Just around the corner

Driving home from church yesterday I noticed leaves on the grass under the trees and in the gutters. On my way to work today I saw orange in the hills, that means only one thing! Fall is coming! My favorite season! It seems a little early, it's only August 20th! But I'm ready to be done with this 95-100 degree weather every day. I hate going home and not be able to change into comfy sweats and lounge about. Bring on the over-sized sweaters, boots and scarves!
There's also something so enticing about the cool fall breeze that makes me want to bake pumpkin cookies and eat delicious soups and stress over thinking of the perfect Halloween costume even though we have no where to wear them to and watch Hocus Pocus until I drive Mark crazy! *side note, one day I want to go to Salem Massachusetts during the fall and re-live the witch trials. That is soo interesting to me. Fall is such a colorful holiday and smells so warm and comforting. I can't wait for fall here in Danville, it's so beautiful! Oh fall, hurry up :)

Here's to a Billion More!

Yesterday marked our 2nd anniversary! Can you believe that because I sure can't! It seems like we just got married a couple months ago, time flies.
We celebrated by going to Monterey on Saturday. We wanted a relaxing day at the beach and decided that since neither of us has really ever been to Monterey, that was the perfect place to explore!
Our day started by laying out on the beach, which started out a little chilly but by lunch time it was nice and warm and we were in our bathing suits getting our tan on! We had a little picnic with chocolate covered strawberries! *side note, I dipped the strawberries in melted hershy chocolate bars! Best decision ever!

After getting nice and toasty, and Mark getting antsy (I could have laid there all day!), we packed up our blankets and picnic basket, threw them in the car and headed to the pier on the marina. We weren't sure what was down there, which ended up not being much, but we saw a lot of seals and pelicans!

Then we walked over to the Fisherman's Warf. There were so many restaurants and they were all handing out samples of clam chowder, soo good and the perfect little snack!

Later we headed to Cannery Row, which use to be (maybe still is?) where they packed sardines. It's now full of shopping, restaurants and the famous Monterey Bay Aquarium, which we didn't go to but is amazing! I went there for a field trip in high school. We wandered around Cannery Row and then found a cute place for dinner.
After dinner we headed back toward the car, pulled out the blankets and went to sit on the beach and watch the sunset. There was a wedding going on right next to us and it of course made me think back to our amazing day.

On our actual anniversary, I woke up to flowers picked by Mark (so cute! I can just picture him out in the yard trying to find the best ones hahah) and a sweet card! I had made him a Giants tie blanket (which I couldn't have finished on time without the help of my sister Courtney and my Mom! Love you both so much!) and gave him a card.

That night we went out for dessert at one of my all time favorite places, Simply Fondue! We got "Campfire Chocolate," pretty self-explanitory, chocolate, grahm cracker crumbs and roasted our marshmallows on the flame, and dipped pineapples, strawberries, bananas, cheesecake bites, angel foodcake, brownie, cookie dough...my mouth is watering just thinking about it!

We had a really fun time celebrating these past two years. As I look back I can already see how much we have grown together and how, despite bickering or the enevitable getting annoyed with each other, we fall more in love with each other every day. I'm so grateful for a loving, supportive, hard working, thoughtful man who makes me a happier and better person each day. I've learned so much about myself through him and his patients.
So in Mark's words, two down and here's to a billion more!

Not Impressed

This morning I was watching "Good Morning America" while getting ready and of course it is Olympic coverage every morning! Today they showed a meme of McKayla Maroney, the US gymnast, with a smug look on her face while receiving a silver medal for vault. It was cracking me up!

Here's the tumblr page for your viewing enjoyment.

Landing the rover on Mars? McKayla is not impressed.


The Sistine Chapel? Not impressed.


Blake Griffin dunking over the hood of a Kia? Not impressed. (Me neither!)

Life according to my iphone

My new white iPhone has changed my life! How did I ever live without it? :)

Here are some pictures of life recently through the lens of my

Our "go-to" place for lunch in San Francisco

We went to the city with these two cuties. Don't worry, Rachel did not sit on Chad's lap while we were driving, just to take a picture of the Golden Gate.

How gorgeous is this city?!

love my sis

Waiting in line for the restroom after going literally 2 minutes before! Tiny tank!

Mark loves to take pictures of me when I look my best :) (in the ER the 1st time)

Flowers from my sisters and Matt &Sarah

This little guy hung on all the way from my office in Danville, during my stop at Target, all the way home to Pleasanton and then to our friend's house in Livermore! Sadly he blew off driving back home at 10:30 at night :(

We watched this cutie pie for two weeks. I don't miss his fur all over my black clothes, or his smelly oder/breath but he was funny.

We bbq'd! Love summer bbq's

I hope you're not using that toilet, it's broken....No, I was just shaving!

To begin, this may be my most explicit post yet...you have been warned! Don't judge me...

Since being sick I haven't worked out or gone running, its been about 2 weeks since I've had any real physical activity. On top of that, all the antibiotics really messed up my system and I've been pretty...irregular to say the least. The antibiotics gave me delightful diarrhea for a few days and then dried me up. (I warned you!) This past week my stomach has been pretty upset, I've been so crampy and bloated. Then last night I got the great idea in my head that I should take some laxative to help me get regular again, don't ask me where I got that idea from, it must have been an epiphany! Let me preface this by saying, I have never taken any laxative before and really wasn't sure what it would be like but figured it would help my little tummy.
So we get home from our friends house and I rummage through my mother-in-law's medicine cabinet and finally find dulcolax, score! I take the box to the kitchen, fill up a big glass of water and take out the pills, which are tiny! They look friendly, like mini m&m's and the box says to take between 1-3 pills so take 2 thinking it will help more than 1 but be less than 3, whatever 3 does.
I wasn't sure how dulcolax worked but found out soon enough! Within an hour I was woken up by sharp aches in my stomach, I ran to the bathroom and nothing happened so I went back to bed. I woke back up at 3 and ran to the toilet, I was so mad that I was awake at 3 and dreading work in the morning but also laughing because I kept thinking of Harry on Dumb and Dumber when Lloyd gives him laxatives and he dominates the bathroom only to find out the toilet is broken (don't worry, my experience was not that bad!)
After going to the bathroom again at 4 and 5:00 am I discovered that dulcolax works, but I don't like it and probably will never take it again because it hurts my stomach. But my stomach is 100 times better this morning, not bloated or crampy! Maybe I need to find a more subtle laxative like miralax or something, I'll have to look into that.

My first real love

I finally got to see the new Dark Knight Rises! I have been an avid Batman fan since seeing Batman Begins about 3 times in theaters, then the Dark Knight at least 5 times so I was obviously counting down the days before the Dark Knight Rises came out. I really wanted to see it opening night and dress up because I love Batman so much, but we've been a little busy and crazy lately so we didn't see it opening night. Then after the tradgic shooting in Colorado Mark was a little nervous to go to a movie theater.
But finally Mark asked me on a date after I was feeling well again and we went to see it!
Despite having super annoying people sitting around us (we were the first ones in the theater, it stayed pretty empty, yet people decided to sit on both sides of us and be restless and chomp on nasty movie theater popcorn the whole time!)...it was AMAZING!

I really loved how it connected back to Batman Begins so much. I also loved all the twists in the plot and how I assumed one thing was going to happen and then something completely different happened. I loved how it ended so much differently than I expected :) But it did drive me crazy how many opportunities there were to kill Bane, I kept leaning over to Mark and saying, "why don't they shoot him right now?! Why won't Batman just kill him?!" I was driving him nuts :)

It was a great movie and immediately after I wanted to pull an all nighter and watch the trillogy all the way through!

My favorite Halloween costume, senior year of high school. Batman really is my first true love :)

A change on my perspecitve

Due to some recent events, I've been thinking a lot about how quickly life can change and your whole world can be turned upside down.
On Saturday I attended a beautiful but heart breaking memorial service for my friend Jaicy's baby. I was never able to meet this sweet spirit who was only here for a short 19 days but could feel what a beautiful spirit she was. It was heart breaking to see a little of what Jaicy and her husband Evhret have been going through. They are so strong and have been a support to everyone else around them through this tough time.
Another experience that opened my eyes to how precious life is happened 2 weeks ago. I started getting sick on Sunday night thinking I had a kidney infection, like what the doctor thought I had back in February, so I called a new doctor and went in Monday morning, my sweet husband was so worried about me that he came home from work to go with me. All the tests came out negative and she sent me home thinking I was just getting a flu. Within the next 24 hours things started getting worse. My back was so achy I couldn't sit or lay down comfortably, I was so nauseous, I couldn't turn my neck, my throat was starting to hurt...literally you name it, I was feeling it. So Tuesday I went back to my doctor, this time with my pit bull of a mother and the doctor sent me to get blood work and x-rays. After 3 hours of this I went home. All I could do was take ibuprofen for the back pain and after taking it about 2 or 3 times it stopped helping. That night got significantly worse. I was laying on the couch watching tv and noticed the my hands were numb and tingly and my heart was beating so fast. I got nervous and called my mom who told me to call my doctor, even though it was 10:30 at night. She told me to monitor it for the next hour and see if it got better or if I could fall asleep and then if not maybe go into the Emergency Room. After laying in bed for what seemed like an eternity Mark decided we were going to the ER. I was so nervous, I had never been to the ER and I felt stupid. People go to the ER when they are in a car accident and covered in blood. I started crying and told Mark I felt dumb, what if I was fine?!
When we got to the ER they didn't even let me sit down to sign in, they rushed me right into a room and hooked me up to monitors, oxygen and an EKG. My heart was beating so fast, about 140-150, Mark said I was a humming bird. That night is a big blur to me (well, most of the rest of the experience is a blur) but they took more blood, did another urine sample, did another chest x-ray because they thought I had a blood clot in my lungs and finally a cat-scan (which is the most blurry of the whole thing, it was 4:00 in the morning and all I can remember is that the guy said to put my arms up and it would feel warm and like I peed my pants. I thought for sure I peed everywhere but was too tired to care. I didn't actually pee, it was just the dye they put into me, but I don't remember them shooting me up with dye...)
After that they sent me home with no answers. Both Mark and I were able to sleep for a few hours until I woke up and felt even worse. We didn't know what to do so we called my doctor and she was furious that the ER sent me home and she told me to go back. So back to the ER we went. This time my doctor called ahead and spoke to an infectious disease doctor and told her to make sure I was admitted to the hospital from the ER so she could see me and do tests.
Once in the ER and hooked back up to all the machines they took even more blood, I met more doctors, had to tell my symptoms to what seemed like 100 nurses. My mom and mom-in-law both came to make sure the ER took care of me and figured out what was going on. After being in there all day, running all sorts of tests and being given an iv and some antibiotics through the iv, the doctor came in and told me the tests came back positive for staph infection. I have no idea how I got a staph infection. I had no idea how serious it was. But recently I've heard so many stories similar to mine where people go to the ER, they do the same tests on them as they did on me and send them home thinking it's a flu and they die within 24 hours. I'm so glad we went back to the ER because who knows what kind of shape I could have been in.
I was in the hospital for 4 days with Mark constantly there, I had to pretty much beg him to go home and take a nap and shower. My family was always there visiting and making sure I was ok. I feel so blessed to have such a strong support system who is willing to drop everything to be by my side. While I was in the hospital I realized how much I take for granted my health until I'm sick.
The last day I was in the hospital I was so excited that I could finally stand up without having to double over to keep from throwing up. I even took a couple victory laps in the hall (ok I wasn't running or anything, but it was exciting to be able to walk through the halls again.)

Sorry for the novel on my experience, but it was scary! It really has given me a new perspective on life. I want to appreciate every day I have with my husband and family, forget the little stuff because it's not worth it to bicker or even be mad for one minute because you or they could be gone in a second.

I'm grateful for my knowledge of the gospel and that I know life here is just a short spec in the eternal scheme of things. I'm so blessed to have the amazing husband, mother, father, sisters, grandparents (my grandma Bev called our hospital room, how she got the number I have no idea, and threatened to get on a plane and fly out to be by me, when she had her own surgery coming up in just 2 days, I love that woman) and in-laws that I do. A huge thank you to my family for taking such great care of me, every single one of them.