Quite the adventure

Today we had a blast. Batstone, or better known to Nevaeh as "lOra", and i met up with Nina and the girls today to go to Prehistoric Pets! Nevaeh is not intimidated by death or gross things (she was very into the dead fish at the pet store....) so we figured the reptiles wouldnt scare her. we were right! she had a blast. the coolest part for me was when the lady carried out this huge comodo dragon and fed it a "dead" rat! it was crazy. i was so intrigued to watch that i forgot i was holding nevaeh and quickly covered her eyes as i realized what was for lunch, hoping not to forever scar the young child. we found a tropical fish shop a few shops down and decided to peak in. they had THE COOLEST fish! the ugliest and most bizarre fish..yet reasonably priced and very cool. all i know is i am definitly getting a few in the near future. hehe.

I came back over to watch the girls tonight and we enjoyed a plethora of veggie tales. Char was cute and danced around to the into of the song and later was feeling left out and crawled over and sat in my lap for a good while.

Bubbles!

Little House on the Prarie Style

So Sera wanted to do a photoshoot the other day and she had this dress that she has been wanting to use apparently. of course it is this old fashion "prarie dress". she found this brick church that she wanted to shoot at but luckily we didnt have enough time to go out in public. THANK GOD! i am not secure enough to walk around huntington beach looking like i belong in the 1800s. ok its really not that bad. she did want me to wear this bonnet she found, but thats wear i drew the line. haha. no bonnet! both of our "sweet cameras" died and the battery on her 'average' camera was about to die. so here are some of the shots we got in our limited time.

For those of you who dont know (probabably a few of you) my freind Sera is going to school for photography and is getting really good. she likes using me for her projects and such but for the most part the photo shoots we do are just for fun. Here are a few from previous shoots. just to give you an idea into our lives..occasionally.

Our first shoot

Shots on the Roof!

"Twiggy" shoot. Yes, i know the this one looks awkward. its supposed to. we were coppying one of Twiggy's old pictures.

Georgous Chloe May

For Corynne..

I'm a whole new person...

from the head up at least...specifically my hair cut. thanks to Sarah Balos. color and cut..and better bangs! ha!

San Onofre

Early this morning Batstone invited me to join her family down at San Onofre state beach for the evening. One of their family freinds (Louis from Mustard Seed Faith for you avid Calvary peeps) and his wife have been camping down there for 5 weeks! talk about checking out and relaxing all day! every day they get up at 5 to take their RV from the campgrounds across the street to get in line to enter the park, hoping to make it to the beach before the first good surf session...surf for a few hours, rest in the RV, go back out for a few more hours, have dinner, go back to the campsite and start all over at 5am the next morning. that is what i call 'dedicated beach bummin'. anyways, they invited us out for dinner! it was a lot of fun, and the beach was as gorgeous as ever. especially this particular beach you feel like you are in paradise, completely distanced from life. its a completely different world with the tiki huts, long perfectly carved waves, warm water...just heavenly. too bad its like an hour away.

Our last Sunday together...

Before the England Missions trip that is. ;)



We started our lovely afternoon out by going to our favorite restaurant, The StoryTellers Cafe in the California Hotel at Disneyland. We always order their Nebraska Corn Chowder which is seriously amazing. After stuffing ourselves (yes, we had more than just the soup) we made our way over to Disneyland where we spent the next few hours. Suprisingly, it wasnt too crowded today. Our next stop was the Orance Circle. Before hitting up like four antique shops (i love looking for old rings) we ordered a banana split at Watsons! It was ginormous! wow. perfect size to share though.

Before: (look how huge this thing is!!)

After:

This evening we made it to the very first service at OC Cross Point in Irvine (Chris Warner's new church if the name helps for anyone). We didn't know quite what to expect but it turned out really good! To finish off a perfect day Josh's dad made us dinner tonight! it was really special, he set up the table really nice with candles, red table cloth, the best dishes... basically it looked like he stole a table from a nice restaurant to feed us his amazing meatloaf. :) All in all, it was a really good day. Thanks Josh!

Visit from Santa Rosa

What a suprise! I had the pleasure of hanging out with Corynne and her two precious babes with Nina and the girls this afternoon. Before they got to Nina's place, Nevaeh kept saying how she was going to show Elliot her horses, her freind Elliot was coming over, Elliot this, Elliot that...the second he got there they both her really quite and didnt even want to play with each other cuz "Elliot was shy". But as soon as lunch rolled around they quickly got over the awkwardness of it all and we all had quite an enjoyable afternoon. They played very well together until the end of the afternoon and Nevaeh was getting so overwhelmed and exhausted, that she put herself down for her own nap. it was cute. o i forgot. that was right after Elliot took the closest picture of her eye that i have ever seen..with the flash. haha. poor 'Aeh. it was quite funny tho, after the fact. It was so much fun seeing you again, Corynne! Ive missed your smiling face. :)

Caiden on the left, Char on the right

Spontinaity wins again

(For not that long) I have thought it would be really cool to own some fish! I wasn't doing anything today, and decided today would be the perfect day to start my little family..of fish. Rachel Pockett joined me on my adventure (wow..so many adventures lately!) to the mexican pet shop (porque i figured a whole in the wall place would be cheaper). sadly enough, they were neither helpful nor cheaper. good thing there was a Petco across the street to save the day...and thanks to their PetcoPals card savings, i came home with an array of 12 fish! I find them so intruiging to watch. I am now a proud owner of a micky mouse fish (Mickey mouse's head is sideways on all their tales. it is so cool!)4 goldfish, (but only 2 are gold) a black ugly goldfish with his eyes bulging out the sides..yeah those ones! he is my absolute favorite, an algea eating fish...and like 6 other pretty fish. there was this little fish at the store that looked and acted like a mini shark. all it did was sit up against the glass and do backflips the whole time we were there. it was so bizarre. anywho, wish me luck! the last time i was in charge of ONE fish, they each would only live a week...but that was when i was 5. so hopefully my skills have improved since then.

Adventures with Batty...AND Bri!

Today we decided it was a girls day, since we wanted to spend time with Bri before she left for Costa Rica Wednesday. After having a very delicous slice of "Z-pizza", which was only $2.75 (definitly made it even more delicous) we continued on our way to Laguna Beach where we spent the next few hours walking around the quaint shops, looking at crystals, wandering around 'nick nack' shops (laguna can make ANYTHING pricey), watching gay men do their perverted things on the beach (Nina i must tell you...im sorry), and ended our adventure meandering down PCH with Golden Spoon.

so there used to be this man (who if i remember right, was homeless) in the 60s/70s who would stand on the corner of PCH and wave to everyone as they went by. my mom remembers him always standing on the same corner when she was a child and saying hello to everyone. He became known as "the Greeter". Since then he has passed away, but this statue was made in his honor. quite an impact he must have made.

Adventures with Batty!

So today, Batstone and I went on a well deserved adventure. Our intent for going on our adventure was to go to the credit union and seeing about getting me a debit/credit card (which never actually happened because they were closed). Our adventure went as follows: Heading towards Brookhurst I got distracted and suggested we stop by the bookstore at the Fountain Valley Library and see what books we could find. It was a succesful detour resulting in my purchases of Norman Geisler's False Gods of our Time, Revelation Unveiled (a book by Tim LeHaye completely explaining the book of revelation..wahoo!), and C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters. Batstone got this book called ..meh..I forget what its called. But basically it is a survival book for obscure situations ..that will probably never happen (what to do when being chased by a bull, how to avoid getting stuck during an avalanche, what to do if your parachute doesnt open properly..that is actually very helpful info) ok. onwards.....

Next we stopped at Fashion 21 (supposedly cheaper..branch of Forever 21), where I purchased this exciting outfit of an oversized shirt and leggings for a mere $9.25.

After our short shopping spree we were determined to find a frozen yogurt place, but once again I got distracted and was very enthusiastic about stopping in at Prehistoric Pets! It was sooo cool in their. Kids were feeding live larvae to the HUGE fish (that were butt ugly! and had square chompers for teeth) and lovely turtles. [NINA! this would be the sweetest place to take the girls!!haha. they can even feed larvae to ugly fish!..ok.minus the larvae part.]

Finally, we were back on track and moments later found the beloved Yogurt land: a self serve frozen yogurt place where you pay by the ounce. It can be cheap or expensive depending on how much of a fatty you are...I lean more towards the fatty category on this one. I endulged myself in a delicous and well deserved cheesecake and cappacino blend topped with fresh strawberries..delightful.

Welcome to the OC Fair!

Today was the opening day of the fair! Sera and I decided to go and check it out for a few hours, sadly enough we missed the free entrance by like 30 mins. :( o well. we mainly went around and looked at all the animals. Sera was on a mission to find little piggies but all we could find were barns full of sheep! (later Nina told me the pigs dont come until Monday)

This sheep has dreadlocks!

We ended our day watching an old lady dance group! Who would have thought!

Beach with my lovelies

Wednesday Nina and I took the girls to the beach! It looked cold and gloomy when we started out on our journey, but it ended up being the perfect day to have a beach day, becuase we did not have to worry about getting burned so easily. With gloomy weather you would think there would be less people at the beach. This is simply not so. Corona del Mar seemed to be covered with beach umbrellas and children so we decided to hike over the rocks (with the "babes" as i like to call them) and made our way over to Pirates Cove..assuming no one would think to actually enjoy the beach over there. As soon as we get over the rocks Nina starts laughing becuase Pirates Cove is filled with at least 50 summer camp kids. So much for getting away from the crowds. BUT they had the kids literally coned off into a small area of the sand so we had plenty of space. Nevaeh and I spent most of our time in the water and had a blast. A few times Nina brought Char to the water, but it turned out each time only to try and wash all the sand off her hands so she would quit consuming the entire beach front! Needless to say, we had a blast and no overpowering waves that engulfed Nevaeh. Unlike last years adventure to the beach... hehe. that was my fault.

MY shelter in the storms

Psalm 89: 33-34 "My lovingkindness I will not utterly take from him,

nor allow My faithfulness to fail. My covenant I will not break,

nor alter the word that has gone out of My lips."
"O God I need You, O God I need You here with me,

I know You hear me,

Your the hope all of my days, Your my hope all of my days

Jesus, Savior, Protector of my soul,

Ooh Messiah, Redeemer, Your the shelter in the storm. In the storm.

O God I love You, O God I love to speak your Name.

I know You hear me, Your my hope all of my days, Your my hope all of my days.

I'll be watching, waiting 'till Your love comes back for me,

and I'll be watching, waiting 'till Your love comes rescueing."

my artistic skills..

..or lack there of. however you choose to look at it. I found this picture at the ritz carlton last night and decided to paint my own! im actually really happy with the way it turned out.

Beach, Fireworks..and The Ritz Carlton

Last night we double dated with Bri and Billy in hopes of watching the fireworks show at Laguna Beach. Apparently getting there an hour and a half early to look for parking isn't good enough. Josh and I drove up and down PCH, in and out of the residential streets for a good 20-30 minutes and did not find ONE spot to park. It was insane. Finally we ended up down at Salt Creek (just outside of Laguna) and decided to watch the fireworks from there. Ironically, there is a Ritz Carlton Hotel, on the beach, just opposite of the state beach. Long and exciting story short, we watched the fireworks from the outside of someones balcony (they were nice enough to lend us there table to set our coffee on...or so they found out this morning) and got to see five different shows at the same time along the coast (really cool!), snuck into the pool area, josh door bell ditched (he's 21 i promise), toured the hotel, found shirts at their suivenere shop for $230, and finally drove off in our Bentley cruiser...i mean Honda Civic. We felt so out of place, but had such a good time! ha! such a memorable night.

There was a row of individual towels. Talk about germ freaks.