Disneyland

Thanks to Sarah for making this fun graphic for us!

Saturday Tyler and I spent the entire day at Disneyland with the London crew and it was sooooo much fun!! I loved seeing everyone from London again and I forgot how much fun Disneyland is! Favorites: Indiana Jones ride (especially the first time when we had a stranger in our car), Hollywood Tower of Terror (the one that Tyler just giggled on the whole time), Space Mountain (the one that Jillian and I just giggled on the whole time), and Soarin' Over California (though it made me want to dip my toes in the warm ocean sooo bad). It was a little rainy, so towards the end of the day the rides were a little more cold and we were a little more wet, but we stuck it out for a while and it was totally worth it.

Sunday evening I spent some more time with the Londoners and we celebrated Alyssa's birthday. I really miss these guys and hopefully I can go see them all again in Utah before Jillian leaves us for her Texas mission- so sad, but so awesome!! Cheers!!

All of us hanging out on the Toontown Trolley

Jumping around in California Adventure

Boston Revisited

Not much is happening in the house of Turner these days- Tyler goes to work and I stay home. I have, however, applied to a gazillion jobs and have had a few interviews, so hopefully I'll be working soon. In the meantime I thought I'd do a post on something more exciting- Boston!

Tyler and I visited Boston and a few other parts of New England a year and a half ago for our first anniversary and absolutely loved it!! Unfortunately, this all happened before I became a blogger so all my photos from the trip have been kept hidden. I won't go into too many details other than we loved the East Coast, especially the beauty and charm of small towns like Plymouth and Chatham out on the Cape, and we definitely want to go back some day.

Here are a few of my favorite shots:

The North End- where you'll find all the Italians and the best Italian food in Boston

Cape Cod- sooo different from Hawaii beaches

Lexington- where the famous battle took place

The Boston Temple

The main mast of the Mayflower

Plymouth Rock- the rock the pilgrims actually touched down on was much bigger than this :)

The Breakers Mansion at Newport, RI- amazing!!

Memorial bench for those killed during the Salem Witch Trials- I always found this story interesting

Pier in Salem, MA just outside Nathaniel Hawthorne's house

Pretty covered bridge in the New Hampshire countryside

Entrance to Joseph Smith Jr.'s birthplace and the famous sign (for those who know)

The old seats still in use at Fenway

Entrance to the maple trees at Sugarbush Farm in New Hampshire- we had the most amazing maple syrup, candy and homemade cheese and jam here

2011 Aspen Ski Week

Tyler and I accompanied the rest of his family on their annual ski vacation in Aspen, CO a couple of weeks ago. This year's trip was instantly an improvement over last year's simply because I didn't spend five hours straight lying on a bathroom floor and puking my guts out. It was also an improvment considering I managed a few moguls and a few jumps (on purpose) without wiping out and going home in a stretcher- yay me!! Next year maybe I'll try heli-skiing or something :)

Anyways, I busted out the Nikon at the top of a lift for a few wintery photos to share. Enjoy!

Pau

So, for all of you who saw my most recent post about Tyler and I welcoming puppy Pau into our home, I apologize. Shortly after we brought Pau home to California we felt as if this was not the right time for us to be taking care of a small puppy. It's hard to explain the feeling, but we both felt as though our time was going to be needed elsewhere in the near future and so we decided it would be best for the puppy and ourselves to send him to another home where he would be loved just as much.

Although I cried numerous times in the days following our decision, I feel much better about giving him up now because he is now the new member of my sister Amy's family. I took Pau up to Idaho at the beginning of the week and he is already loving their backyard full of snow and the added attention and exercise he gets living with two small kids. Tyler and and I are both still very sad to give up such a cute, mellow puppy (not to mention how quickly he has caught on to his training), but we believe this will be better for Pau and for us in the long run.

But just because we only had him for a week, don't think I don't already have several cuteness-overload photos to share. We love you Pau!!

Whirlwind Holidays

Photo of a frozen fountain, because without a photo this post would be really boring :)

I apologize for having abandoned all my adoring fans (Pa & Jo) for the past couple of weeks, but I have some really good excuses to explain my long absence. Since my last post, Tyler and I have gone back and forth across the country a few times, celebrated the holidays, and have finally begun to get things settled for the next couple of years in L.A. To keep things short and sweet I'll give you the highlights (or anything of note) in bullet-point format:

• Spent Christmas with the Turners in L.A. Tyler/Santa got me a beautiful Kate Spade purse because he is the most awesome husband/jolly fat-man ever! Tyler also had a temperature of 102 and horrible chills Christmas day, which may or may not have been caused by the Lakers embarrassing loss. Tyler claims that he NEVER gets sick because he has a superior immune system, but after hearing what his temperature was he finally conceded he was ill- a huge step forward for Tyler.
• We completed our stay in Chicago and moved home. Since Tyler's last week in Chicago was the week between Christmas and New Years, we flew my sister Sarah out to Chicago to accompany me while driving the Focus back to L.A. We had a lovely little roadtrip stopping in Lincoln, NE to see our new niece Shelby May, Denver, CO where we hung out with one of my best friends, Monica, and her family, and Las Vegas, NV where we stopped in to see another one of my best friends, Ashton, and her twin boys. We also spent a nite in Beaver, UT after enduring some crazy snow storms and bad road conditions all through Colorado, and for two Hawaii girls I think we did a pretty good job of managing the snow.
• Celebrated New Years 2011 with Sarah and Justin. We all wore sparkly crowns and pulled confetti poppers at midnite and.... that's about it.
• Tyler and I did some hard-core apartment shopping and found the perfect one for us in Beverly Hills just 4 minutes from Tyler's office in Century City- I'll try to post photos soon. Tyler also began his real job with JP Morgan in L.A.
  
• I spent the weekend driving with the Turners out to Aspen for a week of skiing. Tyler will be joining us Tuesday and it should be a fun week!

We have a few more exciting things to report shortly, but for now Tyler and I are both just really happy to finally be settling down in L.A. and not living in a hotel anymore, well except for this week in Aspen :) I'll keep you posted!!

Washington DC - Take Two

As most of you know, Tyler and I headed back to our nation's capitol last weekend since our first trip was mediocre, to say the least. This time everything was great! We were able to see/tour/do a long list of things and we had a lot of fun too. Some of our favorites were the Diplomatic Reception Rooms at the State Department (definitely a secret treasure), Mount Vernon, the National Archives, the Washington Monument, the FDR and Pentagon 9/11 Memorials, the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Center (might be better than the original Air & Space Smithsonian on the National Mall), the International Spy Museum, and the DAR Headquarters & Museum (for me, not Tyler). I know it's hard to believe, but these are just the favorites, not everything we did.

Here a few photos of our little excursion for you to enjoy:

The Washington Monument

The National Cathedral

The Enterprise Space Shuttle is HUGE and soooo awesome! It's hard to describe the feeling you have standing next to a space shuttle.

SR-71, aka Jetfire from Transformers!!

Enola Gay- the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima

State Department mirror Christmas tree and flags

Mount Vernon and back porch view of the frozen Potomac

FDR Memorial

Capitol rotunda w/ the Apotheosis of Washington

The Great Hall (Library of Congress)

Arlington National Cemetery

The Nutcracker. . . .

....finally!!

Last nite I got all dressed up and Tyler took me out to a nice dinner and to see the Joffrey Ballet perform The Nutcracker. It was my first time seeing The Nutcracker, ever, and I absolutely loved it! Tyler may have been a little bored, but he gets the 'Best Husband Award' for sitting through it quietly with me :)

Photos courtesy of www.joffrey.org

I think my favorite part was the Waltz of the Flowers because I was sitting on the edge of my seat the whole time waiting to hear that familiar music which, to me, is the sound of The Nutcracker. I also liked the pas de deux with the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker Prince, the Chinese dance and the Russian dance- but I really just loved it all!!

Happy Christmas!