Polo

Recently, Jasmine Star (one of the best photographers out there) posted the cutest picture of her dog, Polo. It totally made my day, so I thought I should share it with you. You can see the original post here. She prefaced the picture by saying:

"Polo turned five years old last week... Even as a puppy, our dog had the appearance of an old soul, so it's common to call him Gramps. This morning I photographed him and the following photo proves Polo is ready for the retirement home. I worry his modeling days are over."

Cutest thing ever! Throw together any sort of sentence using the words "gramps" and "puppy" and I'll melt. She never ceases to amaze me.

The Zoo!

So, over Christmas vacation, my family took a trip to San Diego. While we were there, we got to go to the zoo! It was so fun! Here are some pictures from our day there:

Waiting in line for the first half of the morning to take a very unproductive tour. We were so naive.

The elephants!

Giraffes. They used to be Ashley's favorite animal. But Ronnie looks alot like one.

Flamingos. Not much to say.

Gorillas. One of the best parts of the day. The baby was so cute!

From the sky tram thing.

Polar bear, another cool sight. Did you know their fur is clear, not white?

Lions. The pictures were kind of bad because the fence was in the way, but I guess I'm thankful for that.

Meercats. They are sooo intriguing and entertaining.

And finally, Koala Bears. I hear they have mushy butts. So cute.

We had a great time! I would love to go back sometime and not waste time on the tour so I would have more energy to see more animals.

Baby!

For the sake of pictures, I will share some that I took a couple months ago while watching a baby at a children's event at church. He was so so cute and so interested with my camera!

I had alot of fun experimenting with my new camera, and practicing lighting, focusing and such. An adorable and easy-going baby I'm sure helped make things a little easier.

A few random things...

Since I hardly have time to post on here anymore being so busy with work, I will share a few recent posts from my favorite blogger - Ashley Ann.

Today her post was on Valentines Day craft ideas, as well as links to other sources.  I loved her idea about the crush sodas.

Yesterday she posted about a recent remodel she has done to her house. I love seeing what she does with old stuff, new stuff, and the ideas she comes up with. I have recently been at a standstill with any projects or crafts, but she always inspires me to use the little time I can find to work on improvements.

I love how I think I'm too busy to update this blog and do crafts when I am "too busy with work", but somehow have the impression that when I have four small children I will make time to take amazing pictures, and be continually crafting, redecorating, and being a good mom with time to spare! Hey a girl can dream right? I suppose I can work on doing a little more each day and hope that, when that time comes, I am finally at that point. Now, I have work to do.

San Fran!

Warning: This post is very long with alot of pictures! Enjoy =)

Ronnie has been taking classes up north for a J-term for the last couple weeks, so this weekend I had the opportunity to visit him and have our first mini-vacation alone since the honeymoon! It was awesome! So so cold, but awesome. On another note, I still haven't gotten around to organizing and posting stuff from the holidays as promised, but I didn't want that to stop me completely from moving on. Hopefully now I won't feel SO behind. Anyways...

He picked me up from the airport and we headed to Mill Valley. He wanted to show me the Golden Gate Seminary campus where he is studying. It was beautiful, and there were deer!

 We headed over to the library, and look what we found!!! (It's my dad's dissertation)

We took some more pics of the campus.

Everything is so green and mossy!

Then, we headed toward the city and found a lovely spot to take pictures of the Golden Gate bridge. Unfortunately, it was pretty foggy which made for less-than-ideal pictures, but still ok. Sidenote: Upon stepping out of the airport, I quickly realize I was going to have to make a very important choice - comfort or fashion? My weak side dominated and chose life over looking good. Therefore, I am not thrilled with how I appear in most of the photos, but I am grateful that I am not still thawing.

We are so silly!

Here is a picture of our hotel. I loved it!

The first night, we had dinner at Rocco's. It was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives. The food was pretty good, but we treated ourselves to a slice of hot blackberry pie, and it was probably THE BEST thing I have ever eaten. She had literally just pulled it out of the oven, so the crust was warm and still doughy and salty, and the blackberries were warm, sweet, and sour, and the ice cream was sweet and cold. It was a-mazing. I would go back just for that...

The next morning, we got up early to head over to Alcatraz! What an adventure.

Did I mention it was COLD?! Alcatraz was by far the coldest part of the weekend. I don't remember which one of us was the smart one who suggested riding by boat to a rock in the middle of the windy bay when it was below 40 degrees...

Pretty foggy, but still cool.

Cool sights on the tour...

The island had a foggy but pretty view of the mainland. I like the sparkly cars in the first pic. At some point during the morning I expressed my true feelings to Ronnie about that hat. He tried to take it off for the rest of the pictures.

After the tour, we strolled through Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, and ended up at a perfect place to take the cable car back! We stopped at Wipeout in Pier 39 for lunch and had clam chowder and chili. We should have gotten the fish and chips, but since we missed out on that one, we ended up having it for dinner. We also decided that our traveling collection will consist of patches. We bought our first 2!

Read that cable car sign - it's seriously funny. My favorite part - "Hang on around curves"! Anyways, we took the cable car up past Lombard street (on the wrong side to see the cool part, though) and got off at Chinatown, which looked really snazzy in preparation for Chinese New Year coming up.

  love this laundry...

Ok so anybody who knows me at all knows that the following picture would be seriously dangerous around the likes of me. SERIOUSLY?! 5 for $20?!?!? However, I am proud to say that I didn't buy ONE scarf! I think it was because Ronnie kind of rushed me on past them... It was crazy though.

There was so much walking involved on Saturday that seriously my legs are still recovering. After Chinatown, we walked to Lori's Diner for dinner, and then back to the hotel. Sunday, we traveled to San Jose for Ronnie to guest-preach at a church of a good friend. He did an amazing job. I love seeing him up there expressing his heart and doing what he loves. He taught on Romans 15:1-9 and his message was called, "One Voice, Glorifying God, Imitating Christ." I love that he is such a wonderful spiritual leader in our family and at our church.

After church, we headed over with the Ramirez family to a local Chinese restaurant. For any of you who will understand this next statement, this place was so authentic it made Silver Palace look American. Seriously... I'm pretty sure there was Chinese karaoke going on while we were eating. And the shrimp still had eyes on them...

I had such a great time and hope to share more soon about the holiday events that I skipped. Thanks honey for letting me come visit you and for all of the sacrifices you make to finish school! I can't wait for you to come back though...