Beginning of Summer

**WARNING - VERY LONG POST**

Well, it's been pretty crappy weather up here lately...not quite summer yet. I'm getting pretty tired of it...I can't wait for the sun and heat!! Our pool at our apartment just opened yesterday so I am looking forward to the nice days when I can swim or lay out and get rid of my pasty white skin! To start off this post, I will show you a picture of a cute little craft that I made for my best friend's baby girl. I have never really sewn a blanket before by myself so I thought I would try it out. It was actually really easy, except that the fabric was kind of stretchy so it's definitely not perfect. My favorite is the little hand-held blanky with little taggies on it. I made it from the left over scraps of the blanket material and IT.IS.SO.CUTE! I love it. I almost wanted to keep it for myself because I liked it so much, but I decided I would have no use for it. I hope her little one likes it!

Then a few weeks ago, my other best friend, her husband, brother, and his wife all came to visit Andy and I! I honestly can't explain how happy I was to have a visitor. We've been waiting for so long...haha! And the fact that they stayed for less than 24 hours just cracks me up! They must have really wanted to see us. They drove from Utah through the night and got to our place around 4:30-ish. We slept for a few extra hours then we were up and about touring Seattle. It was really fun being a "tour-guide" showing off my city. We went to Pike Place Market, rode a ferry to Bainbridge, played at the Seattle Center (saw the Space Needle and played in the International Fountain), visited the Fremont Troll, got lost driving around because of all the construction and detours and then they all left to drive down to San Francisco. Here are some pictures of the gum wall (yes, G.U.M, chewed gum!). It's a wall that is covered with gum on one side and "art" on the other. Yes, of course we added our own gum to it! I had actually never been down there so it was really fun for me, too.

Here is a picture of Andy and I on the ferry, it was CRAZY windy! But I absolutely love the wind, so I didn't mind.

Thanks guys for making the trip to come visit us! Next, we had a fun little trip down to California. Andy and his boss had a conference in Huntington Beach and his boss's wife and I tagged along. Boy, am I glad we did. It was SO nice to get away from the rain and enjoy some sun. We stayed at the Hyatt - holy crap, it was nice. See our room and view here:

*Oops, sorry. Just realized I only have pictures of the room on my phone.. But you can tell how sweet our room would be just by our amazing view, right?* Anyway, so we flew into Long Beach Airport...smallest airport ever! We like to call it the IBA, Itty Bitty Airport. (Maybe that's really just an inside joke...haha!) So after we got there, we explored the ginormous resort/hotel. They had their own spa area where you could sit in a steam room or sauna and it was so relaxing just looking at it. Seriously, check out the hotel link here http://www.hyattregencyhuntingtonbeach.com/. Monique and I had to keep reminding ourselves that the boys were there for business, because we were getting a little upset when they kept working instead of wanting to go to the beach. But eventually we walked to the beach (right across the street from the hotel) and then walked to the pier where we ate at Ruby's (apparently really famous...and so delicious!!)

This is on the bridge we cross over from our hotel to the beach.

This is where we look so fat after eating Ruby's. Ruby's is at the end of the pier over the ocean. Pretty freakin' sweet!

And this is the huge pier. Andy kept saying how huge it was... I haven't really been on many piers so I thought this was normal...

So after all of the walking we were pretty tired (Monique is 7 months pregnant, I might add) so we just came back to the hotel and rested. We bought some firewood to go to the beach and make a fire, but we were all just too tired. So then the next day, Andy and Neil (his boss) went to the conference and all of their meeting, not before they let Monique and I mooch breakfast...and lunch...and dinner. Ha! We only paid for 2 meals while we were there - pretty awesome. One night for dinner the company that was doing the conference rented out the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. So we got to eat pretty yummy food and look at all of the weird sea animals. They said there was a place where you could pet sting rays, but we couldn't find it and then had to leave real quick. To prove we were there, here is a sea horse. Yay!

There was tons of sun, but it was also really windy, so it was a little bit cold to swim in the pool or go down to the beach. We attempted, but didn't last long. On the last day of the conference, Neil and Andy had free tickets to go to Disneyland. Neil and Monique stayed at the hotel because she wouldn't have been able to ride any of the rides anyway so I took Neil's ticket and Andy and I had a cute little half-day date to Disneyland. It was a lot of fun, but we knew it would busy so we picked out our favorite rides that we had to ride and ran to them to make sure we could hit them all in 4 hours (because the park closes at 8 during the off-season...I know, bummer). So we rode Space Mountain, It's a small world, Indiana Jones, Big Thunder Mountain, the Toy Story one... I think that's about it. I definitely love Indiana Jones, but I wish it lasted longer. Oh, side note about the Indiana Jones ride... I lost my camera in the seat!! Oh, it was so scary. I had it in my butt pocket and as we were walking out of the ride I noticed it wasn't there. I was so worried because the ride is so bumpy that I thought if it fell out that I would never see it again and it was gone forever...as I walked back to the ride I was almost crying because Andy had JUST bought me that camera for my birthday! But luckily, they found it in the seat of the jeep! Aww, I was so relieved. So anyway, here a few pictures from Disney:

So after Disney was over, we headed back to the hotel and hung out with Monique and Neil for a little bit and then just fell asleep. The whole trip was seriously so relaxing. Most of the time, Monique and I just laid around talking (side note - she is seriously so sweet, I really like her. I'm glad that I get along with the boss's wife so hopefully we can go on more "business" trips together). We had planned on staying an extra day after the conference just to have one full day together with the boys doing tourist-y stuff. So the last day (Friday) we rented beach cruiser bikes and rode down the beach to downtown Huntington and ate at IHOP. We walked around the little stores and bought some t-shirts and what not. Then we rode down the beach some more. After that we swam at the pool for a little bit and then went down to the beach. It was such a nice day that I had to get in the ocean. So we played around a little bit, me holding on to Andy the whole time so that I didn't get swept away. The waves are huge down there! The water really wasn't that bad either. I love being in the ocean and having the waves crash over my head. The boys (do you like that I keep calling them boy? It's very fitting actually!) wanted to go out further and said I was too small, so they kicked me out of the ocean! I was a little sad, but I didn't like being out there without Andy to hold on to. So Monique and I just laid out some more and soaked up the sun. After all of that, we had to go home; we headed out the IBA and flew home to rainy Seattle. It was a very much needed vacation (our first real vacation since the honeymoon!) I love California. I still say that I could live there because I love the beach and the ocean and the sun...but Andy just likes to visit. Which is okay, because it keeps it special. Wow, sorry this is such a long post (and not very well written) but I was just so excited to actually have something to write about. For those of you who lasted... thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed!