Photo Friday #24, 25 & 26 - i'm a bit behind

So almost a month later, here is 3 weeks worth of photo Friday so I'm doubling the pics hah. We've been working on house stuff and wedding videos so I think we have a good excuse...plus there are only about 3 people who actually read this blog so I'm not too worried :)

First off, the Del Mar Fair - our yearly free wine tasting fun!

Jared making fun of the ginormous crap you can win

Next up, Bottle Peak...the highest point in Escondido where you can see all of Escondido. Here we are with the newly engaged Tony and Fei!!

A word of advice...don't go when it's boiling hot like we did and don't go when there is poison oak EVERYWHERE! I don't know how but none of us got it!

Last, our country's Independence Day. We took it easy and chilled with Ryan and Kelly and some awesome carne asada and a not so awesome dessert (a new recipe I tried that looked delicious but didn't taste quite right, I'm still not sure what happened! So no photo/recipe of that!)

Then we headed over to Grape Day Park (I've always gone to the SM show) and Ryan picked us a wonderful spot! The entire show was behind those trees. HAHA lovely!

Photo Friday #23 & #24

First of all, it still feels like the beginning of 2009 but as I type week 23/24 of Photo Friday I realize we're halfway through!! How did that happen?

So in April I was in two weddings, my cousin's (a couple posts back) and then my good friend/long time friend Tiffany. I've known Tiffany since elementary school, we were in girl scouts together and on the swim and flag teams together in high school. It's so fun to know someone for so long!

Apparently I'm blogging backward?

And for the 2nd 'pic' for Photo Friday I totally forgot to mention on of my mom's gifts for her bday. Jared took some pics of my brothers and I for her and framed them. It was kinda difficult to get all 3 of us motivated at the same time to do this but we got some good ones I think :)

here's my favorite...when we were just randomly laughing at something...sometimes the most random pictures are the best :)

Lately...

Lately -

we've been tempted to work on our house
we've been too busy with editing to be able to work on our house
we've noticed we have a bird that likes to slam into one of the office windows (he really wants to come in i think)
we've had a flood in the bathroom
we've found a huge beetle (about 2 1/2 inches long!)
we've seen lots of bunnies running around our backyard
we've bought plane tickets
we've been to a funeral
we've been to a wedding
we've held a newborn
we've watched some good movies
we've watched some crappy movies
we've been to the fair
we've felt blessed

needless to say...lately we've been busy! i think the saying is true "when it rains it pours" because everything has seemed to hit all at once... but we should be catching up over the summer and by fall our lives will be much calmer (i hope!)

a common equation

I can't forget about the best part of any party that my brother's at!

Tyler + Karaoke + booze = The Devil Went Down to Georgia

...every time

And please excuse the horrible video quality!! This is video from my still camera and I'm just holding it and laughing..oh and I had had a couple drinks :)

Enjoy!

Mom's 50th Birthday

Here are some pictures from my mom's 50th birthday party, it was a blast!!! To start, here she is with her lovely 50 crown.

   

Here are some details: the chocapalooza table with the glorious chocolate fountain, the "25 things about me" wall which included many interesting facts about my wonderful mother, and the signature drink - the chocolate martini!!!! sooo yummy :)

         

Such a cute picture of my cousin Colton hugging Caleb, Tiff's baby...the couch full of grandmas (I'm so blessed to have so many)...and my uncle Larry entertaining the party with his band!

          

The cake...all my mom's friends who have turned 50 recently...and my mom and I taking a  shot together, ahh bonding

          

My cousins pretending they were missing a leg (haha imaginations!!)...some of the guys exclaiming "wow, 50!?!?!?!"...and karaoke (where the martinis come in handy)

          

Naughty pic of my mom and her librarian friends "taking shots" (be sure to notice the sign behind them)...and my mom, her sisters and their mom, such a nice pic.

     

Happy Birthday mom! 50 down, 50 to go!

Photo Friday #21 & #22

Finally!!! More house pictures...I guess I changed something in my camera and that's why some of them aren't rotating...I've since fixed that problem but am too lazy to edit these pics, sorry!

Ok so first here's the hall with the freshly painted walls and new trim/baseboards. The last post had the floor all covered up, there is nice cherry wood on the floor. We left that because of course you want to be able to slide down the hall in socks!

Here's one of the rooms with new paint/trim/baseboards/fan and the beginnings of new carpet. (don't worry, that's not the color we picked, just the pad!)

Here's the office/studio (former garage) with new carpet! New carpet feels so good between your toes. The old carpet smelled like animal urine, haha.

The progress in the laundry room...the grout makes quite a mess

The guest bath tiled but not grouted

and the master bath, with finished tile and a new vanity! we only had to go a week without a bathroom :) (luckily we still had the old place for a week to shower - so our mornings were a bit crazy)

And after we moved in, we had a mini celebration, some champagne and strawberries :)

Photo Friday #20

So having lived in SE Asia for so long, I got really used to the kinds of desserts they eat...pretty much any kind of fruit on sweetened rice. I even got to the point where I couldn't eat an entire candy bar because it was just too sweet. Anyway, one of my favorites was mango and sticky rice. When I got back, the hunt was on to find places that sell it here. Most Thai places do when mangoes are in season but it's actually a pretty expensive dessert...the last time I was craving it I spent $6.50 on it, yikes!!

So I decided, while mangoes are still in season, that I would figure out how to make it myself. Seeing as how mangoes are $0.99, coconut milk and rice are cheap, I can make the same amount of dessert you get in the store for about $2.25 or so. That's much better :) But of course I do have to make it, oh well.

So here it is! It turned out pretty awesome...and Jared approved :)