backtracking

It's been a very long time since I really provided a meaty update. Pictures say 1,000 words, right? I'll let the pictures do most of the sharing for this update:

In early April, we finally got together to celebrate the birthdays of my best girlfriends. We selected the always classy Sharkeez for the event.

Mel loves giraffes, so we adopted her one! We named him Randall.

Also in April, Jenny & Victor came to visit us from Maui. They were in town for a wedding and were really busy with wedding events, but it was such a great treat to spend a lovely evening with them in Long Beach. We of course took them to Sushi Studio and Yogurtland. They brought along some of their visiting friends from Mexico City, who actually didn't speak a word of English. Victor spent the evening translating for all of us.

Kristi joined us for Sushi...she speaks Japanese, so her translating skills didn't help much...

In May, Karen, Jeff, and their daughter Katie came over for an evening of pizza and catching up. I however enjoyed every minute of playing some sort of Disney Princess game where jewels and a crown were the prizes. Katie won most of the gems, but I won the crown! Should I have let the 4-year old win the crown?

I boxed my wedding dress. I wasn't planning on doing this, but the woman at the dry cleaners, Happy Hanger, talked me into it. She assured me that I can still try it on occasionally if I feel the desire and she will re-box it for me. It's at the Tucker's house in San Clemente, so unfortunately I can't lounge around in it this summer.


At one of the middle schools I worked at this past school year, I created a Kids 4 Wish Kids organization on campus. We raised over $2700 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation! Our final fundraising event was a "throw a pie-in-the-face of your favorite teacher". I had about 5 pies thrown in my face that afternoon. Only for sick kids would I do this. Seriously, I smelled of sour milk after a couple hours. It was disgusting, and that puts it lightly!

The mess...

In May, we finally had the opportunity to meet little Nathan Flores, Rick and Julie's son. He's absolutely perfect and so precious! A perfect combination of the his mommy and daddy. We look forward to catching up again with the Flores family!

The drool is too darn cute. And his little smile melts my heart!

Just a couple weeks ago, we headed to my hometown of Encinitas with our friends Lauren and Jeff to see Switchfoot play a free show at Moonlight Beach. The show benefited the youth organiztion StandUp for Kids. I really enjoyed watching Switchfoot play some of my favorite songs in our hometown!




Last weekend we spent the early afternoon celebrating Sarah's 3rd birthday. I can't believe this little thing is already 3! She's definitely the most opinionated 3-year old I've ever known! We ate junk food as the toddlers played in the yard. For someone approaching the era also known as "baby fever", it was heaven!

Sarah's little bro, Daniel. These Malouf babies are gorgeous!

Then my baby fever miracalously disappeared as we headed to the Playboy Jazz Fest at the Hollywood Bowl. I love this venue! It doesn't matter who is performing, so long as there are appetizers and wine, it's the perfect evening! The Playboy Jazz Fest however provided some pretty awesome people watching. Thanks, Brian and Natalie for the great evening!

How romantic, I'm right in the middle of Brian and his GF, Natalie.

Those are the highlights from the last couple of months! We are in town until early Saturday morning when we will head to Boulder for a wedding. We are renting a car in Boulder and will casually make our way back home, stopping wherever our hearts desire, well, we have to be back on July 9th.

Thanks for reading!