anza borrego, ca.

at the end of january, jonathan had planned a camping trip for us. i am not one for camping. when he finally gets me to go, he makes sure that he's the nicest to me and that i am catered on so that i'll go with him again. that's how you do it, my friends!

 this picture is really important. it's important to jon because he likes seeing all of the off roaders getting ready to go on trails, and it's important to me because i fell in love with Gordo who's running towards to photographer who i wish was me. on this vacation, i realized that i love dogs of all shapes and sizes. i think that's a really good thing because in June we are moving in with my in laws until we find a home and we are bringing two dogs and a cat and they already have two dogs and a cat. we've been joking that we are going to start a petting zoo.

 they really do think i'm joking.

the first thing we did when we got to anza borrego was explore a cave. these caves were cool, but they were a bit of a downgrade compared to what we saw in texas last year!

jon is totally in his element when we go camping. he enjoys being out in the wild breathing in fresh air, but he mostly loves to test his cars limit. sometimes i close my eyes.

we were driving through the desert when we heard a weird noise. then we heard the car get louder. we should have known, but we didn't think anything of it until jon's buddy was honking behind us. jon's muffler fell off!!!

here he is trying to get it untangled from under his car. the worst part about this was that it was really hot and we couldn't just leave it in the desert. so we had to wait until it cooled off and then put it in the back of the car with all of our stuff. 

the darndest things...

it was a fun and beautiful day. i can appreciate the outdoors, i really can. i just wish there was a really nice personal bathroom following me around (kept at a 40 ft distance of course).

here is my main man, cooking up some luxury breakfast for us. 

we get patchy service while we are out there, but i was lucky enough to receive this photo from my sister. she and audrey had a sleepover the night before. cutest.

pumpkin patch. 

 ever since we went to anza borrego last year, i've been wanting to see these mystery statues in the desert. this man placed all these statues throughout the desert (not sure when), but they are awesome! they are so detailed and i can't help but wonder how long each one took.

 this one is awesome. the road runs in between the humps in his back.

it was a fun trip and i'm so glad jon is patient with me when we do things like this. i'm liking it a little more each time.....but not enough to not have him worry about me the whole time. ;)

the next weekend we got to enjoy this ones company! she is working as an assistant trainer for the BYU rugby team. they had a game at SDSU and one at UCLA, so jessie finagled a way onto the bus here and got to stay with us for the weekend! she came to school with me and everything, it was so fun to have her here. it was cool to see her in her element at the game and jon enjoyed it, too. (he played rugby in high school) we even saw someone at the game from church, which shouldn't surprise us, but it always surprises me to see people i know out and about here!

we went camping!

and it treated us so well. 

friday afternoon, we drove out to anza borrego desert. 

we were driving through Julian, and i've never been before so we stopped to look around. 

ohhhh my goodnessss cutest little town. we went into a candy store and i bought the best gift for my nephew's 6th. in order to be able to use a debit card, we had to spend like 75 cents more, so we bought little tubes of honey. jon loves honey. 

it reminded me a lot of main street in park city, just much older and smaller. it was filled with all these cute shops right next to each other and it. was. freezing. 

(for us....it was about 50 degrees..)

we drove through and got to the event right before the sun went down. jon has been signed up for this for months. it was tierra del sol's 50th anniversary desert safari. tons of off-roading vehicles came from all over. they had fireworks, venders, and a huge raffle. it was a really big deal, apparently. and jon was in heaven. he saw that blue truck in a magazine. 

i'm not really a fan of camping. we went last year and i nearly froze to death. jon has since sold his truck (sad!!) and got a larger vehicle that we can sleep in! he also returned our nice new sleeping bags that we used last time, and got different ones that zip together:) well, it worked! i was warm and cozy all night long.  

all i care about is treats. treats and snoozinn. 

look at me. treats and snoozin. snoozin and treats, that's it.

our friends from church came with us. see them up there, teeny tiny???

we hiked out to the wind tunnels. it was really cool! i can't believe those are not manmade. i couldn't help but think about how maybe, long long ago, someone used these tunnels as homes......

here are our friends. all three of them are marines! they are a fun bunch. 

nate made us burgers and steak. it was like luxury camping.

unfortunately, on one of the 'obstacles', girlfriend got her truck stuck! she got so stressed out that she got out of the truck and ran off! it was so funny. so her husband was left to deal with getting her truck out of the jam she got it in. lucky for us, there was a group of "drunk idiots" (jon's words, not mine.) there to help pull us out. 

it was a fun day filled with lots of beautiful views. and good weather/food.

this was at the raffle. they had a drawing for our active duty military personal in attendance. there was a bagpiper there that played all the difference branches songs, and then the announcer thanked them for their service. the entire audience gave them a standing ovation. it was really touching. 

we left the desert the next morning, stopped in julian again for pictures and antique shopping. the whole weekend was so much fun. as much as i loved jon driving his truck, his new car is SO much more comfortable. i went off-roading with him twice in his truck and really didn't like it. this time, i loved it! our car was filled with yummy treats, good music and good conversation. i really like being a passenger in the car. especially with the windows rolled down. it's so peaceful. a few times when we were driving on bumpy roads, i almost passed out. it lulled me to sleep, just like it would a tiny baby. there were even a few times when i looked over to see that the same thing was happening to jon; he was asleep at the wheel! 

this was our theme song the whole weekend:

(love their entire new album (except it gets better: yuck!). i don't agree with their blasphemous phrases though. remember that.)