Birthday Weekend

We had a great weekend celebrating my birthday a couple of weeks ago! Let's be honest ~ 27 ~ these are starting to not be as fun anymore. "Late 20's" definitely feels much more adult than the rest.

We had a fun low-key weekend which was exactly what I wanted!

On Friday, Adam took me to Javier's for lunch. We've been wanting to go there for a while and my crab and shrimp chimichanga didn't disappoint. It was incredible!


Saturday night we went out and celebrated with friends at Cheesecake Factory ~ good food and friends ~ perfect!



My mini-sundae as my birthday treat . . . hmmm . . . what happened to free cheesecake? Luckily Courtney pulled some strings to get me a piece of my favorite ~ Godiva!



Lastly, I got this awesome little 10 seconds of a birthday present which is just so darn cute.




I mean, I know I'm partial, but her expression on the first "to you" and the way she says "birthday" are just incredible. I could watch it a million times ... maybe I have.

Happy Thanksgiving week!!

Catching Up: Adam's birthday

So I guess it's not really fair for me to blog about my own birthday yet considering that I haven't even gotten to Adam's!

October is a big birthday month around these parts so Adam shared his birthday celebration dinner with Courtney and Ryanne ~ happy birthday, friends!!!

Excited about the big birthday bash at Benihana:


Friends:




It was a great meal and always entertaining when your dinner is being cooked right in front of you. Yum!

The little stickers from the favor bags:


The official group photo:


Happy 27, Adam!

Did you know?

Did you know that Raegan has her own blog now?


Cool!

Catching Up: 2nd Anniversary!

For our 2nd Anniversary ~ Oct 1! ~ we had a fun little stay-cation for a night in Newport Beach!

I can't believe it's been 2 years ~ everyone always says this but time really does fly. We love being married to each other and have had so much fun over the past 24 months!

A little reminder of 10.01.06:


It was a super busy time for me at work and I knew that we needed to get out of the house to be able to really relax and enjoy a little anniversary celebration so we pricelined for a 4-star hotel at the beach and got (don't hold your breath) the Hyatt Newporter. I think it has seen better days, like probably in the late 70's, but it was still fun to get to spend time down at the beach (we're so close and rarely actually go down there just for fun) and with each other!

We started with an afternoon at Crystal Cove ~




Followed by a jaunt to the Shake Shack (not to be confused with this) on PCH that I've never actually been to before:


We checked into our hotel (and got upgraded to a suite ~ that never happens to us!) and got ready for our dinner reservation at the Cannery ~ a restaurant from the list that I've been wanting to try.


We had a really fun evening ~ we both loved the building and atmosphere! The food was pretty good but it was late on a Sunday evening so there were only a few other patrons. (*Sidenote ~ I left my hairbrush at home so I decided to try to go for the natural wavy look ~ I think it ended up more like the you forgot to brush your hair look ~ oh well, I tried!).


Because it was our first time in, they gave us a free dessert ~ the Balboa Sundae was incredible! AND, it gets better! I told the waiter we were debating between the Sundae and the chocolate cake and so he brought them both! Wow! I'm such a sucker for chocolate!


The next morning, we woke up and headed over for a stroll through Fashion Island and finished with my favorite Cobb Salad at The Daily Grill!

It was so great to get away (I only checked email on my phone once the whole time!) and celebrate and spend time together!

Can't wait to see what year #3 holds in store for us!

Catching up: Scottsdale Trip!

In late September (yes - I said September - I know I'm a little tardy), my family went to Scottsdale for a mini-vacation! It was fun having everyone out a little closer to us - we actually got to drive there while everyone else flew, for a change!

My grandmother aka Mither and Anne ready to go in Nashville:


The reason for the trip was that J.Alexander's had a new restaurant opening there (we know some people) and opening weekends are the BEST - so we thought we'd just all make a vacation of it!


Adam and I were feeling pretty under the weather, but it actually worked out great as we really got to relax and recover - might as well be doing it in Scottsdale, right? There was plenty of shopping, relaxing, emergency McDonald's runs for the pregnant one, swimming, football-watching - it was so fun to just all be together and hang out (sorry we missed you Dan).

The boys all played golf one day on a really nice course - Adam said he played the worst he ever has - nice!:



Enjoying the scenery - you can see a little pooch!


Breakfast at the famous Pancake House - Anne got the Apple Pancake - wow!


The main event at J. Alexander's - for openings, they always have a couple of practice days for the servers - we're happy to let them practice on us anytime!!




A few days and about 10 pounds later, we rolled back home to life, work, and reality in SoCal ~ luckily we found this special thing on the way home - someone was VERY excited:



We have a nerdy little family game that we play to all keep track of the different J.Alexander's locations that we've been to. It's really fun to see the different restaurant layouts, decors, etc. I know - I confessed it was nerdy up front. So with the addition of Scottsdale, this brings me to 14 out of 33 - the recent additions of Orlando and soon-to-be Jacksonville locations really hurt to bring me to less than 50%. Hoping to up that number again soon! Anyone wanna go to Denver?

Visiting Jaime

So, I was just cleaning the pics off my camera and there is LOTS to blog about! I'm way behind (aren't we all this time of year?) but hoping to catch up soon!

In an effort not to lose more ground, I'll start with an update from last night when we went up again to UCLA to hang out with Josh, Jaime, and Cole for while.



It was SO good to see her doing so well and even hearing talk of her getting to possibly come home this week - so exciting!

Hanging out with Courtney and Raegan:


Cole with Aunt Chaundel:


Election day - I think his vote went to "Release Mom from the hospital!":



While we were there, we took them a book of photos of all of their friends who are missing and thinking about them. Here are a couple of favorites that I thought you might enjoy!!