Woodland Park Zoo!

 So a couple of weeks ago we were in Seattle on a few errands. Suddenly Jake quickly takes some random exit off of our planned route. I look to the side of the road and suddenly understand and am totally not surprised when I see a big sign that says "Zoo" with an arrow pointing in a direction. Haha, visiting the zoo made the trip so much more fun and memorable! We had a blast, and the weather for once was super nice! Here are just a few of all of the wildlife at the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle.

 

Little Roo!                         and a penguin (:                        JAGUAR

  
Snow Leopard, a sloth bear (Jake's favorite besides the sloth), and some more bears.

 In front of the kangaroos and Jake being a dork as always! ;)    

 Giraffes.

Elephants. And a very sleepy King of the Jungle.

We had so much fun and the areas the animals were in were freaking legit! Seriously, you could tell they put a lot of effort into making the environments really really awesome for the animals. Best zoo I've been to!

Memorial Day!

First off, before I get to our camping trip, here is a quick before/after snapshot of me and my girl, Adi (:

Alright, now we can get to our trip! So, for memorial day (I know this is a bit late), we randomly decided to drive to a random beach in Oregon we found on Google Maps and if it wasn't too busy (which we assumed it would be), we would camp. So, on the slight possibility that it wasn't too crowded (which was highly unlikely), we threw the tent and a couple of blankets in the trunk, and drove a couple hours to Disappointment Bay. (I'm sure you can imagine why Jake chose this place). 

As it turned out, the place WASN'T too crowded, so we picked out a nice spot and set up our tent, threw in our TWO blankets and bags with a few extra clothes. After we were set up, we realized we might want something to eat, not to mention a fire, which just so happens to need a fire starter, some wood, and of course some smores! So we drove to a nearby town (only about 5 min away) and bought a few supplies. There just so happened to be a brick oven pizza place right next to our camping spot (we are really roughing it), so we figured we'd grab a pizza for dinner. After those were taken care of, we drove a short distance to the beach.

Adi and Jake had a TON of fun playing in the water. I decided to sit that one out, it was a little bit too windy and chilly for me.

Here's a little video of Jake and Adi playing in the water! They had tons of fun. 

Adi had a hard time jumping over the waves lol

While we were at the beach we saw a few sea lions! How cool is that! It was pretty cool. We will for sure come back to this beach, but when it's a little warmer. We had a lot of fun.

Jake was mimicking my Indian hair in the top left photo. After we were done at the beach, we headed back to our camping spot. We had bought some firewood, but not anything smaller that could get our fire going. Everything outside was wet from the rain, so it took like two ours to get a fire going!!!! Jake did a great job with the limited supplies we had. 

Later we ordered a pizza, which was the best pizza I have ever had by the way, and then made some smores !!! Then it was time for bed. We had one blanket under us and one on top. It was alright for a while, until it started to downpour!!!! We got a TON of water inside the tent from the crazy rain! I was freezing!!!!! Jake was fine, but I wasn't going to be miserable by myself, so I laid there shaking and shivering and complaining to Jake most of the night. Not only was it hard to go to sleep freezing, but our neighboring campers had a little too much to drink and were very loud. 

Finally I was able to find sleep. The next morning it was still raining like crazy! So we packed up as fast as we could and got the heck out of there! It was fun, but would have been better if we were more prepared! We learned the hard way.

CTR 4

So, Jake and I are members of the Sunset Ward in Tacoma. A few months after being there we recieved our first calling as a couple. Teachers in the primary for the little four-year-olds!!!! I was really excited, little kids are so adorable!!!!!! (Or so I thought). Jake was not too excited. We figured this was a hint or  a"wink wink" from our bishop, nudging us to perhaps want one of our own. If this was the plan, it has backfired. Although we love these kids, they can be little terrors! lol. We definitely didn't know what we had been called into. Little Gus is our wild child. And of course, the other kids feed off of his ADHD-like attention span. The rest of the kids are sometimes well-behaved, and of course the girls are little angels, but trying to teach a lesson to them is pretty hard. Here are a few pics of our wonderful class!

Here is Heather and Rhett cleaning up our crumbs from our treats for the day, and then on the right is Gus and Rhett, being their crazy selves (:

Here we are, outside for our easter lesson........yeah, WORST IDEA EVER! Do NOT take little four-year-olds outside, especially if you're trying to teach a lesson!!!!!!!! NONE of them can pay attention for more than 5 seconds. haha. We unfortunately had to round the kids back inside for the lesson. After being outside, there was no calming them down. We finally gave in and took them outside for an easter egg hunt.

These kids LOOK so sweet and adorable, and for the most part they are, but their little dark side can come out pretty easily. From left to right: (Guest), Adin, Rhett, Gus, Heather, Chloe. 

 Here is Rhett and Gus, role-playing the kings in our story. This lesson went surprisingly well, having the kids interact in the lesson really helps keep their attention.

 Like my cute plates?! The kids had to choose healthy foods for their bodys. Word of Wisdom lesson. The kids were acting like Daniel (as in Daniel and the lions den) when he was invited to eat at the Kings table. Like Daniel refused the Kings rich meat and wine, the kids did a great job choosing their cut out healthy foods! And Rhett had a fun time being the king.

Even though it's tough to get through the lesson each week, these kids are pretty great. I feel bad for Jake cause he usually has to deal with the crazy boys while I teach the lesson. However, we have learned that the kids are motivated by treats, (like gummy bears) games, and interesting stories with pictures. (: (: Learning a lot! Hopefully we will be a LITTLE bit prepared for what having kids will be like.

Adi Flashback!

Little Adi has grown quite a bit. She is about 5 1/2 months old now. Here are some before and after shots of our little girl! 

AAAHHH!!!! She's getting so big! Look how tall she is!

These next ones you can really see how much she's grown. Here she is as a tiny cute little thing, she used to nap ALL THE TIME! Now she can get super hyper and have a LOT of energy (:

And here she is taking up half the couch!!!! lol She does that alot. She will only sleep on the bed if there is one person there with her, not two. Two doesn't leave her enough room. When she sleeps with just one of us, she literally takes up half the bed while we are clinging to the edge. 

Adi loves to destroy plants. She ate my desert plant I had that was actually starting to grow. As we walk by flowers, she will snap at them, trying to take the blossoms out as we trot along. 

Adi also sleeps on her back. Not ALL the time, but quite a lot. She's kinda weird that way. This pic I tried to get while she was napping, but she heard me haha. 

Adi also loves watermelon, even though it destroys her stomach. She loves playing with bouncy balls, frisbees, plastic pop bottles, and her metal bowls. She loves to try to steal our socks and shoes--seriously, if the door is open a crack, she'll sneak in the room, grab a sock or shoe as fast as she can and then bolt to her hiding corner behind the table. Adi LOVES playing in the water. We can't wait to bring her to the ranch on the lake, or to the ocean. I think we are both attached to this dog. She's more like our kid than an animal :/ 

Our Wedding!!!!!!!!

August 1, 2012

We FINALLY have our wedding photos! They're not edited and look a little darker in the blog than they really are. This day was the start to our happily ever after! I married my best friend, and am so glad I did! We have so much fun and our bond has grown so much over this first year! So grateful for Jake and all he does for me!