And the winner was...

Thanks to everyone and their ideas for what to do with my vacation time. We actually decided to go on a small trip after all so we went to the Central Coast again and had a nice relaxing couple of days. We hung out at Avila Beach, walked around Pismo, did some shopping at the outlets, and actually saw two movies, Salt and Inception at the drive in theatre. On our last day we drove up to Morro Bay...eh...it was ok. I don't think Morro Bay was our favorite but now we know.
We came home pretty fried from our day at the beach. We brought sunscreen with us but totally forgot it at the hotel so ended up going without. JR and the sun=enemies. Even I got sunburned so you can only imagine what my whitey husband looks like right now.
I'm trying to get JR to grow his hair out and try something new. He's been doing really well and has been patient. What do you guys think of the new hair?
For those of you who read our anniversary post you'll remember that JR chickened out of eating chocolate covered bugs. Well he was dead set on redeeming himself this time around so bought a nice dried out scorpion and ate it all up. He even went without the chocolate coating to show what a man he is. Apparently it didn't taste like anything.

There is this ice cream shop in Arroyo Grande that makes ice cream in the store and you can watch and they do shows and such. We didn't get to see anything since we were running late for our movie but I bet it would have been cool if we had. The ice cream was good but maybe spending $4 on a single scoop of ice cream is a little absurd.
Morro Bay...and another good shot of JR's hair. I think it looks great! He still thinks it looks like bed head.




So no more vacation for us for awhile. :( I'm really happy we got to get out one more time though this summer. Here's to a the upcoming month of hard work!

36 hours and nothing to do

I realized this past week that I still have 36 hours of vacation time to burn through before September when I will then lose it. Every year working at the University of Phoenix I have taken FULL advantage of all of my vacation time (and then some). I can't take any vacation time in August either so I basically have a week and a half to use this but we have nothing planned. I'm thinking a short weekend trip somewhere will be fun but I'm not sure we can pull it off with JR's work. So, what do you all suggest I do with my 36 hours?

Trip to AZ

Well our trip home to AZ has come and gone. We had a wonderful, busy busy trip and it's a bitter sweet feeling being home. I hate being away from my family and friends but it's nice to be back in my own bed and have a closet instead of a suitcase. Our trip started out in Mesa, then to Central, Virden New Mexico, Florence back to Mesa, Prescott, and finally Kingman. We tried to be even with everyone and we didn't get much friend time but we feel blessed to have been able to see as many people as we did. We sure do miss everyone and for those of you who we didn't get to see, there is always next time right? If not, the plan is still to move back a year from now so we can get back to normal!
It was so much fun being around all of our nieces and nephews. We don't get much kid time here in Fresno so going from a house of 2 to a house with 8 adults and 11 kids was what one might call...uh, lively? And that was just at my parents. We also got some good kid time at JR's mom's house.
Remember how I used to like to take pictures of everything? Well I took one picture on this trip and that was of the beautiful new temple in the Gila Valley. We had the opportunity to go there and although the session was full we got to do sealings. What a lovely temple it is.

This was definitely a highlight of the trip. Other highlights included having a girls night (er, day?) with my sisters, JR being able to play golf with some of his friends. Having lunch with Mesa and Prescott friends, hanging out with our pals the Carpenters, leveling my mom's yard and putting in a fountain (that's right, picture me, my mom, and my sister Amy in the front yard doing this in our pajamas). Spending countless hours pushing kids on the swings, seeing Eclipse, seeing JR's grandparents, playing with the dogs at JR's dad's house, driving the car for hours and hours every 3 days (ok not so much that last part), home made ice cream on the 4th of July, wow, this list could go on and on. Mainly we just enjoyed being with everyone, your presence alone made it all worth it! We love you all very much and can't wait for Christmas to do it all over again!