It's Not Over

Hello blogworld!

The title of this post refers to the fact that the 3-day holiday weekend is still alive and young, thank goodness! I hope everyone is enjoying the nice break.

A recap of our weekend thus far--on Friday night, we had the pleasure of spending the evening with the Sturgeon family. The Sturgeons are from Arkansas/the Gulf Coast and live on campus with us. Al is a 3rd year law student. He is also the RA for the married housing on campus (he also has an awesome blog if you have a second to check it out) and so we've had the awesome opportunity to become close to him and his precious family. His wife Jody and I bonded over our love of exercise and so you can usually find us together at a spin class or doing Insanity in the common area in our complex. Their youngest daughter, Hillary, is a 7th grader at Malibu High and we get to see her at church, youth group, or when she's starring in some musical/dance production. Their oldest daughter, Erica, just moved out to California from Mississippi. She graduated from college in the winter and it's been a lot of fun getting to know her. Anywho, Friday was Hillary's birthday so Jody asked Aaron and I if we would join them for a birthday cupcake down at Crumbs (twist our arms, right?) Little did we know that the offer got even sweeter because Jody told me on Thursday that she would have supper for us in the form of CHICK FIL-A! As Aaron said, we got to have Chick Fil-A and cupcakes and it wasn't even our birthdays! Not a bad deal. We had a great evening chatting and eating good food.

On Saturday, Aaron got up to study and took a break mid morning because we were helping with Sack Lunch Saturday, where we make lunches to bring down to the workers at the Labor Exchange. Erica went with me to drop them off and after that, we headed down PCH to American Apparel because I had found out that they were having a Sidewalk Sale at the Malibu location. We bought a few goodies and it was fun to get to hang out with her. As Aaron studied, I spent the afternoon on a spinning bike at the gym preparing my routine for Wednesday's class (!) and Aaron and I had an impromptu date on Saturday night! We drove into the valley for dinner (Chili's) and mattress shopping. We are in pretty desperate need of a new mattress so we decided to try Macy's since I had seen that they were having some holiday sales. Wow, who knew mattresses were so expensive!! Needless to say, we left empty handed on Saturday night but that's okay. We're going to do some research online and get a better idea of what our options are. We came home and watched 17 Again with Zac Efron (my netflix pick, obviously). It was pretty cute.

Sunday morning, we woke up and headed to church and while we were at church, we were invited to a 4th of July celebration just up the hill from us on Baxter drive. It was bring your own picnic style so after church, Aaron and I drove through the canyon to have lunch and get some snacks for the evening. It was good to have some plans around here because we didn't want to do too much since Aaron had quite a bit of work to do this weekend. Our friends Nicole and Jeremy were sweet to invite us to celebrate with them in Santa Clarita and my brother and T actually invited us to stay with them in a villa in Palm Springs but we decided to keep it low key this year and we ended up having a great time. Apparently, the families on campus take the 4th pretty seriously. There was a parade at 3:30pm which we missed but when we got up the hill, there was a dive contest going on at the pool. After that, there was a water balloon toss game, followed by a pie tasting contest--where I was asked to be the only female judge! Hey, it's a tough job but someone has to do it. It was so much fun hanging out with the families and all of the cute kids we know from church and living on campus. The view from the top of the hill was not bad for the fireworks at night either! Enjoy the pics (disclaimer: Aaron took most of these!)


I love this sequence Aaron took of Yo Shen who we know from our church:





This was our 3rd 4th of July together and it just never gets old. I am thankful for this man every day!



Pie tasting is serious business.



Aaron got the job of wrapping up one of the twins like a burrito. So cute, I love these pictures. Just don't ask me which twin this is.






Maybe the other twin swinging with his dad?



The day off is going well so far, too. We slept in a bit and I braved the rain/mist for a 5 miler on the track. I'm running a 5K on Sunday with some friends so I've really been trying to put in some time on the pavement! Aaron is busy working at home because the library does not open until 10am today. I have big things on the agenda today--Target, P90x, and dinner for my hubby. Big things, people.

Hope you enjoy the *bonus* day off!

As a random ps, I'm writing this blog entry with 6th Street in the background. Grant, one of the two guys who make up 6th Street, is Jerren's best friend from UT. Listen to their music if you have a second, it is really, really awesome and I'm no music exec, but I think they'll make it.

"Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever." 1 Chronicles 16:34