A Few Weeks Ago

We met up with Andy and Megan down in Laguna Beach. It was a great time, and we realized that it's a pretty good halfway point for both of us to meet! We started out at a park. Joey was all over the place, really enjoying the playground. Since Kendall's not quite that mobile yet, she settled for the swings.



At first, I don't think Joey knew what to think of Kendall, but he warmed up to her pretty quick. I didn't get the actual kiss, but you can see here, he's still puckered.



Thankfully, I caught the hug on film. I can hear the collective "awwwwww's" now.



After the park, we decided to find a place to eat lunch. We walked around a bit, pricing restaurants (thank goodness we're all "frugal!"), and finally settled on Wahoo's Fish Tacos. We stayed there a while just chatting and eating. Joey was interested in the pink pacifier, so he decided to give it a try.




Once we were done with lunch, the 3 of them made their way back to the San Diego area, but we hung around a bit more. We have a friend from high school (actually, he and Grant go way back to kindegarten) who lives in Laguna Beach. So we gave him a call, and he met us at the beach. We probably haven't seen Jarrod since our wedding, so it was great catching up.



After we met with Jarrod, we did some exploring on our own, and found this beautiful little area! This is the place that made me believe that Laguna Beach is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen (as far as beaches go)! As expensive as it is, I totally understand why people live in California.



So, it was a great day! Hopefully, Kendall and I will have many playdates in Laguna with Megan and Joey. And maybe next time, I'll see an LC or a Lo or a Kristin (if you watch MTV, you'll know who I'm talking about).

Laguna Playdate

Yesterday, Megan and I, along with the kiddos met up at a park in Laguna Beach. We've met here before with our husbands, right after Grant and I moved here, and Megan and I said how easy it would be for us to do this all the time. Well, several months later, this is the only other time we've done it. It's great, because since Megan lives in north San Diego County, and we live in south Los Angeles County, Laguna Beach is halfway for us. Besides me running about 45 minutes late (oops), we had a really great time, and have our next Laguna playdate already scheduled for next month.

The Beach and Dancing

We went to this beach about a week ago - it's called Crystal Cove State Park, and it's in between Laguna and Newport Beach. It's absolutely beautiful there! We had a great time, and Kendall's really turning into quite the California/beach girl. She loves it. She used to be somewhat afraid of the waves and the water, but this time, she was all about it. Grant asked if he should try to take her in the water, and I told him I didn't think she'd like it, but he could always try. I was so wrong - she didn't want to come out!! Even with pretty good sized waves crashing on them, she just absolutely loved it!

Anyways, here's some pics...








After the beach, we headed to Pei Wei in Newport Beach. We're pretty obsessed with Pei Wei (see this post from a couple of years ago), and if you became a "fan" of theirs on Facebook, and signed this petition, you could get a coupon to get their new Ramen dish for free. So, of course, we did that. We picked going to the Newport location, because they had this really cool Coke fountain that we heard about. Since we were in that area already, to us, it was a no-brainer to go there.

We enjoyed the free meal, we enjoyed the cool computerized Coke fountain (they had some pretty interesting drinks), and Kendall enjoyed the music.

Good Times with Great Friends

My best friend, Kellie came in town last Thursday, along with her mom, Mrs. F. Kellie's younger sister, Angela moved down here to Orange County last summer, so this was visit was part family reunion, part friend reunion. I've been friends with this whole family for several years now, so it was great to have Mrs. F here, as well.

On Friday, we spent the day at Balboa Island, in the Newport Beach area. The weather was not that great, but it wasn't really raining, so that was good. Towards the end of the day, it started sprinkling a little bit, and by the time we got in the car, it was full-on rain. I felt so bad that during their quick trip to California, it had to rain!



After leaving Balboa Island, we headed down to this really cool lookout at Laguna Beach. I really wanted them to see this place, so even though it was pouring and freezing, we still got out and saw the view, which was actually still pretty good. As you can see, though, we got pretty wet.



Thankfully, Saturday turned out to be pretty nice. Still chilly, but not rainy. Grant was kind enough to watch Kendall for me all day on Saturday, to give me some quality time with my friends! We drove up the Palos Verdes Peninsula, which is a gorgeous drive, eventually making our way to Venice Beach. After Venice, we went to Rodeo Drive, and then to Hollywood. After Hollywood, we went to The Grove, which is an outdoor shopping area that's one of my favorite places to go.





Then on Sunday, we headed back down to Orange County to Saddleback Church, where Ange is part of the worship team. She was singing this particular Sunday, so we were all happy to see her on stage. Kendall does okay sometimes during church - we never really know how she'll do. This Sunday, she was doing great, and made it through part of Rick Warren's message, until she found my nose and started saying, "Bo, bo, bo, bo!" really loudly (that's her word for nose). So I had to take her out for the rest of the service.




After a great lunch at In-N-Out, we made our way back up to our house. After Kendall got a bit of a nap, we went to White Point to show Mrs. F and Kellie what tide pooling is all about. Needless to say, they loved it. Kellie even said this was her favorite part of the trip. Mrs. F said that if Mr. F ever makes it out here, we should probably not take him tide pooling, because he won't want to do anything else.






Once we got our fill of the tide pools, we went up the road to Lunada Bay to watch the sunset. It was a little cloudy, so it wasn't the best sunset ever, but it was still beautiful.



Monday, both Kellie and Mrs. F had to head back to the Midwest, so our fun was over. But, it was a great visit, and a fun time was had by all!

Yay!

Megan had baby #2 yesterday morning - 6 days early!! How crazy is that?

I got a call from her yesterday, and I immediately thought a few things...

1. I hope nothing's wrong.
2. I hope she's not trying to set up another Laguna Beach playdate this close to her due date.
3. There's no way she's had the baby yet. Joey was 5 days late, and this was still almost a week before her due date.

So, I was like, "Hey Megan, what's up?" And she said, "Well, I had a baby this morning!" And I'm pretty sure my response to that was, "What?" As in, "Yeah right, that's impossible." For some reason, I just had it in my head that babies just don't come early.

And since the sex of the baby was a surprise, I was happy to find out that it was a girl! Little Hannah Marie.

So check out her blog where there's already pictures, and join me in thanking God for an easy delivery and a healthy baby!

Friends

We've been meeting up with a lot of friends lately, so I thought I'd put them in one post.

These are our friends from church - Peter and Matthew. Peter is 3 months younger than Kendall, and Matthew is exactly one month older than Cami. And they all really love each other! I wish I had gotten a better picture of Kendall and Peter together - the only one I got was when Kendall was, uh, not happy.




Next up was our friends, Jen and Maddy. Jen is Cheri's cousin, who used to live here, then moved to New Zealand for a year, then moved to San Francisco for 6 months, and currently, they're gypsies. They made a stop in LA, and we (along with Melissa and her girls) all got together.




This past weekend, Jason, Kerri, and their two kids were in the area, so we met up with them in Laguna Beach. Jason and Grant were roommates in college, but now Jason and his family live in the Grand Rapids area. Kyla and Kendall are about five months apart, and Joe and Cami are 3 months apart. Kyla and Kendall played so well together, you would've thought they'd known each other their whole lives!






It's always so much fun getting together with friends!

Ange and Caleb's Wedding

Let me give some background here...

Back at college, I was friends with Jenny. Then, her younger sister Kellie came to college. I was close friends with both of them. I always heard about their younger sister, Angela. I visited them a few times in Michigan, met Ange, but she was just their high school sister. Over the years, as I spent more time with their family, I was kind of adopted into their family, and I got to know Ange better. She started to become "my friend" instead of "my friend's sister." Then she moved out here to Orange County, and we got together regularly.

Well, she got married this last weekend, and thankfully, chose to get married out here instead of in Michigan, where she's from. So I got to see my best friends! It was a fun few days. Kellie had her first baby back in February (speaking of, I blogged about a really cute gift I made for her, but guess what...it got lost in the mail! So she never got it! How sucky is that?), so it was cool to finally meet baby Warren, and also for Jenny and Kellie to meet Cami (they had met Kendall before). Little Matthew has some serious competition for Cami's future husband!




And have I mentioned how Kendall is totally into a baby phase right now? She loves babies, and would rather play with them than kids her own age. So she was a little obsessed with baby Warren, and talked about holding him. Alot.



Anyways, a cool idea that Ange had was to do her own flowers. So on Thursday we all went to the LA Flower Market and picked up the flowers that were needed. They turned out so nice! It was a great way to save some money. I was hoping to help with putting the flowers together, but realized pretty quickly that with a toddler and a crawling, getting-into-everything baby in a small hotel room with flowers everywhere, we would just be in the way.



The wedding was on Friday, and it was awesome. It was on a boat in Newport Harbor, one of our favorite places! The setting was beautiful, the food was delicious, and the dancing was fun! All in all, it was one of the most memorable weddings I've ever been to. The girls were troopers, despite being on the boat until about 10 pm. Kendall loved dancing, but we kept her pretty far away from the dance floor, because some of the people were getting a little crazy.







Saturday, we all went to Laguna Beach for the day. I didn't get one picture the whole day, but Kendall was having so much fun! She hung out down by the water most of the time, and whenever the water would go out, she would stand up and yell, "Come on, ocean!" And when the waves would start to come in, she would run away really fast and say, "Oh...that was close!" She did this for hours. When it was time for us to leave, she was not very happy, but quickly fell asleep in the car.

Sunday was a site-seeing day for the family, so they came up this way to visit the tide pools by our house. Then they spent the rest of the day in LA. They really had fun, and even saw an octopus! It's kind of a random place to come when you're only in LA for a day, but it's one of Ange's favorite spots (it's where Caleb proposed to her), and they all loved it. I guess when you live in the Midwest, a place like this is pretty unique. I only got one picture from tide pools, and this random little girl made it into the shot. Oh well.



So that was it! The girls and I spent so many hours in the car over the last few days, but it was all worth it.