goodbye first house: entryway/half bath

we are getting ready to say goodbye to our first home together. we are so sad! it is surprising to me that we have spent all of our time married in the marine corps in one house. it is pretty typical for young marine couples to move around in the first few years. we are happy to have stayed in one place, it's made the house feel really homey. 

this mirror was a gift from john and kat. it was black, but i painted it maroon to match the rug.

we are lucky and have a really big laundry room. i will spare you the detailed photos; it is basically just a storage room for items we don't know what to do with! 

my in laws came to visit just a month after we'd moved into our house. they were taking me to a job interview when we saw a washer and dryer on the side of the road just a street over from us on base. i told them that i wanted them! the first month we were here, jon would get up really early on saturday or sunday mornings and take our laundry to the barracks and do them there for free. we had to get to my interview, so we didn't stop and look at the washer and dryer. when they picked me up, they told me they had a surprise for me. after they dropped me off for my interview, they came back to check out the items on the side of the road, but only the dryer was left! they brought it to our place immediately and hooked it all up. it totally worked!! that afternoon, they took us to the appliance store on base and bought us a washer to go with it. it was a really nice surprise and just one little example of how nice my FIL is. 

across from the bathroom (the door on the right) is the door to the one car garage (on the left, not pictured). 

the american flag hook was a DI find and is where jon hangs his cover almost every day. 

the rug is from homegoods. 

this is one of my favorite things in the house. it is a canvas print of the draper temple, where we got married. my dad gave it to me (jon and i) for christmas in 2010. it was our first married christmas, but jon was deployed to afghanistan at the time. it was a sweet reminder that although my spouse was thousands of miles away and sometimes it didn't feel like it, i was indeed a married woman and that no matter was happened, we were sealed for time and all eternity.

the picture of Christ was a wedding gift to Jon and I from his mom and the first thing we hung up when we moved in.

valentine's day, 2013.

i got valentine's day off so that jon could have my undivided attention. he's been working at an internship three days a week and he gets home two hours earlier than when he works with the marine corps. it's been awesome! that meant that we had all afternoon and evening to spend with each other! i made him a silly little card, and he got me a card and....ferrero rocher chocolates. i have never had my own package of those but i am obsessed with them and have just one left.....

can you believe this little thing!!! we went to a mall in escondito that is really nice and happens to have a pet store. we meandered in there and found this chihuahua/yorkie mix. she was so cute and shivery. 

i was taking picture after picture because none of them depicted how truly tiny that little doggie was. jon was holding her like this and she did not want him to let her go.

we went out to eat at macaroni grill. mei gave us a $35 gift card for christmas. that's more than we usually spend when we go out to dinner (tightwads), it was great! we ordered goat cheese filled peppadew peppers and mac and cheese bites with some sort of dip for appetizers. it makes my mouth water to looks at these pictures. they were different, but quite delicious. we shared an entree (usually a good way to go, it saves on money and you don't have a ton of food left over); i can't remember what it was because it wasn't that good. i've been off soda since september, but we ordered an italian soda anyway since it was a special occasion and it was very worth it.

i'm a good artist, huh? this is jon and i on our wedding day, haha!

happy belated v day, from me to you! 

orange county and the orange balloon.

i worked through january and february at my seasonal job again. i really hope having these two jobs on my resume is worth the stress. i've been saying that i'm going to work there again for mother's day so that i can have a full year on my resume by the time we get to san antonio, but i just don't think that would be the best thing. we will see. 

i worked monday, tuesday, wednesday, and thursday nights while i had the two jobs. i had friday, saturday, and sunday off, but it was filled with homework since i am taking four classes and two of them are my final upper division graduation courses (aka: demanding!). I usually spent all day (all. day.) friday and sunday afternoon/evenings doing homework so that i could hang out with jon on saturday's. isn't there a song or something called working for the weekend? yep.

the first weekend in february, we finally went to the orange county great park balloon! amandie told me  about it long ago, and i've since seen the balloon from the freeway anytime we drive through orange county.

we went with this cute family! what's better than three j's? 

four j's.

it was a somewhat gloomy day. i was hoping to see the coast from the balloon, but it was too cloudy. nevertheless, it was beautiful up there.

 it made me quite queazy to look down, we were so high up! just when we thought we'd gone as high as we would, we'd go a little bit higher...
jon and i walked from one side of the balloon cart to the other, and it tipped the whole thing!

it was a great experience! and best of all, it was free. i even saw someone i knew there! one of amanda's good friends from huntington was there with her little one at a birthday party. small world.

the main reason for our weekend to orange county was to spend some time with these two! my cousin bev and her husband scott. we've been here for almost three years and the four of us haven't ever done anything together. we went to dinner at ristorante rumari in laguna beach (and went a little crazy with the desserts) then went to the irvine spectrum to ride the ferris wheel that i've also seen a dozen times from the freeway and wanted to ride! it was so much fun and we were grateful to bev for planning a fun night to entertain two tourists:)

 bev and scott have the funniest stories ever! they kept us laughing the whole night. 

after hanging out with the rice's, we went back to the j's and spent the night there. we had intended on watching a scary movie, but instead stayed up until 1am talking and catching up. we miss having them live only fifteen minutes away. before our drive home the next day, we went to eat at 50/50. that's a hamburger with 50% ground beef in the patty and 50% bacon. we drove home feeling fat and happy, which is usually the case after hanging out with lynn and jeno, and i am not complaining. 

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!