Surprise...

John is sick again. He's been a little under the weather for about 2 weeks now. Then he got a cough that started a week and a half ago. SO not fun. Prayers for us would be appreciated. We're not quite sure when all the sickness will END!

Mission San Diego de Alcala

So we're not really sure where you put the accent on that last word. AL-ca-la? al-ca-LA? al-CA-la? Any insight would be helpful ;)

Anyway, (we did this earlier in the week before we saw Elizabeth and Jeff) we visited the mission, which happens to be the first mission built in California. Some of it was under renovation, but we still got to see a lot of it.

Anyone home?

Hello!

The garden/courtyard

Basically...a mud hut

Just my size :)

And while the mission was cool and interesting, I think my favorite part of the day was afterward when we went to IKEA. LOVE! ;)

Date Night!

So we're trying to be better about actually planning our dates on Friday nights. All too often it's "so, what would you like to do tonight?" "I don't know."

SO I got to plan first, and because it was raining most of the week, I tried to do something where we could stay at home, warm and dry, and it was still exciting ;)

What I came up with was bringing the outside inside! (Sort of)
I cut out trees and flowers out of construction paper, as well as a little stack of firewood and crumpled orange, red and yellow paper for a fire. Then I made a yummy chicken vegetable cobbler and told John he had to pretend it was made in a dutch oven. We spread out a big picnic blanket and had a little picnic with yummy food and hot chocolate :)

I also used green and brown sheets to cover the furniture to make it more "forest-y"

Aren't my trees and fire CUTE?!

Getting ready to eat our picnic

John was excited for the large marshmallows in his cocoa

After dinner we had a board/card game MARATHON

I had also tried to get glow in the dark stars to go "star gazing" afterward...but can you believe that we searched for an hour and a half the night before at 3 or 4 different places?! If you hear of anywhere with glow in the dark stars...let me know. I have yet to check Toys R Us ;)

A mini adventure

So we had about a week to relax and recover from our big vacation. Then we had another mini adventure! My best friend Elizabeth got married on the 8th and she and her new husband Jeff were coming back from their honeymoon cruise to California! So we got to pick them up from the port and spend a couple hours with them before we took them to the airport and sent them back to Arizona. It was so fun to see her again! Unfortunately, we missed the wedding because we were in Virginia, but this way, we got them all to ourselves ;) It was great to see them, they looked so happy. It reminded me of our big day, and how special that was and how happy we were :)

We totally got lost trying to find their port, but we finally made it. We stopped for lunch at a shopping mall and then walked around and played with stuff in the stores. (Liz and my favorite activity in malls) We found a kids area with large punctuation, played the drums, and tried on hats. :)

The newlyweds :)

the 5-month newlyweds ;) haha

hee hee

we made the boys try hats too

A! For Ashley!

Elizabeth?

John &...John ;)

Jeff!

The guys really liked these funky chairs

Congratulations Elizabeth and Jeff! We were so happy to see you!!!!

The part where we become spies.

Our next adventure was to the international spy museum in DC. It was definitely our favorite museum we went to our whole trip. It was so cool! Photography was NOT allowed, so we don't have any cool pictures of us there, but I found some pictures on Google that (i hope) are legal ;)

But anyway, we learned all about spies and the cool gadgets they used and the history of espionage and the museum is very interactive. They have choose a cover and you have to memorize the details and live your cover. There are computers that ask you questions about your cover, to test how much you remember and you're given a mission. It was so fun! we totally felt like spies. ;) The exhibits were very, very interesting. Definitely recommend it!!

This is me being sneaky ;)

Anyway, we had a lot of fun. After the spy museum, we had some lunch and then checked out the air and space museum. By the time we were all done with that, we were exhausted and ready to get the metro back home.

While at home, my mom enlisted me as her "expert in cake decoration" for her relief society workshop called "Relief Society University". After a little entrance exam and a class on goal setting, I gave a little demo oh making borders and taught the sisters how to make stars and shells. It was a hit! It was great to do that with my mom.

This was great practice for my future food network show ;)

John and Jason were in charge of nursery. As the only little person that came didn't want to stay with them, we found the boys later like this:

ha ha ha But the workshop went really well. :)

Finally, (we're getting to the end of our trip!!) we played lots of games, made gingerbread houses and just enjoyed being together.

We used premade sets by wilton, but they turned out really good!

I did the big one. I'm quite proud of it. :)

Jennifer with Sandi.

Jen helped me make cinnamon rolls for our smorgasbord of goodies on New Years' Day

When it was finally all over, we caught a veeeeeerrrrry early flight to come back home. We'd had a blast, but we were ready to get back to a schedule and have some down time. We are so grateful for our families and the time we had to spend with them over the holidays. We love you!!!

Brrrrrrr!

Our next adventure was at an ice sculpture exhibit called ICE! (original, yeah?) It was so cool! Literally. The tent that held the exhibit was kept at a toasty temperature of 9 degrees fahrenheit! Crazy huh? We wore ski pants and coats and had heavy duty boots and hats and gloves. They also give you a bright blue parka to wear and so we ended up looking like large blue marshmallows. :) But it was so fun. The detail on the sculptures was amazing. We still couldn't figure out how some of it was made. But it was incredible.

Welcome to ICE!

Nice horsey...

ahhh...

doin' a little penguin dance

poor john. He's so cold!

This castle was amazing!! And we totally went down the slides that are on either side of this picture.

santa's ice toy shop

Oh no! The peep's friend has been frozen solid!!

This was the last display you saw before you left. It was a beautiful depiction of the nativity scene.

When we got out of the tent, we decided it was worse outside with all of the wind!!!! John is not going to be happy in Chicago... ;)

Next comes the part where we become SPIES

A MILLION DOLLARS!

As promised! John and I went up to DC on our own a couple times to see the sights. It had been a while since either of us had been there and that week my family was back to school and work, so we went and did our own thing. Our first day in DC we went to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. We weren't allowed to take pictures on the tour, but they had some fun stuff to look at before and after.

On display they had a million dollars in large sheets of uncut $10 notes. Cool, huh?

!!!! But they weren't giving out free samples that day. sad.

The column behind john is shredded money.

Hey! No cheating!

I'm short. :)

After the Bureau of Engraving, we went to go up the Washington Monument. It was FREEZING waiting in line! And then we didn't realize we needed tickets (they're free, what's the POINT?!) so we had to go BACK and then get in line again. The flags were stiff on their poles, it was so windy! But when we finally made it in, it was definitely worth it. We got to go up to the top and see the view. On the way down, there were parts of the elevator ride where you could see the interior of the monument. All the 50 states donated commemorative stones and you could see them on the inside. it was really cool!

John took this picture while we were waiting in line. It's really nice, isn't it?

View of the white house from the top of the monument.

Another pretty view :)

After the Washington Monument, we were very happy to get inside the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian. We looked at lots of rocks and animals and skeletons. :)

With the large elephant at the front

John with his new friend

This is me trying to face off a dinosaur skull. Pretty sure I won.

I didn't face him, he's scary! ;)

...Kevin? Is that you? (Seen the movie UP! ?)

Raar!

Ooo shiny!!!!

We went to the Smithsonian Castle, looking for the tomb of Kahmunrah, but no such luck.

Say hello to the Capitol!

When we finally got back on the trains and metro to go back home, we were exhausted, but we had a very fun day in the city.

Stay Tuned for 2 MILLION POUNDS OF ICE! and 9degree weather!!!