Hitting Golf Balls Off A Building

Brit, Drew, Mike and Me

Here in LA there is a driving range on top of a 6 story building downtown. It's really fun to go and hit golf balls off of. We've only been twice and we've been both times with our friends Drew and Brit and we hope to go back again soon! The second time we went, we thought to bring our camera along so that we could take some pictures of the fun we had!

Brit and Drew were both awesome! I wish I could say the same for me and Mike. I guess we just need a little more practice. :)

Here's to more practice!

New Year's Eve in Malibu

For New Year's Eve we were invited to stay the night with some friends who were house-sitting in Malibu. We went along with a few other couples and we had such a great time!

We enjoyed ourselves eating yummy secret-recipe burgers made by Josh, playing a fun Charades-One Word game, swimming in the pool, watching the Big Apple Ball drop at Midnight while drinking sparking cider, and even a 3am game of Risk. We had such a wonderful New Year's Eve and we even enjoyed some sunshine on the car ride back home.

We are so lucky to have such wonderful friends here in LA!!

The Girls won the Charades-One Word Game!! Woot Woot!!

The Flower Boys. Aren't they cute!?

Waiting for the ball to drop!

Austin and Rachel Robinson

Rachel and Heather preparing the Cidar! YUM!

Happy New Year's with our New Year's Hats on with Heather and Kael Alden

3am game of Risk

Happy New Year 2012!! We had such a great time! Thanks Sarah and Josh Rivera for inviting us!! We had so much fun!

2nd Annual Yosemite Trip

Matt and Ashley Marriano, Kael and Heather Alden, Sarah and Josh Rivera, Austin and Rachel Robinson and Mike and me! Such a great photo op.

In the Fall of 2010 Michael and I had the chance to go to Yosemite National Park with the Robinsons. It was so much fun and you can read all about it here. Well, this year at the end of September, thanks to the thinking and planning of some really great friends, we were able to go again and this time we had lots more people to enjoy the trip with!! I love Yosemite and I can't believe how amazingly gorgeous it is. I wish it were just a little bit closer so that we could go more often.

The weekend trip consisted of a 9 mile hike up to the top (and edge) of North Dome, some AMAZING meals planned and cooked by the Riveras, some yummy 'smores roasted over some much needed warm fires, and two fun car rides back and forth from LA to Yosemite. Heather and I walking along the edge of North Dome
walking along the edge of North Dome

The girls sitting at Glacier Point

We hope that we can make this a tradition and go back again next year for a 3rd Annual Yosemite Trip :)

And Thanks Kael for taking such amazing pictures!

An Homage to Julia Child

Living in Los Angeles for the past 2 years has proved to be amazing! I've really enjoyed all of the gorgeous weather, the sunshine, the beach and all of the things to do here but, unfortunately every once in a while work gets overwhelming and the traffic gives me a migraine. Luckily, thanks to some great friends I've met here, every once in a while I'm able to just enjoy myself and have fun. This past February when both Heather and I were feeling particularly antsy to do something interesting and different, she had a great idea to have a Julia Child Cooking Day. We chose 4 super delicious recipes from her cook book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Some of the recipes included Leek and Potato Soup, Beef Bourguigon, and Cherry Clafouti for dessert.

We literally spent an entire Saturday shopping, prepping and cooking, but it was all worth it! Especially the Beef Bourguigon, which took 5 hours all on its own! Annie made it just in time to help finish making dessert and help us eat up our yummy 3 course dinner. :) The boys enjoyed it soooo much that they continued to talk about "that one dinner" for weeks. Here are some of our really great cooking pics!

Thanks Julia, we couldn't have done it without you!

This is an apron that one of my very first students gave me!

Yay for Annie!

Our yummy soup with un-sweetened whipped cream.

The boys repaid us by cleaning the kitchen. Gotta love 'em!

This was so much fun and such a great way to do something different and even de-stress. We've already decided that we will have to have Julia Child Cooking Day every 3-4 months or so, and I can't wait for our next meal! :)

A Much Belated Update! ( A.K.A. The Bike)

Okay, this post is about 8 months late, but I wanted to put up the pictures from my 29th Birthday and the AWESOME gift that Michael got for me!! Referring back to THIS POST, you may recall my wanting a new bike to ride around LA. Well, here it is! These pics are from my birthday party back in September, and although I don't ride my bike as much as I wish I would, I LOVE it!

Sporting my new bike!!

All the girls - me, Heather, Rachel, Sarah, Hope and Annie! Love these girls!!

Somehow, all the guys managed to guys managed to stay out of all the pictures...

I also recently got the other birthday gift that I wanted from THIS POST. A new pair of TOMS shoes, and they are soooo comfortable and what's even better, I can wear them at work to teach in! These were from my mom and I LOVE them almost as much as my bike.

Robot Repair

Michael and I had a really great night Friday because we were able to go to our friend's office party for the company Robot Repair. It was one of the most fun parties we've been to in a long time!! They had the Kogi Truck rented for our enjoyment as well as a DJ, a "Time Machine", and even a Karaoke RV called the RVIP!! So much fun!! Here are a few shots from the event.

The R-V-I-P!!

Karaoke Baby!!

Wow, That picture looks just like me and Heather... :)

Dancin' away the night in a confetti snowstorm!

Yeah Heather! Such a great friend!

Yosemite National Park

Wherever Michael and I have lived, we've tried to take road trips to nearby destinations so that not only can we take vacations but also experience what each part of the country has to offer. Living in LA has been great. We've been to Big Sur for our anniversary this past year, which was amazing, and now we can check Yosemite off of our list.

We had the opportunity to go with some friends from our ward, Rachel and Austin Robinson and we had such a great time!!! We left Wednesday after Michael finished work and after taking the past two days to plan and buy supplies, we headed north for our 5.5 hour car trip up to Yosemite. We arrived at our first campground stop just south of the park entrance at midnight where we set up our tent in close to 20 minutes, changed, brushed our teeth and slept for 5 hours before packing up our belongings to head into the park and hopefully snag a spot in one of the few and always full campgrounds. After getting to Bridalveil campground we were able to get an awesome campsite from some people who were leaving, which was very lucky on our part!

After setting up camp we took a nap for a couple of hours and then headed out for our hike to Vernal and Nevada waterfalls.

It was such a spectacular hike! I was dead tired almost the entire way up (at one point we had to climb some 1,500+ stairs to reach the first waterfall, as well as another 1,500+ to reach the second, and if you look closely in the next pic, you can see the stairs at the bottom) but the scenery was to die for and the waterfalls were so majestic that the hike was beyond worth it.

At one point at the top we decided to go swimming in the FREEZING cold water. It was so refreshing after the difficult hike up, but I was only able to stand it for about 10 minutes before I had to get out. What was so cool about it was that it was at the very top of the waterfall! This next picture is of where we went swimming in the the calm area at the top. So, fun!

This was the edge of the waterfall. Such a gorgeous view!

The hike down was tolerable and we really enjoyed the day.

We all ended it with getting back to camp and cooking in the campfire the hobo dinners that Rachel, Austin and I prepared the day before. Michael did a great job cooking them and they ended up being so yummy, especially since we were so hungry. We really had a great time relaxing around the campfire eating s'mores and drinking hot chocolate, even though Rachel and I were kinda freaked out about the possibility of a bear walking into our camp!! That night we were all so exhausted that we actually slept pretty well, even though it was beyond FREEZING cold outside!

The next morning we decided to take a drive to Glacier point to see Half-dome from a distance as well as the waterfalls that we had hiked the day before.

Afterward we took a leisurely hike to Taft Point and the Fissures which was absolutely beautiful! We were in awe at the sheer cliffs that the trail ended at and we had a great lunch near the edge of one of the cliffs.

Afterward we decided to make a stop to see the Sequoia grove before leaving the park. The trees were amazing and absolutely gigantic!

All in all we had a really amazing trip, even though we got a flat tire about 200 miles from LA and had to drive the rest of the way home on a spare at 55 miles per hour because all of the tire stores were closed. We arrived home Friday night close to midnight, but we really had such a great road trip with the Robinson's and Michael and I can't wait to go back to Yosemite.

Beach, Bonfires and S'mores!

Yeah for the beach! I have really had a great summer and now that it is winding down I am trying to fill it with as many activities as possible before I have to start teaching in about 3 weeks. One great summer activity Michael and I were recently able to attend was a bonfire headed up by our good friends the Robinson's.

Thanks so much, Austin for snagging the fire-pit at 11:30 on a Saturday so that we could all show up at 6pm to roast hotdogs and s'mores!

Everyone standing around waiting to roast some hotdogs!

Michael showing off some mad skills for the Kimballs

What an awesome group of people! I really love our LA friends!

It was really a fun time and there were lots of friends in attendance. I can't wait to enjoy another bonfire, and hopefully we can squeeze one in again soon! Next up, Yosemite this coming weekend!