Cali= wonderful

I love California. There are no two ways about it. California rocks. Okay, so the fact that my family lives there does play a HUGE part in this love, but even without that, I still love that place. This past weekend we got to go to Cali for a couple of days to see our families, go to our best friends' wedding, and get out of Utah for a little bit. It was glorious. Oh and p.s. it was Chad's birthday! Happy Birthday Chad!!! (I would have included pictures of when we celebrated chad's birthday at our house, but my camera decided to be retarded and not let us take any pictures. Dumb technology. Needless to say, the camera has now been replaced.

After work on Thursday, we jumped in the car and headed down to Vegas to stay the night with Mom. It was fun to be with Chad's family on his birthday (that very next morning)! Once again, we jumped back in the car and headed down towards Laguna Niguel. Immediately upon arrival, we headed down to Palizada for a beach day. Oh how I love that beach. It was a beautiful day and the water was awesome. Unfortunately, due to technical difficulties, there are no pictures. But I can promise you that it was awesome. Loved it.

That night (still Chad's birthday), we had family over for a barbeque and to swim. This is Chad hanging out with the boys:

Luke obviously loved his burger.

This is my family's spastic dog Tasha. They love her to death.

This is Tasha absolutely FREAKING OUT because there were kids in the pool. For some reason (we cannot explain why), she seems to think that whenever someone is in the pool they are drowning. She runs circles around the pool, barking, whining and trying to "save" them. It's quite hilarious.

I love my cousin Maddy, she's just so happy all the time. Pretty much my favorite.

Happy Birthday Chad!

No shirts, no shoes, no problems. (Plus who really needs anything more than Ann Myer chocolate- peanut butter cupcakes?)

This is my dazzling mother working on Jacie and Shane's wedding cake. It was so beautiful, more pictures to come.

This is how Chad and I helped get the cake ready. It was delicious!

Bright and early on Saturday, June 27th, Chad and I drove up to the Los Angeles temple for Jacie and Shane's sealing ceremony. It was an awesome experience and we're so excited for our newest married friends!

Here they are coming out of the temple.

Don't they look so happy?

Yay for friends!

Shane, his dad, and his two brothers.

Jacie and her sisters.

Isn't he cute?

My man and I.
And here come all of the bride and groom pictures...

Model shot.

These are my favorite... this is Shane's best face...

... and Jacie's.

After taking pictures at the temple (Chad was dubbed photographer boy and I was dress girl), we went down to the beach so they could take a few shots. Unfortunately, it was a busy day in Santa Monica and we didn't actually get to GO to the beach so I have no pictures of that. We couldn't find anywhere to park, so Chad jumped into Scott Jarvie's car and I drove ours around the parking lot/illegally double parked for 45 minutes while they took pictures. We'll have to wait until Scott uploads their pics to see how they turned out.

The beach was immediately followed by an 1 1/2 hour drive to Claremont (of course we hit bumper to bumper traffic) to get ready for the reception. Right after we arrived, my mom got there with the wedding cake! Pretty much a party.

Before...

... and After.


Yay for family cake-making!
The reception was lots of fun, here are a few pics:

Dancing.

Congratulations Jacie and Shane... we love you guys!

I love my Dad.

I love my Dad. He's pretty awesome. Although I love BYU, beautiful Utah, and married life, it gets pretty hard sometimes to be so far away from my family. Especially on days like Father's Day. I'll be excited when someday Chad and I grow up and move away from Utah and hopefully move closer to my family, wherever they may be. Anyways, I just wanted to tell you a little bit about how amazing my dad is.

He and I are "kindred spirits", if you will. He taught me to love things being clean and organized and to have a very structured life. He taught me that peanut butter with hydrogenated oils should be avoided at all costs, you should only ever eat the kind you can stir: (nutty, of course).
He taught me that after a beach trip, all sand must be completely removed from all body surfaces (aka feet) or else who knows what would happen.
He was the one who sat down with me in 5th grade and helped me figure out how to think through word problems from my math class, even though I absolutely hated it!He was the one who made me keep taking piano lessons through middle school even when I said I hated it and wanted to quit. I wish now I would have kept playing, if only I had known that he was making me take piano lessons because he loved me. He just wanted me to have the opportunities to do things that he never got to do. I should have just realized that parents are almost always right.
He taught me how to work. I hated pulling weeds on Saturday mornings, but my dad made us do it, and I'm so glad he did.


He's the "cool dad", always taking us fun places, hanging out with our friends, doing fun things, etc. Some of my favorite memories of my dad are of the fun family vacations we got to go on and the opportunity he gave us to try new things.

mountain biking

snowboarding

boating...

My dad is always supportive of everything we do, he loves us unconditionally and is constantly an example to us of how to live our own lives.

He's always there to catch me when I fall (or jump).

Plus, my Dad has an amazing sense of fashion. Check out these jeans and sweatshirt. Sweet.
I love my Dad.