Russ, Shalae, & Kids

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

March recap

 We've had a lot of fun this month so far. First up, Russ's birthday... we had a few different parties with both of our familes to celebrate and went out to eat the night of. Looks like he loves it when I take pictures of him!


I guess I shouldn't be talking... looks like I loved having my picture taken in the one below!

What can I say about Russ at 38? Besides how much fun & handsome he is - he LOVES his new man cave.

He also LOVES LOVES LOVES his baby, I mean his "i-pad touch by apple" - and relaxing with his socks halfway off.


Next... at the end of Spring Break my mom, sisters, baby Lucy & I took a trip to California. There wasn't much on the agenda - just eating, shopping, and celebrity sighting. We did A LOT of shopping, of course we hit up all our favorite eateries, and we actually spotted a few celebrities too!

One day we went to The Grove basically just in hopes of seeing someone famous. We saw Mario Lopez and Howie Mandel on the set of Extra. That was pretty exciting but not really the caliber of stars we were looking for.



We were driving around LA, getting lost of course like we did the ENTIRE time we were there - and we ran straight into the L.A. temple. We had to get out and walk around, the grounds were so pretty. Except.... Auburn saw a rat run across the sidewalk and that combined with the cold wind made me want to get right back in the car.


My favorite place to eat when we go to California is El Torito Grill. I actually don't love any of their meals but the tortillas, honey butter, guacamole, and corn cakes are SO GOOD!! Lucy got to enjoy some of the ice cream we got out of Auburn's birthday weekend!

We were there on Auburn's birthday so we did her favorite thing all day... shopped! Of course we did the OC swap meet, but we also found Old Navy, Gap, Tilleys, Target, Nordstrom Rack, H&M (I really wish I could post the picture from the dressing room there) and I'm probably forgetting some. That night we went to dinner at Mrs. Knotts, Auburn's request that we usually don't fulfill when we take girls trips. We did it this time since it was her birthday, then the rest of us liked it better than she did! (Sadly my mom is missing from this picture because she had to leave the trip early. We all felt kind of funny that we were at dinner without her, like we were some teenage sisters out without our parents or something. Teenage sisters with a baby that is.)

Auburn was blindsided by the birthday dessert and singing - she was so embarrassed!

One of the most exciting parts of our trip was on our way home. We thought we had seen all the celebrities we were going to see but we were wrong!! We were sitting at the gas station next to this guy and all of the sudden Auburn says "oh my gosh you guys that's Gavin Rossdale!" He then opened the back door to his Range Rover and Auburn jumped from the front seat to the back, saying "Are there kids in there? I'll know it's him if I see his kids." Sure enough, it was who she thought it was. We were snapping pics through our windows and since I was the driver I was so embarrassed. I had just come from inside of the gas station before Auburn realized it was him, but I didn't see his wife who was inside at the time, dangit! He pulled up to the gas station and picked Gwen Stefani up then they drove off. It was so fun to spot a famous family!



Finally - Noah started playing baseball. Here he is in line with is team at the opening ceremonies.

At his first game, he struck out one of the two times he was up to bat. He seems too young to be sad about striking out! I liked how in t-ball, everyone got a turn to bat each inning and there were no strike-outs. But at the same time, coach pitch is much more exciting to watch. It's gonna be a fun season - he has a lot of his buddies on his team.

We also celebrated Kaitlyn's birthday this month - that will be a post of it's own!

Monday, March 14, 2011

Birthday Boy

The cute boy under the glasses is my sweet husband... at 19 years old, ready to go on a mission.

Well today he has officially doubled his age since then!
He is still so cute, even at 38 and after his 5-mile jog this morning!

I love him, everything about him makes him perfect for me. I'm so lucky to be married to Russ, even if he is a lot older than me (I'm nowhere near 38 BTW). One thing I love about Russ is that he is just as excited as I am to watch The Bachelor finale for part of his birthday festivities tonight. Seriously, we've been waiting for it all week. I love that he's as into it as I am! 

Also, today is my sweet niece Ellie's 7th birthday.... I can't believe she's so old!

Friday, February 25, 2011

Valentines Weekend

A few weeks ago we started the weekend off at the ASU women's gymnastic meet - Russ's sister Callie is on the team. It was really fun to watch and the kids had a celebrity sighting...
 

Sunday morning, the 13th - we celebrated Valentines Day with our kids. They are all straight out of bed to open a few treats and enjoy a PINK breakfast in these pictures...






That night, my family celebrated with a Progressive dinner. We started out at our house with appetizers then moved on to Alisse's. After those 2 stops, I forgot to take pictures. Oh well!


And then on the real day... February 14th - Russ got off work early and took me to Oreganos! It was a fun day, I love all my Valentines so much ~ my husband, kids, parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, grandparents, and in-laws!  
♥ ♥

Sunday, February 13, 2011

San Diego get-away

Last weekend Russ & I took a 2nd honeymoon / early Valentines trip back to the same place where we went for our honeymoon... the first time - San Diego! We had so much fun the first time so I was SO excited to go back! 

We took our bikes with us and never even used our car except for the travel from AZ & back home.

Russ was dreamin BIG every time he stopped to watch the boats.

That's the hotel we stayed in... we got a good deal, it was nice...


... and we had a great view!


Russ dreaming again... videoing the boats pulling in & out of the harbor (I'm not sure what we'll ever do with that video!!)


One day, we took a ferry over to Coronado Island and rode our bikes all around the town. I loved it! Now I was the dreamer - I took pictures of all these houses for my inspiration "someday"!









 We were looking for a treat when we came across this cupcakery at Cornado Island. Perfect I thought! The cupcakes actually weren't great and the italian soda was gross. I was wanting a Sprinkles cupcake after that.

My favorite part about the trip was just being with Russ & having him all to myself - we have so much fun together.


Dangit... I uploaded this picture sideways - anyway, it's a picture of the Gaslamp Quarter. It's a really fun place with good eats, shopping, and a fun atmosphere!


Oops - another sideways pic! Russ & I found a geo cache. It was a pretty well hidden one and tiny! 


This little tiny slip of paper was the "log book" we found inside the tiny little magnetic container.

I'm wanting to plan another "just us" getaway already! The weekend went by WAY too fast!

I LOVE my valentine!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Cabin Trip

 A few weekends ago we took a trip to the Riggs Pinetop Cabin with most of my family. It was a great weekend... relaxing & fun.

We took a few hikes throughout the weekend to GEO CACHE! Russ & I have done a few of these at home & on vacations... nerdy but fun!!

Here is Russ finding the first geo cache


The kids couldn't beleive that we actually found a little "treasure" in the woods.

On the hike, Noah tripped and hurt his knee. Sweet Ellie was being his nurse & massaging it for him. I love the little relationship they have!

What a romantic look on Russ's face!


Self-timer pics are so funny!

Russ & Ellie... holding hands cuz they are "birthday buddies"
 ("Ellie, I'm a happily married man"...)

Jaxen & Kaitlyn - best buds when they get together

Sophie wore pajamas the whole weekend...

The kids entertained themselves and kept busy the whole weekend... even if it was inside playing DS games.

Us girls played shang-hai ... a MUST at the cabin!

We were gone from home for only 48 hours - but don't worry we brought plenty of junk in case we got snowed in!

Roxy just bein cute...

The boys (& Elle) hanging out upstairs.. watching the History channel I'm sure (BOR-ING!)

What's not boring though... is just sitting & staring at Lucy. She's so much fun right now.


We'll just say that Sophie "forgot" everything at home. I packed these jammies for her so that's basically all she had. Luckily when it was time to go to dinner one night, we had these snow bibs to "dress her up in" LOL!!

We had fun with the mirrors... obviously... some things never get old!







Noah & Kaitlyn got some last-minute sledding in before we headed home...



... and we got one last geo-caching adventure in too... this one we almost gave up on before finding it. It's amazing that this one was hidden back in 2005 - so many people had signed the log book before us - the first ones were named "The Price Family" - pretty cool!

We missed having Bryan, Auburn, Brad, & Tayler with us - but had a great time at the cabin!