Labor Day + Bay Area + Fun People = Excellent Vacation

A week before labor day my good friend Aubrey threw out the idea of planning a last minute trip to San Franciso for the holiday... we invited anyone that wanted to come and we got a great group together to go explore the bay area. We planned the trip just right so that we were able to see a lot of the bay area and have some relaxing down time as well. In three days we were able to check out alcatraz, pier 39, fishermans warf, lombard st, the golden gate bridge, a catherdral, hot tubing and swimming at mom and dad's house, movie watching, carmel and the 17 mile drive, stanford, and the oakland temple.

Here are some pictures of the our trip. These pictures are not in any kind of order (I don't have the time or energy to put them in order) so you can play a guessing game with yourself and try to figure out where we are in the picture and what we are doing.... oh and just FYI... none of these are real engagement pictures. We are just practicing for if and when the real thing comes along. :) Enjoy...

If you want a more detailed account of the trip refer to facebook and/or Aubrey and Emily's blogs. They both did a great job! :)

The month of August was an exciting on for me and for my family.  It has been a roller coaster of excitement and emotion.  I think that the cranberries expressed the way I feel right now when she sings - "All my life is changing everyday... every possible way." I consider this month my month of new things... 

So as you know at the beginning of the month I went to NEW Zealand.  It was such an awesome trip.  But what was even more awesome was coming to home to this little nugget.  

Meet Micah... he is this tender little ray of sunshine that Amber and Tad were blessed to adopt while I was gone.  We are so excited to have Micah be a part of the family.  I am so excited to live so close to him so that I can watch up grow up.  I saw that picture below in my email while I was in new zealand... and it was just too much for my little heart to handle.  I love my little sheboygan playing with his new brother.  I love these boys!

The next big surprise this month was when this little guy came to join us.  Meet Brayden Gustavson. My little brother's wide had there baby almost a month early.  This little buddy was eager to join the world and we are we so glad he is here.  They are in Utah and I am going out to Utah in the middle of September and I can't wait to see him!! 

Its so hard to believe that these two kids

Now are these two with their own kids...

So it's finally time for school to start. I started my classes last week and I was able to learn more about the program and the classes that I will be taking this semester.  I think the first day that I sat in the classroom was the first time that it actually dawned on me what going back to school really meant. Which is:  test, papers, studying, homework, reading.  

I feel like my program is going to be hard. But in a strange way I am excited for the challenge.  The information that we are learning is super interesting to me so I think it will be fun to be back in school.  

In preparation to going back to school there were a few things that I needed.  First was I needed a new pair of glasses so that I can actually see the chalkboard (or powerpoint) up in the front of the glass.  So you will now find me looking something like this:

And the last big change for me was saying good-bye to my explorer

And say hello to a more fuel efficient vehicle.  This is my new Mazda3 and I love it!  It has everything that I wanted in a car and more.  This was a big deal for me because I did it all by myself.  I know that that probably seems childish but this was a little scary for me but I did all the research and dealer with the dealerships and I feel like I got the car that I wanted for a great price.  

I seriously can't believe that its already September 1st! This year is just flying by and it will be Christmas before we know it! I am stoked about all the new things in my life and I am trying hard to embrace all the change. I know that change is good but it can be hard sometimes. In fact, I cried the entire way home from the dealership after buying my new car because it was so hard for me to say goodbye to my old car and all the memories that I had had in that car. But I am excited to see where this next chapter of my life takes me and look forward to all the new memories that I am going to be making.

Picture time!

Fiji and New Zealand

So I kept on waiting for life to slow down a little bit so that I could blog about my trip to Fiji and New Zealand.  But life doesn't seem to be slowing down anytime soon so I thought that I would post a few pictures that I felt represented the trip.  

 

These were my two traveling partners and I couldn't have asked for better ones.  The trip was completely drama free (except for one little incident at the dinner table between Julie and I but we won't bring up that up again...)  These girls were so much fun to spend time with, the perfect travel partners that we are already planning our next trip together. 

This us at the ice bar.  This picture represents the weather in New Zealand.  Coming from sunny and beautiful california it was quite a shock to get off the plane and it be freezing.  I wore two sweatshirts every day... so if I look fat in the pictures thats what's going on (or it could've been all the white chocolate candy bars that I ate while I was there) It rained a lot of the time that we were there but it didn't stop us from having fun... 

I know that those of you who know me well are shocked by this picture.  I know... I know.. normally I would never let this happen (me touching a dog)  so this picture represents all the new and fun things we did while we were there.  Such as bungying jumping, lugging, tubing through caves, peeling potatoes, letting me drive while on the left side of the road, tim tam slam etc.  (oh... and I just a clarification... I didn't think touching this dog was fun. It was just new and probably not something I will do again.) 

I think this picture speaks for itself.  New Zealand was incredibly beautiful.  There wasn't one place that we went that I thought was mediocre.  Everywhere we looked it was green and lush

This is how we spent a lot of our time.  We wanted to see as much as we could in the few days that we were there for so that included a lot of driving! (PS.. my flat iron had an accident with the voltage there... that is what it going on with the bangs).

This was by far one of my favorite trips that I have ever been on.  More pictures to come. 

Suffering from post trip depression....

and wishing I was back here...

Guess what I am doing....

Accepted, Registered, and Paid for

So its official...

  I will be starting the Masters in Counseling program at the end of this month.  After lots of thought and prayer about whether or not I really wanted to go back to school I made the final decision that I was going to do it.  So I am all registered and paid for so I guess there is no turning back now.  I actually think that going back to school is going to be fun and I am excited about the classes that I am going to be taking.  I know that its not going to be easy but I am always up for a challenge.  Cal State Fullerton here I come....