So I’m not as on top of things as I intended to be when I got back. To be honest I’ve enjoyed being lazy. However that is starting to catch up with me.

I hope to have some photos of the trip up soon, some info about all our friends and their crazy obsession with baby making. , some great food stuff I’ve been dabbling in, and as always some fun craft stuff! Just bear with me a bit longer while I readjust to the idea that I have to actually finish things I start.

Well lets see, we’re now onto planning our trip to Europe. Its quite exciting to be going back after four years! However I have to admit that I do believe that I’ve become a bit of a homebody. Well more of a body that needs Sean and my puppies to be at home, but home is where I love to be lately. With all of them! Thus I’m thinking of shortening my trip. Originally I had planned to be gone all of August and all of September. Now I’m not so sure. Sean will be with me the first two weeks and Julie the rest of August for sure. We plan to be in Zurich to start (yea for getting to visit Chauncey, Jenny and Matthew!), then on to Italy for over a week of adventuring (Venice and Florence for sure), and then to meet Julie. I’m not sure what happens next, but I do know that Paris is somewhere in the mix. Quite exciting! If I do shorten the trip to just voyaging with Sean and Julie it will not only save me from being blue about not having my family with me, but it will save some moola too. Which we could use for… another trip!?! Or some house remodeling!?! We’ll see. Anyway, its good to know that the plans are underway.

We’re also currently working on our back yard. We decided to give up on the grass. The puppies just tear it up. So currently we’re trying to put crushed granite back there. We’ve also recently fenced in our vegetable garden. Once the puppies figured out that what was in there was edible, it was best to just make inaccessible  to them. It turned out quite nice. Kind of looks like a little English garden fence. I’ll try to post photos soon.

What else… Friends, board games and dinner! Our friends Brandon and Melissa came over recently for boardgames and dinner. We had a really nice time! It had been so long since we had played board games. We also had Julie over recently for game playing too. So much fun! It’s a good past time. We always look forward to sharing games with new friends and family. It will be good times when we have kids someday too.

Other than that we’re just enjoying the summer. Annabelle just turned one. There are a few photos here if you’d like to check them out. Our friends Aaron and Monica are expecting their first in October. We also have several other family and friends with babies on the way. Its just the season in our lives for babies I guess. We are looking forward to it all though!

I should also mention that I put up some wedding photos from Allison’s bachelorette, bridal shower, wedding and photos from our trip to California if you’d like to check them out.

Today one of my dearest friends married her best friend. I am so very happy for you Allison, and we welcome Varoujan to our family of friends. We wish them all the best!

Here are a few photos for now. I’ll post more of our trip soon!

And here’s one of me and Sean. He’s so handsome when he dresses up!

Well as you might have guessed, we are still in California and this is totally scheduled, but I figured you’d all want to see my wedding craftiness.

So Allison’s good friend, Emily, put together an awesome shower! The theme is “Mastering the Art of Marriage.” She came up with it via Julia Child. We are all wearing aprons and exchanging recipes and more!

I made the bride-to-be her own special apron. Its reversible with a very cheesy heart shaped read more »

We are California bound this week, and so very excited about it! We leave Tuesday May 17th and we won’t be back in town until Tuesday May 31st. If you need us we will have our cell phones… but please try not to need us.

Why are we going? Well, we are taking a bit of a vacation and also attending a good friends wedding. We will be in Monterey for a few days and then in Los Angles for about a week, then back to the San Fransisco Bay area before we head home. We are very excited and are looking forward to beaches, sun, relaxing, friends, food…. and well just about the whole thing!

See you in JUNE!

So as many of you may recall, one of my dearest friends Beth went on a recent ladies weekend with me. I happened to be trying to organize my photos (one of my 30B30 goals) when I came across these. We were fooling around taking photos that trip and they turned out quite well. I know I wasn’t supposed to show photos from our ladies weekend as its top secret and all , but they turned out so well. Also Beth is quite beautiful and I figured you all might enjoy them. This was my favorite one, but you can click the photo to see a few others I took.

We just wanted to send a special shout out to all those mothers we know out there. You’re awesome! We’d also like to say a very special thank you to our very own mothers for being so very amazing, and for loving us so very much! We wouldn’t be who we are today without your love and encouragement.

On a crafty note, read more »

Oh Italy, how I love you! I do, I really really do. However I must admit that I mostly love you for your food. Yes your history, country side and culture are amazing… and lest not forget the wonderful people themselves, but truly I would want to know you always just for your food.

Hehe, so I get carried away with my love for food. Its something I learned from my family culture and flourished while I lived abroad. Now that I live in one of the most amazing cities in the US for food its hard to get rid of the passion I have found for simple, yet amazing, flavors in food.

So we had a bit too much milk on our hands the other day… what would any self respecting woman do… MAKE GELATO! We made lemon gelato, which actually ended up truer to the consistency of gelato, and chocolate hazelnut. Oh how I love hazelnuts! I would put them in every dessert and dish if I could. I even found hazelnut milk the other day and could resist. While it turned out well too, I think I did go a bit ‘nuts’ with the nuts and thus it froze a bit harder than traditional gelato. Oh well, good thing it still tastes good. Sean and Evan both happily approved. Sean also helped out. Here’s him doing double duty:

What a good man to help out in the kitchen. However I think his only real thoughts were, “when do I get to eat this? Two to four hours later! Why did I volunteer to help?” Of course the answer to that is because he loves his wife. And he very much loved the treat he got later when the tasting began.

On a side note, yes that is Harry Potter, book number six to be exact, on the island. Sean started reading them all a few months ago. It only took me five years to convince him it was way better than the movies. And he says I’m the hard one to convince.

So one of the big things on my 30 before 30 is weight loss.

I’d really like to loose 40lbs over all, and preferably before I do a long cycling trip. Right now I weigh 210lbs! I know, I apparently carry it well. However my joints might tell you a different story. I have chronic back, neck, knee and ankle problems due to my weight. I also fear all the crazy health problems that I could eventually get from being overweight. Is this the largest I’ve ever been… no. I was up to 250lbs back in 2005. Scary to think about.

Anyway, I am working towards a more natural, healthful and fulfilling way of eating (no low fat diet here), as well as working on getting in my daily exercise. It will all take some time, but I hope by putting this out there that my friends and family will be able to be more understanding and supportive. Don’t be offended if I’d rather have coffee with you instead of going out for dinner, I’m just trying to be healthy (and watch my pocket book!). Don’t tell me that I look fine and don’t need to loose weight, I know I LOOK fine. I have very few self-esteem issues, as many of you well know! I want too FEEL fine too and reap the benefits of being healthier.

After seeing several family members suffer from issues associated with obesity, I would truly like to avoid those things myself and to put forward a new lifestyle for the family Sean and I hope to have some day. I appreciate your consideration and support. We are blessed to have you all in our lives!

So I turn 29 this summer and then next year is the big 30! I figured I should start working on all the things I wanted to accomplish in life! Here’s my list (in no particular order):

1) Long Cycling Trip w/Sean (example, MS150, Shiner 100 or similar)

2) Learn some more Spanish

3) Find another way to incorporate French into my daily life (so I keep learning it)

4)Visit a continent other than North America or Europe read more »