work on Thursday I couldn't resist and I bought some Krispy Kreme's. This was kinda a gift for me too since they are so good but Tim loves them and we don't really have one close to us so it was a special treat, even though i forgot what Tim's favorite kind of doughnut is, i'm horrible!!! Friday we went to LA. We went to my new favorite place The Alley, its better known as the fashion district in LA. Last time we were in LA I wanted to buy a purse SO BAD but I couldn't find one that I loved so I didn't end up buying one. I am so glad that I waited because when we went this time they had all new purses and I fell in love with a couple of them. With Tim's expert advice I decided on a Louis Vuitton one and I LOVE it!!! I also got a scarf! They were the perfect valentines gifts. Later that night we had a reservation at a restaurant called Ketchup but as we were driving there we saw an In-N-Out and decided that we both love In-N-Out way too much and we much rather eat there any day. Since we ate at In-N-Out we decided we should also go to the milkshake shop we found in West Hollywood. It is soooo good, and a great way to end our Valentines Day. We were supposed to go to Portland for Valentines DAy because we have buddy passes Bill and Chiara gave us but I couldn't get it off work. I'm glad we were able to spend this weekend together (and that I got a new purse!) and now we are going this coming weekend and we are SUPER excited since I have never been to Portland, and if Tim wants me to move there he is going to have to convince me that I will LOVE it!

Trevor Hall

Last Saturday we saw Trevor Hall in concert in Santa Monica. Me and Tim saw him about a year ago in Salt Lake City when he was opening for Colbie Caillat. Tim like his drummer a lot because he just had awesome percussion skills. The drummers name is Chris Steele and he was on bongo drums or whatever they are called. It was really really good. So when Chad invited us to go to the concert I was excited. After the concert we went to this little ice cream place that sold ice cream sandwiches, basically you got to pick the cookie and the ice cream and it was so good! It was an amazing concert. I used to go to concerts a lot more often with Mary and I think I just missed being at concerts where the whole crowd really got into. Some people got into to it a little too much!! Matisyahu who is another reggae musician and he joined Trevor Hall for a little bit of the concert it was so awesome!! I had so much fun! I really miss how into to music I used to be.

LA

Last weekend me and Tim decided to have a nice weekend away but we didn't really go that far we actually just went to LA. Since I work at Hyatt I get pretty sweet discounts. We stayed in west Hollywood right by Hollywood hills they opened a new Hyatt called the Andaz. It was absolutely amazing! The view was amazing and the room was amazing, it was just all very impressive.They didn't have a front desk. All of the front desk people just carried around laptops, it was kinda cool but also kinda awkward. Since I work at a Hyatt I know that they have to always use your last name. It was really entertaining hearing people call us Mr or Mrs Fron-say basically they didn't think the "e" was silent. I always give Tim a hard time because people always mess up my first name and now everyone messes up my last name also. It was a lot easier when my last name was Matthews, oh well.

We did a couple of things that I had really wanted to do but I hadn't really wanted to drive into LA. First when we got there on Thursday we went to Universal Studios. It was weird because Tim used to live right by Universal Studios, when we were engaged. Universal studios wastotally dead so basically walked onto every ride! I love seeing the back lot its so cool and CSI was taping while we were there so we saw the new girl on the show just hanging out in a CSI outfit!! I'm such a sucker for seeing famous people on Saturday we saw another famous guy, Paul Adelstein, driving in west Hollywood, so random. He is currently in Private Practice, we was also in Prison Break and Be cool. On Friday we went to The Alley. I was most excited for The Alley because it is where you can find a whole bunch of clothes for wholesale. It was a lot like the place we went to in New York where I got my Coach purse. I really want a new purse so that's why I really really really wanted to go to this place. I have been trying to find out a where the alley is located and one day I decided to just google it and it had an actual address I was so shocked I thought that it was just this little hidden place but it is actually part of the fashion district in LA. It was so much to walk around all of the streets. I finally found where they had thetype of purses I wanted (basically they are the real thing but stolen or something). I had such hard time trying to figure out which bag I wanted. I knew I had to get a bag but I just couldn't pick one. I didn't want a coach bag because I already had one but everything else was either a really weird shape or it was HUGE. By the type I picked which one I wanted I could find it anywhere! It was so sad I was really bummed that I didn't end up getting one but I did find this really cute scarf. Later that night I wore my new scarf to a show on sunset. Greg Laswell was the guy we saw and I hadn't really heard any of his stuff before but it was really good! I liked him a lot. I really need to change the music I listen to. On Saturday we went to the Getty in Malibu and it was so much fun. Later that night we walked around Hollywood and we found this great milkshake place where all of their milkshakes were named after different famous people and they had everything you could think of to put in your milkshake. I am totally cravingone right now!That night we also ate at the House of Blues because it was right across the street from our hotel. It was a very weird experience because we went in the wrong entrance and they basically let us into the club where all the band hang out before they preform. Sunday we left and it was sad that the weekend seemed so short. These next couple of months we are trying to take a couple different vacations because this summer is going to be crazy. Tim works so hard and we never have time to do anything fun. It was such a great weekend and the weather was so nice the whole time I love California weather! I can never get too much sun!