Saying Goodbye to San Diego, Part (I don't even know anymore)

I finally made it down to Balboa Park (Laura and Jessica have been a few times) this last Friday. It was a nice distraction from the exhilarating study of evidence. Jessica loved trying to jump into every fountain, and there were many, so we kept in shape by running after her the whole time. Nonetheless, it was a fun time.

Here we are in front of the Balboa Park Church...


the famous gardens...


And Jessica trying to jump in the water.

I'll also throw in a few random pictures from the last few days:

There just ain't no mountain high enough

Jessica's favorite aspect of my birthday.

Well, that should do it for now. It's time to head off and take my evidence final.

Goodbye Internet - I'll miss you!

Today is our last day of Internet before the move. I'm actually very sad about it. I'll probably get more done, but at the same time I'm not sure how I'll do without email and all. So if you want to get in touch with me (Laura), give me a call. Michael will still have Internet at school and will be in charge of updating the blog if he ever has time between his three finals this week.

Happy Birthday My Love!!

April 24, 1981 - Mr. Wonderful was born. I just wanted to wish Michael a happy birthday. I love you babe. You truly treat me like a queen and I feel blessed beyond words to be yours. OK, enough of the cheesiness. Sorry you have to be caught up in all this finals junk, but hopefully I can make this a very happy birthday for you anyways. I love you! P.S. Do you like the cake? :) OK, I didn't actually make this cake. But the picture was too funny not to post.

Saying Goodbye to San Diego, Part V

I guess this isn't really a "true" "Saying Goodbye to San Diego" post since the whole family didn't go, but Laura and Jessica loved their trip to the San Diego Zoo today (thanks Kim) while I worked on finishing my exciting Idaho Water Law research paper due tomorrow. Laura would be the best one to write about the fun adventures, but she's in bed with the flu and I needed a break from Idaho's procedural aspects of administering water delivery calls by senior appropriators against junior groundwater pumping irrigators (don't tell me you didn't just get shivers).

Since I don't know the full stories behind the pictures. I'll post the pictures now and when Laura's feeling better she can insert the descriptions and funny stories later. Enjoy.
It's Laura now. Luckily I don't think I had the flu, but man did I feel sick. I guess I just needed some sleep. Poor Michael having to deal with me and Jessica during finals. He's so good to us.

But yes, the zoo was super fun. The first thing Jessica said this morning was, "Animals again?" If we're back in San Diego next year we will definitely have to invest in a year zoo pass.

Jessica with some "monkeys" - i.e. the chimpanzees.

Outside of the gorillas were these cool statues. What can I say, Jessica's a loving little girl.
I think she named this bad boy "Peterson"


Telling the flamingos to shush
Well, kind of. Actually we showed her some ducks in there that were sleeping. "Shhhh, quiet!"


The elephants were really big and really noisy (oh, did I mention smelly). But Jessica just loved them and wasn't at all scared or intimidated.


The giraffes were one of her favorite. She's still talking about them.


And I just had to include this post-zoo pic too. I came home to work on the paper just as Jessica woke up from her nap and Laura decided she needed a nap. I was busy ignoring Jessica while writing until I hear her nervous whimper. Despite our best effort to pack in such a way as to deter this activity, she'd found just enough footholds to get to the top, but not to get down. I took this right before grabbing her and doing a little more reorganizing. I think she learned a little something from the monkeys today.

Saying Goodbye to San Diego, Part IV

I was talking to one of my friends about good places to eat around San Diego and he mentioned this place, Phil's BBQ. He just couldn't believe we'd never been there after living in San Diego for 2 years, so we put it on our list of things to do before leaving and we were extremely glad that we did. I'm not one to get really excited about food, but I'm pretty sure that was the best food I've ever had. I've got to find that sauce they put on the ribs because, wow.

Dinner may have tasted extra nice because I had just turned in my corporate finance final right before we went out. That was without a doubt the hardest test I've ever taken. We were given 48 hours to take it and I think I slept a total of 5 hours in that time. Now I have a paper on Idaho water law and 3 more exams to complete in the next 2 weeks, but I feel like I'm at least half way done with finals so that's a sweet sweet feeling.

She's all beat up

Poor Jessica. She's been having a rough week so far. I've been on the phone with either the 24 nurse advice line or her doctor three times already. First off is her eye. I'm pretty sure it's a black eye. I have no idea where/how she got it, but at her age, it could have been anywhere. Then she's had a fever that has just been creeping up. It got to around 102 degrees today. Luckily by the end of the afternoon she seemed to be acting more like herself. Oh, Michael wanted me to be sure to say that we didn't try to take a picture of her crying - she just started as we were taking the other picts. But before all of this sadness, she was her old happy self. And to prove it, here are some super cute and funny pictures from recently.

Green Means "go"

Lately Jessica has been very impatient while we're driving. Any time I slow down and stop at a light she tells me to go, and gets upset that we're stopped. So the other day I took the time while we were driving to explain the whole "red means stop" "green means go" thing. She LOVES it now. Today as we were driving I would ask her what color the light ahead was. She would tell me and then say whether we had to stop or go. When we were stopped at red lights I would say, "Go green! Please go green!" Pretty soon it would change. She was cracking me up because she would then be like, "Dis is so fun! Again!" She was really bummed when we turned onto our street and there were no more stop lights. Silly thing. :)

Saying Goodbye to San Diego, Part III

We love Coronado! It is just so beautiful and fun. So we put it on our list of things to do before we leave San Diego for the summer. We had lunch at La Salsa (also a "place" of ours) and then walked along the beach. One thing that is so cool about Coronado is that they have these big sand mounds along the beach. I didn't use to know what they were all about until I was randomly looking at Google Maps. Check this out:

Those mounds of sand spell out "Coronado Beach." So cool. Anyways, we had a lot of fun today, as we usually do.

This is how Jessica ate her lunch - dipping a knife in her beans and licking it off. Silly girl.

Jessica and Michael
(you can see the sand mounds in both this and the next picture)

Laura and Jessica

Image Tag

I'm usually not really into the "blog tags" for my own blog. But this was one that I liked. You look up you answer to each of these questions on Google image search. Then you choose one of the images that show up (I chose the first one each time).

Age at my next birthday
Hooray for 24! We miss good old Jack Bauer.









A Place I'd Like to Visit
Honduras! Michael has been back twice since his mission. I think it's my turn.








A Favorite Place
How can you not love the beach? But there are so many types of place that I love. I love hiking in the mountains too. I pretty much love wherever I am.














One of my Favorite Things
My beautiful family - Jessica and Michael. Apparently this is "Jessica" Simpson with some "Michael" guy.








One of my Favorite Foods
Chocolate-covered cinnamon bears! Yum!














My Favorite Flower
I absolutely love daisies! I love any type. Regular, Gerber, whatever. They are just so happy are pretty.









My Favorite Color
OK, I cheated on this one. This wasn't actually the first image that showed up for "pink." But it was just too pretty to pass up. I LOVE pink! It's feminine and fun.



















The City I Live in
Beautiful San Diego! We'll miss it when we leave. But we really are excited for what other adventures await.















The Name of a Past Pet
Buster. He was a dog my brother got when I was like in Kindergarten or something.


















A Nickname I've Had
"Geese." Don't ask. Even I don't get it. I think it was just something Michael randomly called me one day and it stuck. Silly Michael.



















My College Major
Communications. Looking back I think I would have had more fun doing "Fitness and Wellness/Exercise Science." But at the time I thought it was way too much of a stereotypical athlete major, and I didn't want to be a stereotype. Oh well.







My First Job
Wow! What an ugly picture! When I was in junior high I wrote a weekly column in our local newspaper on a teen page. My column was called, "Web Reviews." I picked a cool website each week and wrote about it. It was very exciting stuff. :)

















My Hope for 2008
I have so many hopes for this year. Pay down our student loans some more, get an official job offer, learn some Spanish, get Jessica potty trained (we're on hiatus ever since she spent a week screaming every time I even mentioned trying to go, much less actually trying to sit her down), and the one I choose to picture - get better at swimming. I am not a swimmer. I made a lot of progress last summer, but I have a long ways to go. Michael wants me to get scuba dive certified this summer. Hmmm... that might be next year's goal.













If you feel like it, you are hereby tagged. :)

Solemn Assembly

This weekend is General Conference for our church. This morning was a solemn assembly and we were able to sustain a new prophet. Wow. What an incredible experience and blessing. How lucky we are as a family to have the Gospel in our lives; it helps me to be a better person.

Saying Goodbye to San Diego, Part II

When we first moved to San Diego, the law firm Michael was working for gave us 2 tickets to Petco Park to watch the Padres take on the LA Dodgers. We were excited because the seats were great and Michael grew up a Dodgers fan. Everything was set, but Jessica had something else in mind and was born the day of the game. Now, 19 months later, we decided this was one activity we couldn't leave San Diego without doing, and as luck would have it, the Dodgers just happened to come to town for opening week. It was a fun night, complete with trolley rides, "friar franks," and crazy drunk fans. Jessica got into it and danced the whole time (she became the star of our section).

Riding the Trolley to the game.

Laura and Jessica on the way up (way up) to our seats.

Jessica and her "dog" - Yum-o!

The view from our seats.


Michael and Jessica as we were leaving the game.