My New Sewing Machine

As a Christmas and birthday present, my parents got me a Bernina sewing machine! I finally went and bought it this week! We didn't have anywhere to put it in our apartment--our kitchen table is small and it has to be clear everyday so there is room for me to tutor on it--and if I had to set it up every time to only be able to work on things for an hour, I never would!

Thankfully we found this sewing table (on Craigslist, of course) that fits in the one small remaining area of open wall space in the whole apartment. The top does open up to be twice the size and hopefully I can utilize that in a future home. For now, it is perfect! Now I just need to decide which project to start on first!

Wii Fun

Our friends invited us to come play their Wii with them. We had lots of fun playing lots of different sports and games. We only got pictures of boxing, but they don't quite do justice to my random arm-flailing! Thanks Alex and Kacie--we had fun!

Dinner with Gramps and Grandma

Jeff's grandparents were visiting Southern California from Utah and were in our area tonight. We had fun going to dinner with them.

Balboa Park

Jeff had work off on MLK day, so we went down to Balboa Park in San Diego for the day.

Not all the gardens are "stroller accessible," but we made them that way. In the picture on the right, we had been at the bottom of the hill on the left side of the picture. We didn't want to walk all the way around, so I carried Ellen and Jeff carried the stroller to the top.

Jeff showing Ellen a cactus and Jeff trying to be like a cactus.

Ellen wants to know, "Where are the roses?" We made a special effort to go to the rose garden, and all we saw were the bare bushes in the background. Then we remembered it was January. Of course. I'm sure it's beautiful in June. :)

Ellen was mesmerized by the fountain.

As I'm posting these pictures, I'm thinking about how so many of you are posting about crazy cold weather and snow on your blogs. We are grateful for the good weather here and it makes me realize we may have a hard time leaving some day. I guess this makes up for the fact that there are no houses to buy in our price range. As Jeff says, we pay to live outside!

Michelle's Visit

My sister, Michelle, got to come visit for a week! She is so cute with Ellen and Ellen loves her. I love watching the two of them together and it is really helpful to have another set of hands to help out sometimes! We got to go out to eat, watch a few movies, go to the beach and spend two days at Disneyland! The weather was unseasonably warm/hot (high 80's) while she was here, so it was fun to be outdoors!

Disneyland with Jen and Ian

Our friends came into town from Boston a few weeks ago. It was a business trip for Joe and I'm so glad Jen (my roommate from BYU) and Ian decided to come too! We got to go to dinner together the night they arrived and then Jen, Ian, Ellen, and I were able to go to Disneyland the next day. It was their first time to Disneyland and we had a great time!

Dinner at Souplantation

Waiting for the train

Dumbo

The Buzz Lightyear Ride (look at that very tired Ellen--she completely missed her nap!)

Group picture--and our two cute kiddos