The Wild Animal Park

Dan and I went with our friends Seth and Cindy to San Diego to check out the Wild Animal Park!

Here we are chillin' with the Gorillas.
I loved the flamingos. I think it is funny that they fall asleep on one leg.This is Dan and Seth playing on the lilly pads, and yes they are meant for kids but who cares!

Here is a lion sleeping on a car. I had no idea that lions sleep 20 hours a day!I love the baby elephants!

Here is Dan petting a deer at the petting zoo.

I think they are supposed to be fox ears...

A Christmas Treasure Hunt?

This year Dan decided to spice things up and for my last present I got a clue, which started the treasure hunt to my present! After going 4 different places and finally ending up outside at our storage closet I found a huge box! Dan carried it into the apartment for me and I was able to unwrap it! I was so excited... I got a rocking chair and ottoman! This has been on my wish list for when the baby comes :) Here are some Christmas pics...

Both of us grew up eating little cereals for Christmas breakfast, so we have continued that fun tradition!

Baking is fun to do!

Dan and I decided to bake some treats for our friends! We made 16 plates of an assortment of fudge, red & green rice crispy treats, carmel bars, and chocolate drops. Have a merry Christmas everyone!

Our Visit to the LBC!

Dan and I visited Long Beach for the first time last week! My grandparents decided to come visit my uncle and his family who live in Arcadia. Due to the snowy weather in Utah their plane was delayed for 5 hours so we got a chance to check out things around Long Beach :) We visited the Queen Mary, a famous cruise ship harbored in Long Beach. Above is a Russian sub that was there also, we are not exactly sure why it was there!
I thought this was an awesome telephone booth!

We found the infamous Russian commander, Aleksey Dazdraperma, wandering around the gift shop. He didn't seem too happy to have tourists taking his picture!

Since we had lots of time on our hands we went to the beach. Here I am chillin at the lifeguard stand.

Christmas Festivities

Last Sunday Dan and I went to hear the Riverside Master Chorale Concert! It was at this beautiful old protestant church downtown in Riverside. The choir sang some music that was the genre of The Messiah. The composer of it actually wrote the music to the musical Newsies, the Mighty Duck movies, the new pixar movie Wall-e and tons of other movie music. The cool thing was that the composer was at the performance that night, kinda fun! Then the choir sang some familiar Christmas songs and at parts we got to sing along.

I tried to take a picture of the church, but it was dark so this is the best I could do!Tonight was the third night of Advent. If you listened to the 1st Presidency Devotional you will know of this German tradition that President Uchtdorf spoke of. Tonight's book that we read was one of Dan's favorites, " How the Grinch Stole Christmas".

A California Christmas

We got together with a group of friends from our ward last night. We first went to dinner at Olive Garden then went down town to the Mission Inn and checked out the Christmas lights. It is funny how things are a little different in California. Check out the lights on the palm trees, and who knew that they planted poinsettia's in the ground? Since the weather down here is so warm it was fun to see the lights, it made it feel a little more like Christmas.

Oh, Christmas Tree!

Growing up, my family always had a fake Christmas tree. It always seemed so simple to take the tree out of its box put it together, and when Christmas was over return it to the box until the next year. I never thought twice about fake Christmas trees until last year, the year of our first Christmas tree (the year before we were moving right around Christmas, so we decided not to do a tree). I found out that I was married to a die hard "real-tree" fanatic. When the subject of Christmas trees comes up I immediately receive the list of why real trees are better: They smell better, its funner to go choose a tree, if you want a good looking fake tree you have to pay the price, etc. This year Dan has come up with a new reason why real-trees are better. Believe it or not a tree-hugger should prefer his Christmas tree freshly cut, then manufactured...It's greener to go REAL! If you are interested in his argument, I'll have him explain at the end of the post. But first, what really matters...PICTURES!!!

Here's Dan with this year's version of our Christmas tree tied to the roof of our little Hyundai! We found it at the Home Depot, its a pretty decent tree and we got it for $20, so we were happy! They were nice to tie the tree up in plastic mesh before we left, which made fitting it in our elevator much easier.

Here is our finished product. Not too bad is it! I love Christmastime! Okay, so according to Dan, apparently most fake trees are made of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which Dan learned in his Soil Chemistry class has some of the nastiest biproducts during its manufacturing that you can get (its bad for the soil, so of course its bad for people too). Most of that stuff gets gets pumped into the air, which is fine if you are in America, but not if you're in China since 80% or so of fake trees are made there (plus China's air pollution can make it over to us anyway, but that's another story). On average most Americans buy a new fake tree every 6 years or so, which means more gunk is made during production and the old tree sits in the landfill. To make this explanation short, most real trees are grown on tree farms which use marginal land (not good for growing much else) and as we know, plants use up CO2 instead of producing it. Most communities compost trees after the end of the Christmas season adding Organic Carbon to the soil instead of back to the air. That in the end reduces your carbon footprint if you are keeping track. Of course, chemical pesticides and fertilizers are used on tree farms, but for the sake of this argument we'll say that those impacts are neglible. Your best bet for the most environmentally sound Christmas is buying a live tree in a pot and planting it after Christmas, but they're expensive and don't usually look that nice. So next time you think about buying a fake tree, think twice about it! Go Real!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Dan's brother, Carl, and his family came to visit us for Thanksgiving weekend! They came Wednesday night and stayed 'til Monday morning. Even though there were only four adults at dinner we didn't skimp, and had a full out Thanksgiving dinner. Dan even cooked his first turkey, it didn't turn out too bad either, and we're still enjoying turkey leftovers.

Friday morning we continued our three year long tradition of Black Friday shopping madness. We didn't get the same crazy sweet deals as last year, but it was way fun and we did find some cheap movies (I got Sleeping Beauty for 11 bucks) and cheap clothes. We are not sure if the tradition will have to be put on hold for the next few (or many) years, since we'll have a little one next Thanksgiving.

We spent some time at the UCR Botanic Gardens, which is one of our favorite places to go. We all, even Eric, had a lot of fun. Be prepared for a bunch of pictures with us and our cute nephew. First up is Dan teaching Eric the reproductive parts of a flower, don't worry he only made Eric blush twice.

This is one of my favorites. Uncle Dan and Eric looking down at the university and counting buildings.

We also went downtown and checked out all the festivities there, including the Festival of trees. It wasn't anything like the one at the Expo Center in Sandy, but it was still fun to see all the trees.

One night us ladies were itching for a trip to the craft store. We had a fun time keeping our nephew distracted and trying to stop him from grabbing expensive crafting supplies. Check out this little gem I caught on tape.