memorial day weekend

folks, i'm kind of a terrible, horrible person. i feel like every single blog i read had a blog post this weekend starting off like this:

"Most people only think of BBQs, swimming, and summer on Memorial Day weekend. But I don't. I always remember the REAL reason why we have Memorial Day." [insert picture of a military graveyard here]

if you believed my facebook feed, you'd think that every person i am friends with feels this way--that they're the only people who TRULY focus on the real meaning of memorial day.

(side note: i am an cynical grump and i am always bugged by things that trend on facebook. i always think people are just posting things because everyone else is. when every single person on my newsfeed has to chime in with how sad/happy they are about every major event, like when everyone has to say "so sad about boston" and i see people sharing snooki's "pray for boston" pictures, i just lose my mind. REALLY, snooki? are you REALLY PRAYING FOR BOSTON????)

well, i'll just say it like it is. i love memorial day weekend because the weather is awesome, tommy stayed home, and we played and had fun together all weekend. i am that person who just thinks of BBQs, swimming, and summer on memorial day weekend. sorry if this is blasphemous. i'll get a good attitude someday.

but we still had a great weekend! on saturday, we went strawberry picking! and we made four batches of strawberry jam. we'll probably have to give some away when we move next year, i'm guessing. but we're all stocked up and our freezer is full!

we also went swimming on saturday afternoon. it was dane's second time. he's only mildly interested in the water. he is much more excited about his swim shirt and hanging out with his parents. but i think it's going to be a favorite pastime for this summer when it gets to be really hot.

and then today, the actual memorial day, we decided kind of last minute to have a barbecue. we spent most of the day chopping veggies and meat, made three different types of skewers (orange beef, italian chicken, and teriyaki bacon-wrapper chicken (SO GOOD!)), and had some friends over for a beautiful may evening. (every lovely day we have makes me kind of sad because i wonder, "is this the last nice day we'll have until summer?" PLEASE SAY NO!)

evan was cheesing it up for the camera, and loving on dane.

tommy is the BBQ master. he grilled that food good.

dane is very patriotic, even if his lame-o mother isn't.

our friend miranda, who is some five or six months younger than dane and totally going to pass him up in size any day now. she is beautiful.

babies everywhere!

our good friends from our ward, the sheffields, are moving away from durham, so we had a farewell party for them a few weeks ago. and at the party, we managed to snap a picture of all the babies who were there. if you can believe it, this is only about half of the babies who were born over a two or three month period in our ward. something was in the water--so many people had babies at around the same time. (and it wasn't even just in our ward either--lots of our old roommates also had babies around the same time too. so great!)

dane and three of his girlfriends.

also, we are SUPER excited because the busbys are moving back into town! they are coming back for devin to finish his fourth year of medical school here at duke after being gone for two years. it's going to be really fun to have some family-friends here in town again, even though they're moving back into their old ward and will be about fifteen minutes away from us. they drove into town a few weeks ago and stayed with us for a day or two while moving into their new place.

see? they also had a baby! preston is just about two months younger than dane. but is basically the same size, haha.

 preston, kylie, dane, and emmy.

they'll have to have lots of male bonding time with the four of them over the next year!

chelsea comes to visit!

one of the perks about tommy attending duke: people want to come visit us to go to duke games! i mean, i know we're really fantastic and amazing people and they are really just coming to see us, but it also just so happens that we can offer to take them to a bball game and they usually accept. this last weekend my old roommate and good friend chelsea flew out from utah to come to a game--she's a lifelong duke fan and hardcore basketball player and she's been working way too much lately so she needed a break and came to go to the game with us. turned out i didn't even go (oh, dane) but she and tommy watched duke beat whoever they were playing (wow, i am terrible) and we basically just sat and talked for four days. it was totally awesome.

besides the game and the talking, we took her to all our favorite places to eat (q-shack, mellow mushroom, cosmic cantina):

went to unc campus, where chelsea photobombed them with her duke shirt everywhere we went:

and watched NC State beat UNC in their basketball game! oh yeah! go wolfpack!

(i'm only including this picture because i never get over how funny it is to see dane sitting on the couch like he's a grown-up. he totally thinks he's AT LEAST six months old.)

okay, confession, i don't really care. i just have to show SOME alumni pride, don't i? obviously i don't care because . . . i own more duke shirts than state shirts and my baby has a duke outfit. 

also, not pictured: the three half-gallons of bluebell ice cream we (almost totally) consumed while she was here. thank you, chelsea, for introducing us to moo-lennial crunch . . . my life will never be the same.

4th of july

we spent most of our 4th with our favorite other summer los angelenos: the busbys! we went to a traditional fourth of july parade down by tommy's work in the morning. we were kind of expecting it to be like the freedom parade in provo, where people camp out overnight to get a good spot on the road, so we were really worried about being able to find parking and a spot along the parade route. so we showed up an hour early, and we were the only people there until about 45 minutes later. but we did get some free flags, and kylie and emmy raked in the swag from the parade-goers.

we didn't actually SEE any celebrities at the parade (still one of my goals for the summer that is yet unfulfilled) but we pretty much became celebrities. we were filmed and interviewed by a local news girl (see her in the corner of the picture above!) and we had SUCH interesting things to say on camera! check it out. we are famous.

later in the day, we went over to the busbys' house and barbecued--steak, corn, and pineapple, a real feast--and then went down to the santa monica pier to enjoy the crowds and hopefully steal a glimpse of some far-away fireworks. we knew they didn't actually do any fireworks at the pier, but were too lazy to drive in crazy traffic to a city that did have them.

and there were the fireworks! that small red dot next to tommy's head in the picture below! (they were doing them in malibu, pretty far up the coast.) people were LINED UP along the pier and the beach to stare at these tiny specks in the sky. but we didn't feel totally obligated to stay for the whole fireworks show, really.

look at how patriotic we were--although you needed both of us together to complete the color scheme. (i don't have anything red that i fit into at this point in my life, and tommy insists that his gray shorts are blue, although they're not.) but anyways, happy independence day!

things we've done lately

SO MANY FUN THINGS.

i went to the la zoo with the busbys (while the husbands were busy working).

and also hung out with the younger busbys and got stickered up.

we drove up to fresno a few weeks ago to visit tommy's grandma. we left on saturday morning and made the trip in less than four hours, and then came back sunday night. we got to go to the temple with her and i got to meet an aunt and uncle and cousin of tommy's that i'd never met before. it was a really nice trip AND we got to appreciate the weather in santa monica even more (it was over 100 in fresno the whole time we were there).

we've had several picnic lunches on the beach. i go pick tommy up and we go down to the beach to eat together. i even bought pringles to celebrate eating together--and strawberries, our constant companion this summer.

we got diddy riese ice cream sandwiches--the original smart cookie, for all you provo-ites. we've now gone again, and plan on going many times more since they are only $1.75 (cheapest dessert around!) and delicious.

we were lucky enough to be visited by hermana chelsea williamson, visiting her old missionary stomping grounds in the la mission. i got to spend a lot of time with her, chatting and catching up and hearing all about the last several YEARS of her life since we've lived together. we even got to spend her BIRTHDAY with her--we ate at bj's, went to the temple with rique, and went to yogurtland. it was a grand old reunion. THANK YOU chelsea for hitting us up!

this summer is officially HALF OVER.

i'm the king of new york

our brief trip to new york was just fantastic. the wedding was beautiful (both the sealing and the reception--AMAZING), the company was excellent (it was like our own wedding all over again, with friends AND family, but better because we weren't stressed and could hang out with the friends and family), and the sightseeing was a lot of fun. we got to see cousins on both sides of my family and friends from byu who i hadn't seen in far too long, and it just all made me very happy.

since this is a picture post, i'll just post a billion pictures and not bother with too many comments. 

first, the wedding pictures:

and, the sightseeing pictures. we went to times square, ground zero, walked the brooklyn bridge, ate lunch in little italy, and saw newsies on broadway. and we did some other stuff too.

and in six days we start our cross-country road trip. we're going to hit alabama, mississippi, arkansas, oklahoma, and new mexico--all new states i've never been to before. our only real sightseeing plans are to go to graceland and the grand canyon, and to hit up a few diners, drive-ins, and dives restaurants--other than that, we'll just be booking it across the country. oh yeah, and i graduate in four days. booyah!