Julian, CA

Aaron and I went to Julian for the afternoon on Memorial Day. It's an hour east of San Diego, in the mountains. Julian is an old gold mining town which has decided to stay firmly put in the late 1800's and the apple orchards take over the area in the fall. The town is known for it's pie and surrounding wilderness which lends to hiking and camping. 30 seconds before we left the house, we realized the battery on Aaron's camera is dead, of course, so I'm using random internet photos to memorialize our day.

Here we have a winding road entering Julian.

Random photo of Main street with it's Old West/biker feel. This picture does not do downtown justice. There are old historic buildings and really cute B&Bs all over.

We also went for a hike and this is the weird art sculpture we passed at the trail head. Totally reminded me of the hippy art found all over Santa Barbara. We have no idea what those symbols mean. Hopefully I'm not flashing some Indian gang signs on my blog.

Last, but very much not least, we stopped for some famous pie at Mom's Bakery. The line was out the door, so we were hoping the pie was as good as the hype. It was. We tried Apple-Boysenberry Crumb (looks just like the middle pie below) and it was delicious.

All in all, a good day of exploring. I'll be heading back in the Fall for the apple frenzy. Maybe it will feel just a BIT like Apple Hill?

It's Baseball Season

so Aaron and I decided to go to a Padre's game and show our home team some love. I think Petco Park (where the Padres play) is brilliant because it has something for everyone. For families and people like us who don't like sitting in uncomfortable plastic nosebleed seats there is the "Park at the Park" which is an actual park inside the stadium. It has a huge grassy knoll for people to sprawl out with blankets and a mini baseball diamond for kids to play ball in. Since you can bring food in the stadium it is perfect for a picnic, which is what we did. Best of all, the seats are only $5 a ticket and you have a great view. The picture below is from our seats.

The Padres won their game, but we didn't stay until the end because it went for 16 innings! Last time Aaron and I went to a game it went to 22 innings and ended at 1:30am. Hopefully this isn't something we will encounter each time we go!

GREEN CARD APPROVED!

I know all caps means i'm shouting, but i really am shouting, so it's appropriate.

We had our appointment yesterday and the officer who conducted our interview said she was going to approve Aaron for a green card! YEA! I was pretty nervous going down there again and worried (as usual) about all the details. I calmed a bit then became even more apprehensive when we saw all the other people arrive for their appointments with their ATTORNEYS. oh heavens. We didn't have any hired legal help and I seriously began to question if we should have gotten some. Aaron reminded me that we said a prayer in the car so it would work out and I tried to calm down.

The whole process was odd and I won't detail it here, but it was a solid mix of scary and casual. Aaron should receive his green card in the mail within 30 days. Granted, this is only a conditional green card and in exactly two years from the day it was granted to him, we have to take action to have the conditional status removed or he can be deported (don't even get me started on all the stuff we have to do for that), BUT we are so relieved and excited. I was on the verge of tears when we got out to the car. The whole process seems fake and far away (this is not part of your fantasy of getting married when you are a little girl...), but really this is your life they are deciding and she could have said no and we would have to move and leave all our friends and jobs and life here in San Diego. I can't imagine being separated from Aaron, but I can't imagine him not being able to join me to visit our family and friends in America. I am so thankful we are done with this hurdle and are safe for now. What a blessing!

Melissa, this one's for you

A while back Melissa made a request, via comment, for some wedding pictures. I'm sure she thought I didn't read it or forgot or didn't care. It's none of those. I just am lazy and hadn't gotten around to it. Mostly because I haven't gotten around to doing much with my wedding pictures. Too many things on my plate, but it is a project on my back burner. So, Melissa, these 3 are for you.
Note: I'm a huge fan of candid shots, so I won't say these are the top 3 of what I had to choose from because I have a ton of great pictures, but I like these little snapshots. I stuck this one in for all you Folsom alumni who might be checking out my blog. Sandy and Sis. Stagg probably won't like the fact that they have pretty smiles in all the others and I chose the laughing one, but see the aforementioned note regarding candid shots.

The end.

The Jamison Kids

aka: my nephews and niece. I was going to include this and the Music and the Spoken Word in one post, but I realized I had too many pics and they deserve their own post, anyway.

Ava is such a serious girl. And I think that's why I love her so much. A girl after my own heart. She reminds me I need to lighten up. She's adorable and wonderful and I did see smiles and laughs this weekend, but she usually has her poker face on. Just adds to her charm in my opinion. (And this is my blog, so my opinion goes). Also, she becomes very somber when she sees a camera in her face, but who of us likes a camera shoved in their face?


Next up is Drew. Side note: The longer we are married, the higher Aaron's stock goes up in my book. I say this because I am constantly amazed at how good he is with children. He will be WAY better with our kids than I will be. No jokes. He always knows just what to say and kids are looking at him like he's a hero. Case in point is Drew. Drew has known me longer than Aaron and we are blood relatives, but that doesn't matter to him. He barely spoke to me all weekend, but he was playing and laughing with Aaron 5 minutes after he arrived. I guarantee Drew never would have posed for the camera for me.

As you can see below, Drew didn't even want to pose for a picture with me. But, I love the kid anyway and I know he loves me because on the way home from this walk he asked me to carry him. Aw, he knows how to soften the heart.

Last, but not least, Jayden. I'm so sorry Jayden, but I only got one shot of you at the park and didn't transfer it to my flash drive, so I borrowed your birthday shot from this weekend off your Mom's blog. Btw, Jayden beat me in a push up contest at the park. I know that's not saying much cause I have spaghetti noodles for arms, but the kid is like a snake. All muscle.

Music and the Spoken Word

My company flew me out to Utah this past weekend for a fixed asset software training seminar on Monday morning. I know, totally interesting, but not the subject of my post. Aaron came along for some family bonding with my Grandma coming down from Brigham City and Shelly, Jarrod and their crew came up from Spanish Fork. On Sunday morning some of us attended Music and the Spoken Word. Some of us had never been, some hadn't been in a long time, and one had never even been in the Tabernacle. We were so lucky to have the orchestra there as well. Makes me miss playing a musical instrument!

Aaron came with us, but he's the man behind the camera in this shot.

And one of my favorite places in Utah. My dad, Aaron, and I attended a session on Saturday morning and we were so lucky to get a mini behind the scenes tour from the temple president, President Child! I always spout off the little knowledge I have of rooms in the Salt Lake temple while there and Aaron kept asking if we could get a tour from someone. When we were walking back to the changing rooms we walked past the president and matron and I jokingly said, oh go ask him. Well, Aaron did. They were both so kind and President Child graciously waited for us and then gave us a few peeks behind the scenes. What a wonderful opportunity! I am completely obsessed with this temple, so it was such a delight.

Swine flu near you?

I'm not panicking about the swine flu, but I'd like to be no where near it. I'm weary of being close to the border right now and am stepping up my hand washing and all that jazz. But, I found out this morning that one of our employees just returned from a work conference in Mexico City. I say give the girl 3 days off just to be sure! I'm quite uncomfortable with that! Nope, she's here at work. I'm thinking of emailing her and telling her I will be avoiding her until the end of the week. Maybe I should wear a mask to work to get my point across. Am I crazy to think that's totally irresponsible?

Good ol' Government

I started the process of getting Aaron a green card about a year ago and he and I have been studiously working on it since we were married. Let me tell you, it is no easy task. It is extremely overly complicated and expensive. Many people ask me why I haven't changed my name yet. One government project at a time, please. The things we've had to do are borderline ridiculous, but will obviously be worth it for Aaron to stay in America. I'm not hip on the idea of moving to Canada.
Anyway, yesterday we were scheduled for our initial interview for his permanent residency application (green card). My presence was required as well since I am sponsoring him from our marriage. I've been sweating this interview since we found out about it. We took half a day off work to drive down south (plus I don't want to go NEAR the border right now...) for the interview. It's totally intense to get in the place. Security won't let you in without an appointment and proper ID, they xray you and all your stuff (similar to the airport), and the workers are behind bullet proof glass, etc... Short of the long, we get up to the window only to find out our appointment has been rescheduled, but no one bothered to let us know. Awesome! Of course, our letter clearly stated that if we had missed our appointment, we would most likely have to start the process over. Glad the government is so understanding. Frustrating! I'm so eager to get this process over with!! Grrr. Our next appointment is May 13th. Or so they say. Stay tuned.

And he's back!

If any of you have paid attention to Aaron's hair over the last 6 months (not that I expect you to), you'd have noticed a bit of an evolution taking place. Since we were married, he decided he wanted to grow out his hair and have lustrious surfer hair that he could get out of his eyes with a flip of his head. He started out saying he wanted hair like Aaron Eckhart in Batman: The Dark Knight, so I was all for that. But, that's not what it came to be. Aaron has extremely thick hair with a nice curl to it, so it didn't behave like he anticipated. Not wanting to cut his hard work, he convinced himself that if it grew longer, it would go straight. Being a girl and having fought with my hair for about 20 years, I know this to be a fallacy, but he was determined. After the hike we did two weekends ago, I think he saw the light and realized it was time for a change. All he had to do was say the words and I quickly booked an appointment with my hair girl. We are very happy with the finished product, but thought we would photograph the change for the sake of posterity.


Before:


After:

I rest my case. Two notes: 1. Although the pictures would make you think the hair cut has subdued him, it hasn't. 2. Sorry the first picture looks like a polaroid. I had to crop some of the bare shoulder action he had going on and my computer at work has very limited editing abilities. I like to keep this blog G rated.

Earth Day Fair

We're done with church at noon on Sunday and since our apartment is so small, when the afternoon rolls around, we get a bit stir crazy. I heard there was an Earth Day fair going on at Balboa Park, so we decided to walk around and check it out. Side note: If you haven't been to Balboa Park, make it a must see next time you visit San Diego. It is a great place to just walk around and enjoy being outside. It is one of our favorite things to do. In fact, that was our first date. I could spend multiple posts on the museums, gardens, architecture, history, zoo, yada, yada, yada and still not properly convey it's greatness. This is a picture of us walking into the park on the bridge that crosses the 163. The tall tower on the left is part of the Museum of Man.

Since it was an Earth Day fair I knew we'd see an "interesting" mix of people. That's half the fun! We enjoyed a concert from a local Hari Chrishna ensemble. They were totally jammin and had quite the crowd.

I got the chance to save a seal and make sure it had a heart beat.

Oh, and since it was Sunday, we took a minute to listen to this guy and receive a more interesting dose of the scriptures than what we had that morning at church. Although he looks like he's doing a tribute to Hitler, it wasn't so. At least I don't think it was. He was arguing with some people, so I'm pretty sure he was condeming them to Hell. All in all, a nice sunny afternoon out and about in San Diego.

A Little Hike

Aaron knows I love to hike and recently bought me a book on hikes in San Diego County, so we decided to give one a try this weekend. Cowle's Mountain is a mountain pretty much plopped in the middle of eastern San Diego. I have hiked the front of the mountain (the south side) many, many times, but it's not much of a hike to me because you can be up and back in less than an hour. There are 3 ways to get to the top of this mountain and I had heard the back way (the north eastern approach) was the hardest, so I wanted to give that a try. It wasn't too bad, but it definitely gives you a work out. Below is a picture of what we still had left when we were about half way up. That small dirt road in the top left of the picture was our path.The last 1/4 of the hike is some serious uphill business. I love up hill running and hiking (for some odd reason) and this was a great challenge. Below is a picture of what we were walking up and trying not to slide back down. Our bodies were bent almost completely at a 90 degree angle from the waist up to help balance gravity. What a great workout for your legs!

This was our view from the top. We faced east to take this picture. If you turned around you'd be able to see downtown San Diego, the ocean, Coronado, La Jolla, Mexico, the whole bit. Too bad the sun was shining directly into the camera or I would have taken a picture of that.

Is Aaron's hair not out of control? Granted, we just worked out butts off and were sweating like pigs, so no one cared about how they looked at the moment, but just the sheer volume of his hair amazes me. He's having a mid 20s crisis and not sure what to do with it. Normally it's not so big. I think the wind at the top of the mountain gave it a little lift...

Just Gopher It!

Step 1: Pick up the trash with the Gopher. Look how easy it is! You don't have to bend over!

Step 2: Put trash in bag. No need to dirty your hands by touching the item!

Step 3: Dispose of the trash bag in the proper receptacle and feel good about the difference you've made!

In simplified and cheesified terms, that was my Sunday afternoon. There is an elderly woman in our neighborhood who I see picking up trash each morning when I walk to the trolley station. After seeing that for weeks, it got me thinking, if she can do it, why can't I? Maybe I should have a little neighborhood pride, too. Heaven knows there is plenty of trash to pick up in my neck of the woods. Aaron and I take a Sunday afternoon walk each week anyway, so I might as well do something useful while walking. That is how we came to own "The Gopher". I guess it is on an informercial, so the packaging is super cheesey and features good ol' Billy Mays. It's actually pretty handy and made it nice because I didn't have to touch the garbage. Our walk was a little awkward at first because all the people we passed stared like we were crazy (apparently they don't have community pride, like us), but we got the hang of it. Poor Aaron is such a great sport for humoring me with all my wacky ideas! While we were walking, I asked him if this is what he thought married life would be like and he said, "Not quite".

I had a creativity itch

I scratched it and once again remembered why I chose a profession where creativity is strongly discouraged. I realized after taking the pictures that I didn't actually capture any humans in my photographs, so to prove I have friends, I'll name the body parts below. Jen's hand is on the left and Sandy's stomach and elbows are on the right. We celebrate each holiday together by making something related to the season and then watch The Office and 30 Rock after. A perfect night! Normally we decorate sugar cookies, but we did Easter eggs this round. The finished product is below. I think projects like this will be fun and about 10 minutes into it I lose interest because my ability is so limited. But the girls had some good decorating ideas. I drew a face on one of my eggs and dunked it what was supposed to be purple, but turned out blue with purple stains near the head of my egg. We were trying to decide if it looked like a homicide victim or Gorbachev. It's bottom row, 4th from the left.

The beauty below is my greatest creation. This egg cracked while I was hard boiling it and since the crack was perfectly limited to it's head, I decided to paint it like Humpty Dumpty. Or try. Sorry the photo is so blurry. I'm not that great with cameras.

The Good ol' Days

This weekend I was watching "Where the Heart Is" courtesy of the La Mesa library. (Side note: I LOVE this library. I love the library in general. I borrow so many great movies and books for free! Who doesn't love getting things for free? Plus, it's less than a mile from our house so Aaron and I often walk there and it's in between my two favorite grocery stores. Nevermind the fact that a prostitute tried to solicit Aaron in front of it one night, but that's a story for another time.)

If you've never seen the movie, through a series of unfortunate events, Natalie Portman finds herself 9 months pregnant and secretly living in a Wal Mart at night. During one scene of the movie, it shows the Wal Mart closing at 9pm. I thought to myself, "Wal Marts don't close. They're 24 hours". Aahhh, it dawned on me that this movie is old enough that it was made in the good ol' days when Wal Mart wasn't poised to take over the world and people weren't so obsessed with shopping there that they need to save $0.45 on a pack of batteries at 3am! I miss those days.

Also, if you image google "Wal Mart", you'll see some pretty funny images, like the one below from Business Week magazine. I guess some other people feel like I do...

Is that you, Spencer?

I was watching the film, Dead Poets Society, this weekend and fell in love with it. I'd seen it a long time ago, but now I actually appreciate how wonderful it is. During my viewing, I also discovered something else. A young and cheeky Ethan Hawke looks strikingly similar to my nephew, Spencer! Like, a lot. This isn't the best picture for resemblance, but it was the best I could find online. I came to this conclusion on my own and then when Aaron was watching it, I mentioned it and he was totally blown away by it, too. So, Spencer, you've got a pretty cute mug. I know most of my friends won't see the resemblance cause they probably haven't seen Spencer lately, but family, rent it and watch it and tell me what you think.