Welcome, Visitors!

Last night, my old co-worker and friend came to the Bay Area to visit one of her vendors. When I got engaged and it became well known at work that I would be moving to the Bay area her supervisor and boss both told her she should come visit her vendor and visit me while here. I didn't know if they meant it but they held up to their word and she was approved to come. We met up and went to sushi for dinner. I had been craving sushi for a few weeks. It was delicious! After dinner we walked around China Town and the Union Square area, hitting up a few of the remaining open shops. It was so fun to see her.

Tonight my cousin and old roommate is coming for a few days as well. I am so excited! It's so fun to have visitors.

Gung Hay Fat Choy

Gung Hay Fat Choy- is Happy New Year in Chinese. Yesterday was the Chinese New Year Parade in San Francisco. It's a tradition that started shortly after the Gold Rush as a means for educating people outside of Asia about the Chinese culture. Today, the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade has become one of the largest Asian celebrations outside of Asia.

Braving the wind and the rain, we went to the city with some of our good friends, the Andrews, to experience this Asian celebration for ourselves. You seriously can't get any better than egg rolls and pot stickers from a street vendor in China town. Plus, all the little kids dressed up as rats! This year is the year of the rat in the Chinese Zodiac calendar. I read that it is the start of the 12 years on the Zodiac calendar and often given pre-eminence. Tradition is that the rat was the first animal to respond when Buddha summoned all animals-therefore its place as the start of the lunar calendar. Since the rat is the start of the new year, it is believed to be lucky for new undertakings! So-get out there and make some New Year resolutions!

One of many streets vendors selling Chinese Food

It's too bad the rain caused many floats and Chinese dragons to be covered in plastic and was probably miserable for the participants but I tend to think the less than prime weather kept the streets less crowded, which was great for us! Despite the cold and rain, we loved it and enjoyed our evening with friends.

The parade was so dark that we edited the lighting in Photoshop so you could see. Now Nate is self-consious of his grey-looking hair.

Nate and Jaime in the Parade? Maybe next year....

Sunday Walks

We LOVE going on Sunday walks. It's a tradition that started when we were dating. Back then we would walk along the Provo River Trail close to our apartment complex and just talk. Last week we went on our first walk in a few months. We found that not too far from our home we could escape the concrete surroundings, crowded sidewalks and escape into nature. We even saw some deer! What a wonderful world we live in.

Valentine's Day

Valentines Day was pretty low key for us this year. I was working pretty long hours last week and I wasn't sure when I'd be home, so we didn't make any big plans. Jaime made the day special by fixing me a delicious pancake breakfast and a gift of Dove chocolates. I left work around 6:30 and we went out to dinner at this great little Chinese restaurant in San Mateo called the Hot Wok Bistro. We came across it on yelp.com and it was a find. It only has 6-7 tables and it was in a really odd location, but the food was great! It was great to spend the evening with my Valentine.

I LOVE my Valentine!!!

The Hot Wok Bistro (not a very good picture, sorry)

Digital Scrapbooking?

Lately I have been wanting to get into digital scrapbooking. The way I see it, there is no paper mess, no trying to find places to store all the extra supplies, and you have the ability to manipulate the photos like shrinking them to fit, changing colors, etc.

Nate and I created our wedding sign in book and loved every minute of it. Since then, I have wanted to start documenting our life together. We invested in Photoshop Elements when doing the wedding book and it is absolutely wonderful but since then I have wished it had more of the fun papers, ribbons, cool fonts, and embellishments you can find with paper scrapbooking. Well, today I stumbled across a site that offers digital "freebies" for those type of things and downloaded a bunch. The site I found was http://www.freedigitalscrapbooking.com/


If anyone knows of other great sites, please let me know!

My first digital scrapbook page!

Below are pages of our sign in book from our wedding. Ambyr, these are for you! Plus, we love them and are always willing to share! :) These are just 4 of about 20 pages and some of our favorite.

One of Many Reasons I Love My Husband

Nate has a habit of leaving cupboards and drawers open. For me, being somewhat of a perfectionsist, it used to drive me crazy when I first discovered this habit. Things just felt so out of place when the cupboards were open. Now, I find it quite humorous since he doesn't even notice- EVER. It's so opposite from me. The other day I walked into the kitchen to this scene. If you can't tell, I think there were 7 cupboards open. I laughed really hard when I saw all of them open.

Lots of Quick Stops

Saturday was a beautiful, clear and warm day! Nate and I had plans that would have caused us to be inside most the day so when our friends invited us to go to the city with them and do a little "hike", we quickly changed our plans. We are so glad we did! I don't think there has been a nicer day since we moved here. Sight seeing was fun in clear weather. Not to mention we had great company as well. We hit many tourist sites-rather quickly- but is was still fun to get out and see new things. I think we hit all of the following places at least briefly or even as a quick drive by:

1. Explored Sutro Baths
2. Drove past the Legion of Honor
3. Played frisbee on Baker Beach
4. Oogled over the ten million dollar houses with a Bay view and great landscaping
5. Drove through the Presidio
6. Drove down Lombard Street
7. Walked around the Palace of Fine Arts
8. Walked around Coit Tower and watched the beautiful sunset
9. Ordered take out from Patxi Pizza
10. Saw the "Full House" House near Alamo Square Park

There are a few places we would like to go back and explore even more! We'll just add them to our already long list of things to do. We don't have too many pictures because the battery in my camera died.

EARLY morning seminary

This past week Jaime and I had the opportunity and challenge to teach early morning seminary to the High Schoool kids in the ward. The previous teacher moved and they asked us to fill in for a week to give them time to call a permanent teacher. I have a new found respect for the kids that come everyday and an appreciation for the fact that I went to seminary right after lunch when I was in high school. And I have an even greater respect for all the early morning seminary teachers out there, especially those who have a family and work full time.

The topic is the Old Testament, so we couldn't just wing it. For me, it was probably the first time I have read the stories of Saul, David, and Solomon since I was in seminary. Over the course of the last week Jaime and I have learned quite a few things.

• No matter how righteous you are, there is always a chance you will make a mistake if you let your guard down.


• You can be very powerful, even unstoppable, if you allow the Lord to guide your life.


• The dress of choice for high school kids at 6 am is a hoody and sweats.


• No matter how energetic you try to be in the morning, the energy never quite makes it to the students.


• Gospel principles are best taught and learned in the home. Seminary should just be a supplement.


• It is a little creepy to be wandering the hallways of a dark church at 5:45 am looking for homeless people who have been known to try to spend the night.


• When teaching seminary during busy season, there is only time for 4 things. Eat, work, prepare a lesson, and sleep.

We had a great experience during the week, but needless to say we both indulged ourselves to an extended Sunday afternoon nap.