Summer Sunday BBQ

Last Sunday my sisters and their families came over to have a Sunday bbq. Jono got a new grill for his birthday and we wanted to try it out. Jono grilled carne asada and I made homemade guacamole and salsa for fajitas. It was delicious and we loved having the family together. I didn't take many pictures, but here's the ones I have.

The Mendenhalls: My sister Claire, her husband Sterling and their son Jaxson. Jaxson was having fun hitting his dad's face with a plastic spoon. They have way too much fun playing together :)

The Jeppsons: My sister Danielle, her husband Brad and their son Connor. Connor loves to eat and wants so badly to walk on his own.

Thanks family for coming up and hanging out with us! I love summer.

Girls Night

Friday night, June 11, was girls night out with my sisters and mom. We met at my mom's work in Irvine and went to a restaurant in her building called Bistango, which was delicious! I got their special, which was clam chowder soup, fillet mignon with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus, and a slice of cheesecake. Because my mom knew the owner we got treated with two complimentary desserts, moulton lava cake and creme brulee...mmmm! That's what you get when four cute blondes sit at a table! :) After dinner we went to Orange County Performing Arts Center to see THE LION KING! My mom was the only one who had seen it and my sisters and I were so excited! And we LOVED it! The costumes, music and actors were all amazing. Definitely want to see it again someday. Thanks for the fun night girls!

 

Jono's Celebrations

This post is to give an update on the rest of Jono's birthday celebrations. When Jono came back to the hotel on Wednesday from work I was ready and we went to BJ's for dinner. We shared a pizza, chips and salsa, calamari, and a side salad. To top it all off we got a half chocolate chip and oreo cookie Pizookie. It was delicious and we left very full. We went back to the hotel and watched Four Christmases on tv and then I left to go back home because I had work the next morning.

The view from our room. I enjoyed laying out for a couple hours and reading by the pool while Jono was at work.

Jono and the Pizookie

Dinner at BJ's. It's a little blurry so I left it smaller.

Then on Saturday we met up with my family in Newport to go to the Crab Cooker. We hadn't been there before and Jono wanted to try it out. I'm not all that into seafood but it was pretty good! Our table was full of clam chowder, shrimp and Alaskan King Crab legs.

After dinner we went to On Target to shoot my brother-in-law's new hand gun and my dad's old shotgun. It was Jono and me, my siblings and their husbands and my dad also went. Grandma was kind enough to stay home and watch the grand-kids. It was fun and we enjoyed it! Here's a few pictures.

And here's a little video showing my sister and her first experience shooting a .9 mm.

Birthday Boy

Happy Birthday to this hunk-of-a-man!

Unfortunately Jono has to spend his 28th birthday working in San Diego for training this week so I came down last night and we went to dinner with Ian Miller at Miami Grille. This morning we went to breakfast downstairs in the Hyatt, watched the beginning the the Spain World Cup game and then left for work. Tonight we are going out to eat, but not sure where yet, and then I'll drive back home later tonight. Fun and quick trip, but we always enjoy San Diego.

Jono I hope you have a great birthday, you deserve it! And I hope you know how much you are loved by everyone around you. Thank you for working so hard and doing what you know is right, even if it is hard. I love you so much and I am honored to share my life with you!

Camp Pendleton Mud Run 2010

Saturday morning Jono ran in the Camp Pendleton Mud Run. We slept over at Jono's parent's house the night before because we had to meet up with some people from EY at Target on Alicia in Mission Viejo. We drove down to Camp Pendleton with Kim Tobler, his son Chris, and Cason and Marie Green. When we got there the mud-runners got checked in, safety-pinned their numbers on their shirts and stretched for the run.

The Mud Run is a 10K run with hills, tire obstacles, river crossings, two 5-foot walls with mud on both sides, tunnel crawl, a slippery hill climb and a final 30-foot mud pit where they had to army crawl their way through the mud. As you can see from the pictures everyone got muddy.

Here is a video of the start of the race. As you can see from the video there were TONS of people running and some teams who decided to dress up. The Wizard of Oz crew was my favorite. There is also a green dragon in the crowd, see if you can spot it!

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And the big finish!

It was a fun experience and I am proud Jono wanted to do it and that he finished. Good job babe!

Back to Youth Conference

Last weekend Jono and I were the "parents" for our youth conference family. Our stake, Anaheim East, combined with Placentia and Orange stakes to do one big youth conference. It was quite an experience.
Friday night we divided into families and played get-to-know-you games and ate some snacks. Then we went into the cultural hall to play "minute-to-win-it" games competing against other families and we cheered on our players.

Saturday morning we met at a stake center and had a morning devotional and then split up into cars to go to our service activities. We went to three houses of people in the stakes to do a service project. At the first house we cleaned up and planted some plants on their back hill. At the second house we cleaned the outside of the house and at the third location we cleaned out a ditch at the bottom of the house.

Next was Wild Rivers! I had been wanting to go for a while and I was so excited when I found out we were going! We got there around 1:30, went on the rides and when the park closed at 4 we got to stay. We changed, ate dinner and then the dance started. We may or may not have danced that night :) We had a lot of fun and it felt like we were back in high school.

It was definitely a different experience being on this side of the youth conference, and I have to say it was pretty nice. We enjoyed the youth conference experience but with a little more freedom. We loved everyone in our "family" and we learned so much. After being a leader you begin to understand the leaders you had when you were in the youth program. You can see the potential in all of tthe youth and you want them so badly to just make good choices. But that's not how it works. I can't imagine how Heavenly Father feels when his children makes mistakes and wander from the truth.

It was such a fun experience and we are glad we got to be a part of it...even if I did get mixed up as a youth on more than one occassion :)

Memorial Weekend

Jono and I had so much fun over Memorial weekend and enjoyed a nice break from work and school to spend time together with family and friends.

Thursday night after Jono got home from work we went to a golfing green to hit some golf balls. I had gotten Jono some golf clubs from a garage sale for a steal a couple months back so we had fun. I had only been to a driving range once before with my dad and sister, but that was about 7 years ago. I had fun and thought I was doing a good job, until I saw how far Jono could hit that ball. I just wanted to give up right then. But we had fun and I watched other people and asked questions on what to do. (I thought hitting the golf ball with a larger club would make it go farther, but I was wrong. I just stuck with a 7 iron for most of the night.) I also rescured a lady-bug that almost got squished by the ball. Then afterwards we tried out a Chinese food restaurant at the Village shopping mall right by our apartment. It was pretty good.

Friday Jono didn't have work so we got up and went running in Peter's Canyon in Irvine. We had run there once before and did the easy trail so this time we decided to run a few hills to see how that would go. There was one VERY steep hill that I got about half way up and had to walk the rest of the way. The rest of the time we ran (or maybe walked) the hills and enjoyed the view. When we got back we hung out and Jono checked some items off his "to-do" list. At 6 we picked up our friends, the Villarreals, and raced to make the 6:30 pm temple session at Newport Beach. After we went to dinner at Tutto Fresco and then Jono and I watched "Message in a Bottle" and stayed up way too late.

Saturday we met up with my sister and her husband at Knotts Berry Farm! We hadn't been there in a long time and I really wanted to go and had been planning it for a couple weeks. We got there right when it opened and hit all the good rides first with hardly no lines. After the 4th ride we were all feeling a little woosy so we ate lunch at Johnny Rockets. Then we continued to go on rides including Big Foot Rapids because it was soooo hot! Jono and I got burned and now have some mad tan lines. Great.

Sunday we went to church and then headed down to the Castleton's house for dinner, watched "Leap Year" and slept over. It was good to spend time with them.

Monday morning we woke up and went running around the neighborhood and enjoyed a very delicious breakfast. We met my family at Solana Park to enjoy some lunch and snacks, played in the sandbox and then went to the pool. That evening we had a BBQ and Jono's parents came over to eat with us. 

It was a a very fun and long weekend full of fun activities, some homework, but we loved every minute.

We can't wait for our summer break.