Labor Day Weekend Cali Style

So I always go home in the spring and the fall to see my parents and just have a little getaway. Each time I go the amount of time I stay seems to grow. In March I went home for two weeks and that turned into 6 weeks. This fall I went home for 2 1/2 weeks. Even when I think I'm staying a healthy length of time, my dad is still trying to convince me to stay longer. Well this time I had a boy to bring home. I stressed over it a little because it was really soon to be meeting my parents especially when my parents are 3000 miles away. We had talked about him coming out over Labor Day but we hadn't made any definite plans and with the whole meeting the folks thing, it seemed to get slow walked. So I just surprised him with a ticket instead and flew him out. He was excited and nervous to say the least but ultimately didn't quite understand the big thrill about California. He'd been before and he didn't share my excitement about how cool it would be........until he got there! :-) The pictures are out of order thanks to the lovely Blogger photo uploader, but you'll get the idea!

I took him on a whirlwind tour of Southern California and hit all my hot spots! My absolute favorite is our condo in Carlsbad!

We ate breakfast down at the clubhouse. The terrace overlooks the lagoon and the 18th green! So beautiful! He said he felt like he needed a cable knit sweater to wrap around his shoulders to fit in! haha

Then on to La Jolla to see the seals. Unfortunately people were on their beach so there were few to see, but we did get to see a few swim up upon unsuspecting snorklers. I don't know about you, but that's not what I have in mind when I go snorkeling is to look up and see a round face full of whiskers in front of me!

I love La Jolla because of all the cliffs and rocks overhanging the beach. It was gorgeous weather the whole time he was there. It was like 95 before and after he arrived and about 80 the whole weekend he was out. He was the lucky charm apparently! :-)

Brian likes to take scenery pictures. Me......not so much! If people aren't in them, I will never look at them again! I figure what's the point! I'm not going to care about some random cliff or beach unless I'm standing in front of that random cliff or beach. So I humored him and he's a scenery picture! I have LOTS of these from his stay because he stole my camera while we drove down the PCH! :-)

We finished the day with some shoe shopping in downtown San Diego and dinner at one of our favorites, Peohe's. It over looks the skyline of San Diego and is right on the water. We even lucked out because they were shooting off fireworks that night and we were front and center for them! He loves fireworks! I couldn't have planned it better myself!

San Diego skyline

This is where the weekend actually began. We took him to Balboa and went bike riding along the beach. It was a first for me too! We don't own bikes but my mom's friend Kathy does. It was a little crazy trying to dodge everyone walking or darting out at you on the boardwalk but it was really cool to ride along the ocean. Brian loves to bike ride so it was totally up his alley.

We took the car ferry over to Balboa from Newport and had some NY style pizza before our bike ride. Next time I'll remember to try and get the bike with the cushy seat. My butt hurt for days! haha

He had never been to the Pacific side, so we put our feet in the water. It was warm for the Pacific but a whopping 70 degrees still feels REALLY cold!

Bike riding was my mom's idea. Props to Candy for coming up with such a fun plan for the day!

We ate at the Fisherman down in San Clemente which is on the pier, literally sitting on the water. We sat on the patio and you can actually see the water beneath you through the planks on the patio. We did the crab feast and that's exactly what it was. It was a little less appetizing when they bring it out with head and feet still attached. Nothing like ripping the body apart to have your dinner!

Brian said at dinner that he couldn't figure out what I was so excited about with him coming out but now he got it. He can see now why I like it out there so much. Now he can't wait to go back! :-)

We walked the pier which is about a 1/4 of a mile in length. I wore high heels which is a little tricky on the planks. You either pull your heel out of the crack every 10 seconds or walk barefoot. Neither one was a very good alternative!

Praise the Lord

My mom's friend Kathy has a daughter named Crystal who is a great singer and she got asked to sing on TBN's Praise the Lord show. Mom asked me to go with her and I wasn't paying much attention when I said yes. I just thought we were going to hear her sing. Little did I know the production it was going to be. It was a show about Heaven and Hell and people having near death experiences. It was really pretty interesting. We got to be in the audience and were actually on tv a couple times when they panned to the crowd!

My mom was a little more enthusiastic with her clapping so she got on tv more than I did. haha

The set was like I dream of Jeanie meets the Tonight Show!

All of TBN is terribly gaudy!

I bet all that gold could feed a lot of hungry kids!

I've never seen so much gold in one place in my entire life!

It was more impressive during the day to see all the marble everywhere. At Christmas it about causes wrecks along the freeway because of how many lights are on it!

State Fair

Luke is on a pit crew for an ARCA racing team and his first race was in Springfield at the state fair. Their car got out early but it was so fun to watch it anyway. Ash and I were so excited for him, you would have thought Luke was the one driving the car! There's something about the rumbling of the engine and the cars whizzing past at 180mph that takes your breath away a little bit. Reminds me of my experienced race car driving days! haha

They were car 66. Brian and I went to grab some food and came back to find out they had wrecked and were out of the race! :-(

First mandatory pit

Luke is the one on the front tire

Brian brought me my own set of ear plugs! How sweet! haha

He was relieved when it was over. He said he about threw up before it started! haha

Doggy Daycare

It's always a trip when this group gets together! Brian says he has to sometimes process what is said before he reacts because he's like, "did they really just say that?" Maybe a filter at times would be better! haha Regardless, we always have a great time together. Tonight in particular, Hols was filling us in on doggy daycare. They have a golden lab and they take her to doggy daycare twice a week while they're at work. Hols said they separate the big dogs and little dogs, they have play areas and pools for the dogs and they even have a timeout that no dog wants to go in, because they have to watch all the other dogs play while they sit in timeout. Hilarious what we can do for our pets these days!

Tim had a mustache contest at work for a United Way fundraiser. He grew it long and then Hols put pink and purple beads in it for him. I think he got 2nd!

We got Ash that sundress for her birthday! She looked adorable! However, she needed a little goo gone for her flip flops we got her. They would stick to her heel and then sling shot off at any given moment!

Ash had to pose as my date since my date was sleeping while we ate! I only accepted that excuse about twice before I started forcing him to go to dinner with me and my friends! haha

I believe this was after some more non filtered conversation! haha

Oh look who woke up and decided to join us! :-)

Tiffany and Denver's Wedding

You couldn't have asked for a better setting for a wedding. At your house, on the outskirts of town, outside, small group. It was gorgeous! Tiffany looked beautiful! Stephanie had given her extensions and her hair looked awesome!

Her dress looked great and great on her!

Mr. and Mrs. Denver Nord!

The happy couple!

Steve had some awesome dance moves! They consisted of swaying back and forth! haha

I made myself completely scarce during the bouquet toss. They were actually calling people out onto the dance floor. I conveniently had to go to the bathrom.

Haley's kids had some sweet dance moves which she claims they didn't learn from her! Sure, Haley, sure! :-)

Haley and Tater were my date for the evening! Brian wasn't quite ready for the meet all my friends wedding debut! haha

Old roomies!

Birthday at Gill?!

Ash's bday was August 5th and we treated her to appetizers out and a volleyball game at Gill Street......Brian's volleyball game that is! Aren't we awesome friends?! haha Actually we did take her out on a separate night to celebrate but on her actual birthday we went to Gill. She wanted to meet Brian, so this was an easy non conspicuous way to do it. He started catching on by about the third week when each game there was a new set of friends showing up at his games. He finally started saying, so who is coming tonight that I'm going to be meeting? Apparently I wasn't quite as sly as I had hoped! haha

Ash was paranoid about her headband, but I thought it was cute

Love this girl! We've been through a lot together!

Need to get crackin on thos are weights! I look like I have saggy old lady arms!

Dinner with B

This was a couple weeks into our relationship and I was discovering I was liking him more and more. I had been trying to pinpoint his personality and thought I had it nailed down but was asking him some questions at dinner one night about if he's taken a personality test. Now he would say I was drilling him with questions and he felt like he was on an interview. He thought I was trying to make him come up with reasons as to why we should keep dating and thought for sure I was going to end it. haha Not so! I just like getting to know people! He has now gotten used to what he calls the "interview game" and knows that's just me. Not sure he likes the "interview game" but goes along with it for my sake! haha

We were a little overdressed for Rosatti's Pizza, but I always dress to impress especially this early on in a relationship. I think it was weeks later that he got to see me without makeup. He said I didn't look too scary! haha

Personal Shopper!

So Erika got a new job at White House Black Market and also had her 10 year class reunion, so we had a few things to accomplish. 1. celebrate her new job and 2. find her an outfit so she looked hot with all her old classmates! :-) I'm not one to brag, but it would not be the first time someone has called upon me for my fashion expertise(totally kidding) to help them with an outfit. Erika is a great dresser but she's just never wandered into Forever 21 and attempted to dig through what they call clothing racks! haha So we spent about an hour and a half putting together a hot outfit to make all her old flames wish they had never let her go! Just kidding!

Congrats to Erika on her new job at White House Black Market! I'm hoping she can hook me up with her discount! haha

We love the downtown Champaign area. So many fun restaurants! It looks like we all talked about posing with our arms over each other, but that was just luck! haha

Just Keep Walking and Act Normal!

So Erin's 30th was this summer and her mom threw her a surpise party! You got to love a surprise party especially when you're almost responsible for ruining the surprise party! You see with surprise parties there are too many elements for them to pull off just right. Some people can't keep their mouth shut, or forget and just say "see ya Friday" when the surprisee is like "what's Friday?". Then you have the classic case of the surprisee seeing everyone's cars in the neighborhood or in our case, were arriving at the house the same time Erin was. A little more time before she got there might have made it just a smidge more fool proof! haha Haley, me and Heidi were walking up to the house when we realized that Erin was sitting in the driveway in her sister's mini van and looking straight at us. What do we do? Where do we go? What do we say? Just keep on walking! We don't look suspicious or anything! Three girls walking the neighborhood at night with purses on our shoulders and hats on. Yeah, that's just everyday fare in Morton! haha Thankfully Erin didn't see us and we didn't ruin the surprise, however we weren't exactly in the house to be able to surprise her either! :-)

Erin's mom made us an awesome meal!

She also had a yummy cake!

Ode to the days when you looked forward to blowing out the candles! Now there are so many on the cake, no one wants to light them all so you just do one and pretend there's 30! haha

Great night catching up with old friends!

We look like Britany Spears and a Bratz doll!

Abby did NOT follow the instructions....she didn't wear a hat! :-)

This may look like a bad attempt at see no evil, hear no evil, say no evil, but we were just trying to throw off the face recognition on my camera! haha