our second anniversary!

the traditional anniversary gift for year 2 is cotton!

in february i asked a woman from church to help me make a quilt for jon. he and i drove up to escondito and picked out four different soft fabrics! after that, he didn't see the fabric until i gave him the (almost) finished quilt.

 nancy helped me decide on the fabric for the border and the back part of the quilt. the fabric is soo cozy.

 i'm not obsessed with how the back turned out. it looks bunched up, but it is SO! much better than the first couple times i tried. i stitched like four lines diagonally and was very surprised to turn it over and see it pulled in all directions. i spent a lot of time unpicking. the back still doesn't look perfect. i used a sewing machine to do it which wasn't the best way, but it worked out alright!

 the front looks much better. 

 i spent hours and hours and hours hand stitching the border all around the quilt. i watched all 8 seasons of desperate housewives while making this. (so worth it)

we celebrated on may 18th even though our anniversary is the 11th. i was working a lot at proflowers during the mother's day season, so we waited and it worked out well! i printed 22 of my favorite pictures of jon and i during our first two years of marriage, wrote on the back and hung them from balloons in our bedroom for jon to find. it was so fun! it was also fun when we tied the mostly deflated balloons to rumbi's collar and watched her run around the house in fear. how sad!

jon is such a dear. he got me flowers and a card plus new socks (cotton) (also, who doesn't love new socks?) and printed this cute picture of us soon after we got engaged on canvas (cotton)! he had it displayed on the computer because the convas hadn't come yet. you can see it in our living room here!!

we spent the afternoon and evening riding our bikes around coronado island. we came here on our first anniversary but we didn't plan it like that. we just wanted to have a nice place to site see while riding around and coronado definitely delivered. the neighborhoods and houses are so charming!! wouldn't that be a nice place to retire? 

 we tried to light our lanterns on the beach but it did not go well! it was so windy. we drove around until we found an empty field to send them off from. this is my favorite tradition of ours, it is so much fun. we are going to be soo outnumbered on our 7th, 8th, 9th anniversaries before we have kids and grandkids to help us!

another successful anniversary with my favorite human in the world! so glad i married him, i love him more and more with every passing year. 

first anniversary celebrations here!

2yrss.

we are celebrating two years today! 

unfortunately, my new job has required me to work 3 to midnight tonight and tomorrow night, which doesn't leave much time for us to celebrate. boo. instead, we are going to take a day off next week and do nothing but hang out together! 

best two years.

love you, jonnie. 

lazy hb sunday.

dear, dear emma came to california for a quick getaway last week!  jon and i were luckily enough to go up to HB and spend sunday with her and amanda. we got there in the morning, ate some yummy french toast (courtesy of emma), and went straight to the beach.

 i got to use my new camera for the first time! the panorama feature is so super cool, though i'm not exactly sure how to use it properly...yet. as you can see, the beach wasn't very crowded. it was kind of chilly, so none of us were very adamant about our sunscreen. what a mistake that was. 

 jon was the only one who got all the way in. he said it was cold. i enjoyed my time laying on my towel, relaxing and catching up with my two favorite girlfriends.

 amanda had enough bicycles in her garage for all of us, isn't that nice!? she even had a boy one in there for jon to ride. we rode around huntington, looking at the cute houses and rode down to the pier for some ruby's. i don't believe there is anything better than indulging in a big ol' burger, fries and shake after a day in the sun. and ruby's is the right place for all of those things. 

 we stayed all day before we had to go back and start on homework, again. it was such a fun day and a real treat having emma in town!! of course it's nice meeting new people and being in a new, beautiful place, but it's always so comforting to be around someone who has known you for so many years; you just pick up right where you left off. i wish her and isaac would move here so that we could ride bikes every weekend and enjoy the california sun.

a girl can dream...

my birthdee.

first order of business:

i got a job.

 i know that sounds like excellent news, but it's just 'pretty good' news.

i am working at ProFlowers. see that 800 number up in the left hand corner? that's the number to call me. or one of the other 600 employees. they hire a ton of people for the mother's day season because it gets so busy there. it is just a temporary position, i think i'll work there a total of 4 weeks. i'm not mad about that though. all i do is take calls and talk to people on the phone. i don't think i like anything more than i like talking. so this is a pretty good job for me. 

it's really hard keeping track of my five classes, working 30 hours a week, and finding time for my spouse. i forgot what it was like to work while going to school. i've been so lucky to have been able to focus 100% on my studies. i've had such a time trying to find a job here, but the lack of job opportunities gives my school work, and my husband a lot of attention. which i'm not too angry about. 

 i was going to have to work on my birthday, but i finished everything up quick enough the day before that i didn't have to! on friday, jon took rumbi to get a microchip put in her. now we will be together FOREVER! she is pleased, she just has a hard time showing positive emotion. we also had a really nice steak/shrimp/and COTC dinner. it was so yum. jon has been using this new marinade on our steaks, and we are obsessed. we would eat it every night if we could. 

 forever faithful ChaCha was the first to wish me a happy birthday, just like they do every year. 

 jon surprised me with a trip to the San Diego Natural History Museum to see the Titanic Exhibit! His dad purchased our tickets, and we had such a great time! we weren't allowed to take pictures, but just please take my word for it: it was amazazing. i love all things Titanic.

 here's jonny pointing to where we live in san diego. north of san diego city, southeast of Del Mar, southwest of Poway, straight east from la jolla. you get it. it's that big grey area in between the 805 and i-15 on google maps. 

 jon thought this little guy was so funny. hmm, maybe because he looks exactly like our cat. 

=

 that picture doesn't show how truly long and bushy bandit's tail is. it's disgusting.

 after walking around the museum and balboa park, we drove to wendy's. my favorite fast food place. and indulged in a lot of food. a LOT of food. 

hopefully you can at least take comfort in knowing that those cups have water in them, not soda. maybe that helps you feel better about the amount of food we ate? 

 i've been taking horseback riding lessons. for about a month now. 

i'll write more about that later. but, that's what i wanted to do on my birthday, and i wanted jon to come watch me. i'm sure it was kind of boring to watch, but he was so nice and supportive. even though the horse i was riding bit his finger SO HARD. jon was playing with the horses mouth (not sure why) while i was grooming it. then gerry bit down so hard thinking that jon's finger was a carrot. and apparently he didn't let go until jon pulled so hard that the teeth pinched a tiny piece of jon's skin and drew blood. i had no idea this was going on behind me until i heard jon whisper "ahhh.....are you serious??" and turned around to see him cradling his hand with blood running down his finger. it was pretty darn funny. he is such a good sport, he acted like it didn't hurt, but i would have been bawling. 

 that night, we had a little get together at the clubhouse in our neighborhood. all my nearest and dearest friends came. it was a lot of fun to be with everyone, and just how i wanted to spend my birthday. jon made a root beer cake, all by himself! he is such a sweety. 

not only did my friends come prepared with food, but they also brought cards with sweet messages and gifts. i was completely taken by surprise. i am so grateful for the friends i have made here. they all mean so much to me.

this is me. completely shocked. jon got me a new digital cam!! i lost the battery for my old digital, so i haven't had my own since we moved here. i told jon a few weeks ago that "we should start thinking about putting money aside for a new camera", but that was the end of it. i was so happy to open my gift and find that!! i haven't used it yet, since all i've been doing is going to school and going to work, but this summer i am going to blow my blog up with photos that i take on the go. 

by the way, i can't decide if i'm a terrible blogger, or if everyone else is just a REALLY GOOD blogger?

 the next day, we finished up our video and edited it. jon was such a good sport to do it with us. it was such a ball. 

 here are my dear ones watching it. love them and love lizzie for sending me this.

last on the list, my bike. JON GOT ME A BIKE RACK!! i am so happy!! he is the very best! it goes right on the back of my car. so i just drive to school, park forever away (in the free church parking lot. love those lds folk), get my bike off the rack and zip to my class. it usually takes me 15 minutes to walk to class, but now it takes me FOUR MINUTES. FOUR!!! yesterday, i rode all around campus! it didn't take any time at all, but my thighs were furious. another bike-girl talked to me, and told me to go register my bike with the police, so that if it gets stolen, they can track it down in the shops or wherever the people try to resell it. they also gave me a really nice bike lock for free. 

speaking of school, i am very late. and when i should have been studying, i was writing this post. hopefully my test score doesn't reflect that.

wish me luck!!

this is crazy.

my birthday weekend consisted of this:

music video from 2009 here.