magellan

meet stella. aka magellan. yes i have even given this precious a nickname. i love this baby. even when she looks like this- she is still the flippin cutest thing in the world! :)

before i get to the most recent events, i'll show you a few things that happened the weekend before we flew back to pocatello...

sams sister is a nature path and took us to a health food convention in Anaheim two weekends ago. wow. that is all i can say about it. it was pretty amazing. what it is, is vendors trying to get buyers business and in order to do that they pass out tons of samples. there were literally hundreds of vendors there passing out things from food bars to yogurt to lotion to soda. the last day of the convention, vendors are sick of being there and just start passing out full sized everything. so this is our loot. it is pretty spectacular! in just ONE of the kinds of soda, we got over 45 of them. it was a little embarrassing hoarding them out but totally worth it.

after anaheim we went to laguna beach. it sure was lovely.

nice bum where ya from?

he-man :)

it has been so nice to be home and spend time with our families! it was both my dad and jaces first time meeting stella. they, like the rest of us were smitten.

oh man. isnt she the most beautiful thing ever?

every time she cries she makes this sad sad face. i love love love it.

so my little brother decided he wanted to try out for baseball after a 6 year absence from the sport. of course being the all american athlete that he is, he made it!

my mom on the other hand, being the all american mom that she is forgot that you shouldnt park right behind home plate! hahaha love you j-own!

we spent a few days in preston too and although i didnt take too many pictures, i did get some of sam reliving his childhood playing with a magic set he got years ago!

stella was blessed last sunday- it was wonderful and she is a beauty.

look at these chubs! ahhh

stells wore the blessing dress that taryn wore. so darling

the proud parents

a smitten grandfather!

and lots of love from the cousins!

we went to bear lake after the blessing- always a nice time.

alice leaves on her mission to spain in 3 weeks. i couldnt be more excited for her. she will seriously be the best missionary out there. so amazing

the sweets again

he is the cutest. i really couldnt have asked for a better guy to spend forever with. she loved him which made it even better.

4 generations. who knew that my blog would end up turning into a shrine of my niece? i guess thats what happens when your so gosh darn cute!

like a said, alice is going on her mission and sam and i wont be home for her farewell so i decided to go spend a day with her and carli in logan. it ended up being more than the day though. i was very unprepared for a sleepover but bought a toothbrush so i didnt have stinky breath. :) we had a splendid time! i got lucky in the cousin department!

tomorrow we are leaving on a jet plane again, heading to our car in long beach. we will be spending the next month traveling from there to seattle. it will be a lot of sleeping in the car, but i wont lie im pretty excited.

its never fun to leave family, especially a beautiful new niece. but at least we get to go to warmer climate right?

we are off to another adventure. i hope your enjoying an adventure too! if not go have one! i dare you! :)

x0x0

i sleep in my car.

this is just a shout out of me today. i am disgusting. but i have an awesome shirt. do you know who this good lookin guy is? yes. it is stormin norman.. my AMAZING grandpa! i "won" this shirt in our family christmas exchange this year. and yes i wear it quite frequently.

have i mentioned how much fun i have with photobooth?

saggy? skinny? messed up!

really im not kidding, we sleep in our car. some people have wondered how we are able to afford just taking off from life the way we have. this is it... we sleep in our car.. even if its 17 degrees outside- ill get to that.. (nice triple chin)

after we left phoenix... which we had a wonderful time by the way. we enjoyed the jazz vs suns game, had a wonderful backyard pizza party, shopped, (sam had work meetings), he dune buggied, and just enjoyed good company... after all that we decided to go to a little place called sedona. it is beautiful and all around were these cool indian ruins.

this is a well they used. it was beautiful. the first day we got there the weather was really crummy so we just went around to little shops in town. this was the second day and it was wonderful weather.

i love this picture, because in all honestly sam really does hate (is a little afraid of) snakes :)

this one is called montezuma castle. it was amazing and SO high up in the cliffs

we went on an incredibly beautiful and BUTT KICKING hike too. maybe only for me sam was cruizin!

mushy i know but i love it!

like i said it was crummy weather the day before and rained like crazy.. this much water is insane for this area!

the next day we headed to the GRAND CANYON! and grand it was.. except we couldnt see anything... because there was a huge BLIZZARD outside. i thought we headed south??

we decided that since we couldnt see a darn thing that we would wait another day.

so we slept in our car... in 17 degree blizzardy (is that a word?) conditions!

i thought these were little cuties...

and the next day it was beautiful. and we could see the bottom!

yes this is in arizona. at the grand canyon. it really snowed a ton!

on our way back to joshua tree (which is where we are again) we decided to stop at the london bridge.

it really wasnt what we expected. not really anything great about it actually... but it was interesting to see and learn a little bit about. lake havasu which is where it is located however is a beautiful place!

that is a little bit of what has been going on in our adventures. notice how im wearing a headwrap in all of these pictures? thats what you get for sleeping in a car! :) dont worry it was only a few days!

.heres a few thoughts as of late.

i love blogging. it is such a great release for me. and when i have the capabilities and resources to be creative, it is a great outlet... but lately blogging has been a downer for me. silly really, but i find myself comparing all the things that i think and do to all the INCREDIBLY talented women out there. seriously. there are some awesome people out there showing off their mad skills. decorating, dressing, health, photography, graphic design, really all things that i find myself comparing to.

i guess thats a woman for you?

i can admit that im not a complete idiot when it comes to creativity, but i know im not a super genius either.

although i find myself in comparison a lot, im actually really thankful for all you genius' out there! it helps me open myself up to different options and realizations that i CAN do many things. i just need to realize that your creativity doesnt need to be mine. i need and should be happy with the things that i can do... and do them. and really i just need to educate myself on how... so keep it up- and when i copy the things you do... its really just a compliment! :)

last week i wrote a post about my pops. unfortunately last week he had to get his baby toe removed. he had two blood clots in his leg causing zero blood flow to his baby toe. he was in a lot of pain and his toe was inevitably dying. after a few weeks and unbearable pain, it started getting gang green... so surgery it was. and off with the toe it went. the night before the surgery i was talking to him and it made me realize what a stud i have for a dad.

he may have been on a few pain meds, but the whole time he was joking around about it.. something he said that still has me laughing was:

"what i want to know is how im going to teach my grand kids this little piggy went to market. what am i going to say and this little piggy went wee wee wee and i dont know where he went, he just never came back."

he is awesome!

life is good.

we are coming home on the 16th for stellas baby blessing. i cant wait!

lets do lunch! :)

x0x0