JAMAICA!!

Jamaica or bust Mon.....be back in 10 days!

State Fair in Sacramento (late in posting by a month)

About a month ago Chris and I traveled to Sacramento for the famous CA State Fair. It was so much fun and we want to thank our amazing hosts the Bowdens for such a great time!!

Rachel this picture is for you! We got to check out some really cool livestock!

That is a cow....they were HUGE there! It was crazy because they were just walking all over with their owners.

Farmer Jane getting ready to milk a goat!!

You can't see but the goat had these funny hair things hanging down so I am trying to look like him. Um....failing to do so.

Ashley with this HUGE dairy cow!

I found this police horse was quite fond of me.

Getting excited for the rides!

Bumper cars! My FAVORITE!!!!

They had this cool expo thing that had all these inventions. We really liked these strap on chairs for back support. Chris even thought of getting one for his dental practice.

We bought those towels that hold an amazing amount of water. It was like a live infomercial and we got sucked in. But they work awesome!

Thinking of strategic poses to win the slide race.....

Hey! Get out of our picture! After the slide race.....I came in last....

More rides!!!

hmmmmm....Gelato. This was SO GOOD! Some of the best I have had!

So Ash has this camera setting where it takes like 5 pictures in a row and you just pose all crazy. Here are some of them.....as you can see the fair rides, sugar, and fried foods have really gone to our brains!

Umm...not sure on this one!

Yeah....we are so cool or crazy!

Chris and Austin posing with the hulk. Oh baby!

I love this action shot of Chris!!!!

And what would a fair be without the picture on the CA State Golden Bear at the entrance.

Take 2...

And then it was over. We were really out of it! LOTS of sugar, fried foods (hmmm.... fried snickers), Gelato, some yummy lemonade and a few sodas. An evil concoction as you can see. Not sure what we were thinking at this point but we had a great time!! Til....next year....

GO COUGARS!

Thanks to Matt and Annie who planned this whole thing! We just provided some of the food and the venue. It was really fun to watch the BYU game and root for the cougars. It was nice to feel young and in college again. LOL. We played UCLA and KILLED them! 59-0! Talk about an extreme slaughter.....

We had a full house! Maximus didn't know what to do with all those people!

The spread minus dessert. Thankfully we didn't have much leftovers. Our favorites were the wings, guacamole, and Annie's yummy cheese dip. Thanks everyone for a great time!

A Late Night Project AGAIN!

So...those of you who know me know that I do my best work after midnight. LOL. I came home from work and was not ready to go to bed and was craving SUGAR! I realized that I hadn't assigned dessert to anyone who was coming to our house the next day for a BYU football get together and decided to make some dessert.

Here are the spirited cookies I made. It was fun to relive the college excitement for a football game. Licia and Jess...remember when we made these one year but used a "special" blue for our group of guy friends? Ohhh...prank wars are fun!

And...my kitchen was a total mess. I didn't finish cooking and cleaning it back up until almost 4am. But it was a lot of fun!

Lazy Dog

So...OCCASIONALLY we allow Maximus to sleep with us. Usually after he has a bath. This particular time he was in a deep sleep when I woke up and wanted to make the bed. He happened to be in just the right spot where I could make it without him. It wasn't perfect but he was one out cold dog the whole time. It was really funny! I didn't have the heart to wake him up and make him get down.

One Happy Puppy

So...Maximus loves the toys that have the sqeakers inside. I bought him some new ones and this is literally what it looked like 10 minutes after I gave it to him. Ugh! Is there a chew proof squeaker toy out there?

The 1st china dinner

So since I now have some china, I thought that it would be apropriate to make a fancy dinner and use it. We were having some friends over for dinner yesterday and I thought it would be fun to slave away and make a really fun dinner. You can't tell but I made rolls and tied them into rosettes and then made my first ever butter puffs with my fancy frosting press thingy I got for my birthday.

Dinner set for 4. Unfortunately I didn't have all of my nice stuff because I no longer have a china cabinet (we sold it for space issues) I have all my nice stuff in our storage. I was too lazy to go dig through storage so I made due with what I had. Otherwise I would have used a white table cloths and white table linens.

Josh and Steffi Townsend joined us. We discovered that this time of year is also the anniversary of when we first met them. So we toasted with white grape juice to all the recent anniversaries.

The menu? Marinated Turkey breasts. I decided I would try and makes some fun garnishes since it was a fancy meal. It was surprisingly easy! Who needs culinary school right? Well....garnishes is probably something people know before they go...but still.

Mashed potatoes.

And green beans. Yum!

For dessert Steffi made us a cake and brought a #5 candle for our anniversary. Hmmm...not the greatest picture and I really should have taken off my 4inch heels! LOL. I look like a giant next to Chris.

And the cake was actually purple! my favorite color! And it was amazing! Steffi I love your cakes!

China!

So on our anniversary we went and checked out China patterns. The 5th anniversary is wood and silver. Well I got Chris a wooden game box that has all kinds of fun games with wooden pieces. Well...his gift to me was china. When we got married we registered for everything in white and figured we would add china later. Well...there is no time like an anniversary to start a china collection right? So here is our new pattern that we chose. Thanks for Macy's 50% off sale it was much more affordable!

Anniversary Present

This is where we will be going for our 5th anniversary in 6 weeks. It just opened in June and is Jamaica's newest all inclusive resort.

CAN"T WAIT!!

The Anniversary Fund.....JAMAICA Mon!

It's that time of year again! Anniversary time!! And as usual with the anniversary tradition we break open the "marriage bank" ( I explained it all in last year's post so if you missed it check the archive of Aug. 2007).

This year's total? $246. What are we going to spend it on??? Well.....we are going to JAMAICA for our anniversary but not until the end of September because that is when Chris gets his school break. So we are going to spend it on something there. Maybe we'll rent a jetski or something or go do a dinner cruise or zipline. We'll see.

Breaking Dawn-The Last of the Twilight Series

LOVED IT!!!!! If you have not read this series of 4 books that totally consume your life as you read through them you MUST!!

The Marathoner

So one of the reasons Chris couldn't make it to the wedding was because he had signed up to run this marathon almost a year ago. Yes....he did just break his leg last October. But he made it! I'm so proud of him! He dedicated the marathon to me and if you can see he is signing I Love You with his right hand for me as he crosses. I wish I could have been there!

Sorry the picture is so small but the real picture cost almost $60 each!! Crazy! But this is him crossing the finish line. Ask him how much he trained for it....I think the most he ran was 6 miles before. And he ran it in under 5 hours! I'm impressed! He only walked around like he had been hit by a Mack truck for about two days afterwards. And...I don't know if I will ever get the icy hot smell out of my house. LOL. Love you babe!

And when I got home Chris told me the story about him dedicating the marathon to me. He said he got all choked up the last mile. Then he gave me these roses. Aw.....I love your guts babe! You are the best!

High School Friends

Unfortunately a lot of my high school friends are all over the country (like me in SF) so I gather as many as I could while I was home to hang out. We went to dinner and The Cheesecake Factory and had a great time catching up. I miss you guys!!

Congratulations Jonny and Amy!!!

It was the big day for Jonny and what would a Umina wedding be without me having to be put to work in the morning. I did 3 haircuts, my mom's hair, and my hair. Should I have been a hairstylist? I think my family keeps me busy enough. My mom's hair looked great. Mine got pretty frizzy. I forgot how much the humidity effects hair, especially when it pours and HAILS on the day of the wedding. Crazy weather!

Smile! That is me extremely sleep deprived without makeup. SCARY! I was up at 6am that morning getting things in order for Jonny. And yes I went to bed at 3am.

Me and Jonny outside the Boston temple. His last few moments as a bachelor.

The new Mr. and Mrs. Umina!! The sealing was beautiful! I couldn't hold back the tears.

The bride! I love the Boston temple!

Isn't she beautiful!

The wedding party. Small but beautiful.

Awww.....

My Dad and his sister Mary.

After the luncheon which I was late for due to a huge rain and hail storm and because I was decorating their hotel room with rose petals, kisses, and sparkling cider, I helped Amy redo her hair from all the crazy weather. I brought a curling iron and hairspray just in case. Glad I did!

The first dance.

Eddy doing the toast.

My dance partner my brother Joe. Doesn't he look happy? He had to fill Chris' shoes because he was too busy with school, flights were too expensive for both of us, and he was running the San Francisco Marathon the next day. I wish he could have been there. It would have saved me some slobber. Actually Guiseppe and I had a great time. He just loves posing for pictures. Crazy kid!

Cutting the cake.

I tried to get her to shove it in his face. Oh well!

Resting our feet from dancing.

Me and the new sister-in-law.

The family that was able to attend. We are missing Dan and Eric and of course the spouses and nieces and nephews.

Wishing the groom well before he leaves.

Decking out the car. I was WAY nicer than Jonny was to me but I'm not one for revenge. It could have been OH SO MUCH WORSE. Let's just say for my wedding I think there was about 5 rolls of tin foil and 10 cans of whip cream. I thought I would be the bigger person and go the classy route.

The car was full of ribbons, balloons, and bows inside. And off to Jamaica they went. Love you guys!! Congratulations!!