Valentine's Day!

Ok, so this has nothing to do with Valentine's Day, but I'm just SOOO excited about the fact that our house has been free of bottles for about a month now, YAY!!! Jake is finally starting to like (or at least tolerate) milk from the sippy, so all is well now ;) Another milestone DOWN!!

Flashback: Steve and I on Valentine's Day 4 YEARS AGO in 2006, wow...

Ok, back to the present :) Steve got me the COOLEST bouquet of flowers I have ever seen. The picture does NOT do it justice! He found it at a Farmer's Market and they said the flowers are from South Africa.

Some of the flowers had feathers around the edge, SO COOL!

We went bowling, which was something we hadn't done for SOOO long, and it was really fun! While we were waiting, we played some arcade games and we got a little squeaky frog for Jake with the tickets we won, hehe. It kept him busy at church for about 2 minutes.... ;)

Ok, so this will probably never happen again, but...... I BEAT Steve the first game, YEAH!! Just don't laugh at our scores, haha.

And then..... I did even worse, and Steve almost doubled my score.... typical ;)

So, Steve got a video camera case and a movie, I got some new shirts, and Jake got a little basketball hoop set for the tub! I think Steve has more fun with it though.. Oh yeah, side note: we left Jake with a babysitter, and unfortunately he did not have a good report :( I guess he was pretty crabby and didn't go to sleep very easily. But I have to cut the little guy some slack because he did have 2 molars break through 2 days later! Anyways, we hope everyone had a FABULOUS Valentine's Day, or as Steve says, "Happy Love Day."

Our Home, the Hotel :)

We have had quite the busy house lately, but we have had a BLAST!! In the middle of January, Steve's parents and sister, Gina, came to visit from Idaho (Gina got picked up in Utah). They stayed for a week and then 2 weeks later, my sister Emily and her hubby David came from Provo to visit us for a long weekend! We love living in a place where people can come and keep busy with all the AWESOME things to do around here! However, it helps when California weather cooperates, which it does most of the time, but when our visitors were here it ended up raining a few of the days :/ We still had fun, though!!

There are some really pretty trails just 15 minutes away, and the weather was beautiful (on this day anyway, haha) so we just HAD to check it out! Here are Steve's parents and Gina, and Jake in the backpack :)

The weather was still perfect the next day, so we ventured out to San Diego, and visited Coronado (currently our FAVORITE beach to come to).

Beach baby!!

Ha, yeah so by the end of the day, Jake was SOAKED from the water! Steve was walking next to him and a wave came that was stronger than he thought and it totally knocked Jake over into the water.... it was sad but really funny :) Good thing I had a change of clothes for him!

Last day of sun... So we went down to San Diego again and went on a 3 hour whale watching cruise! It was actually awful at first because it was really windy and the way the boat was rocking back and forth made us a little woozy. A little girl about Jake's age kept throwing up, actually, it was SO sad. And really gross!! Anyways, after the first hour the boat slowed down so we could see the whales, and it was fun again, thank goodness!

This was the best shot I got of the whales. See that little tiny white splash in the water?? That's it! Haha... kinda pathetic ;)

Later that day we went to Balboa park to go to a Train Museum, which is a big hobby for Steve's dad, and Steve is pretty into it, too.

This train set-up is made totally from Lego's! So cool!!

Balloon animals! Daffy Duck, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, Belle, The Hulk, Little Mermaid and Mario!!

And then the rains came.... this picture is worth 1000 words, seriously!! We tried venturing out even though it was raining, and we ended up going out to lunch to a place we had never been to, and it was pretty much a shack with vinyl shades that were NOT good at keeping rain out! The shade next to Steve kept blowing from the wind and was pretty close to hitting him in the head a few times! It was cold, and windy, and we were getting wet, and the food was terrible and expensive! I don't really know why we stayed, but we now have a good story that we can laugh at, I guess, haha.

Ok, so that's the end of Steve's family being here :( ................ but then we were ready for Emily and David! It rained when they were here too, unfortunately! But we went to the mall around here and Carlisle from Twilight was there!! That was the first celebrity I've seen in person, it was kinda cool. And he looks WAY younger in real life than he does on the movies.

Jake's "Cheese" face again, hehe

I love you guys, thanks for coming!!!!! It'll have to be LONGER next time and hopefully it won't rain :)

Cheese!!

Man, does this kid love CHEESE. It's a good thing he's not lactose-intolerant, because I'd have to come up with another half day's worth of food! String cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches are staples at this house now, and if any of you are wondering, he doesn't even get constipated! His body must be made for eating lots of CHEESE....

Jake has even mastered the cheesiest "cheese" smile I have ever seen! It's one of his favorite ways to make us laugh, and it gets us every time, it's just so darn cute. It usually happens randomly, which is part of why it is so funny, but he also does it when he's prompted ;) Hilarious!