Photo Dump...

...because I'm too busy to blog regularly

We celebrated my birthday, ate Cafe Rio on the beach, and I baked a pumpkin pie for myself.  I also saw a homeless man passed out in the grocery parking lot...that's LA for you!

I participated with a couple of friends in an Activewear competition and we won!  Such a great learning experience and great girls to work with!  We designed the suit, sourced cotton fabrics to best suit a triathlete, made the sewig pattern and sewed the garment. 

A few of my school projects from draping and pattern drafting.  Nothing too crazy, just the basics but I LOVE pattern drafting and making!  My favorite.

Matt and I went to Mormon Dodger Days.  President Uchtdorf threw the first pitch.  A fun evening in LA, although we were left stranded in Downtown LA after midnight since public trasnportation stopped running at midnight!  There are some crazies that come out.

We went home in May for Chelsea's wedding. Everything was beautiful.

Later in May Matt and I celebrated our FOURTH anniversary!  So crazy that it's gone by so fast.  To celebrate Matt and I went to a concert at the Ford Theater to watch Kina Grannis.  She does an amazing music video out of jelly belly beans!  I also love her music.  Matt won a night at a resort in a golf tournament so we went out of town for the weekend.  I was embarrased when I realized Matt had packed his clothes and toiletries in grocery bags (on the floor to the right).  Last picture, we went to the DTLA (Downtown LA) art walk and Pepsi had an exhibit with free pepsi, games and prizes. 

I went home for a week to visit my family.  Following that, my cousin Summer and new nephew Griffin came to visit Cali. 

I was busy planning my first ward activity which had a great turnout!  I also traveled to Phoenix for my cousin's wedding.  My sister and her kids met up with me in Phoenix.  Boy was it hot!

I also had a couple of internships, one for Sue Wong and the other for an Australian company which handles a bunch of private labels, K Kollection being one I work on.  I had to take Kourtney K's shirt to the cleaners...the closest I've come to meeting someone famous in LA.

For Labor Day weekend Matt and I rode the Metrolink down to San Diego and stayed with his mission friend.  The boys had fun at the beach.  It was WAY too cold for me.

The view on the train ride home.  The beaches were packed!

Matt also decided he needed to learn the ukulele.  My cousin taught him a few chords which I hear for a couple of hours every night.  Too cute and funny. 

In September I had the opportunity to travel to North Carolina and visit the Cotton Inc. HQ and other major manufacturers.  It was a great learning experience.  The photos above are of denim plants, the process from raw cotton, spinning, bleaching, dying, weaving and finishing. 

When I returned Matt and I took a much needed trip home to Utah.  I ate out on the porch in the mornings.  I love Fall in Utah.  Matt and I ran up our favorite trail in the Provo Canyon.  My mom and sister-in-law picked all the grapes from the vines and made grape juice and jam.  Sooo good. 

 
 

The end!  We've been busy and there will be more to come. 

Maybe it's because he's my husband...

... and I think he was such a cute little boy, but this clip cracks me up every time.  It's like a clip right out of a movie and I just had to share it. 

You have to watch this a couple of times to really enjoy it.  Matt is the LITTLE boy in the front.   The camera zooms in on him in the beginning so just keep your eye on him until the very end (the clip is clearer on a computer than a phone).

Lately

We haven't been doing much lately, just trying to survive.  We are excited for April 15 when works slows down a bit for Matt.  Until then, our weekends are precious and go by way too quickly!  Here are just a few pics from our weekends. 


In addition to work, school for me has been hectic.  Cleaning is a never ending cycle.  I clean and by morning the house looks like this, often worse.  Usually there will be thread and fabric scraps all over the floor.  Poor Matt.



When I leave school at night I can see Matt's office on the way to the subway station. The sad part is I know he will be there for a few more hours until he comes home (KPMG in between the buildings). 



So we kind of had a Malibu-Dukes kick...all for these.  Virgin Lava flows and seasoned waffle fries (no pic).  It's a little too far out though, so we haven't been for a month or so.



One Saturday we took a detour trying to beat traffic (didn't work).  But we ended up on "the wrong side of town" and while waiting at a light Matt suddenly got excited and said, "Hey!  That's the place on Operation Repo!  Take a picture!"  So I did.  Matt and his "reality" TV shows. 



This has been exciting, Matt's hair is growing back...and it's curly!  You can kind of see his popcorn curls. (I snapped this photo while he was shaving)



Since Malibu was a little farther than we wanted to drive on the weekends, we turned back to our favorite place....

Manhattan Beach!!!

We LOVE coming here on the weekends.  Lately we've been going down to the beach and running.  It's such a nice running/walking path.  It's just above the beach so there's nice breeze and the view is amazing.  The path is right in front of all the nice beach homes.



We feel like such Californians running here.  Everyone is so fit!  It's insane. 

 As I mentioned, the running path is in front of the nice beach homes.  I found two of my dream homes. 

This is house #1.  It's so nice, it takes up the width of one of the streets. 

House #2, a bit smaller, but still so cute and lovely.

The best part about running here is walking down to the beach after, cooling off our feet in the freezing water and laying out after. 



And while we're in Manhattan Beach we had to stop at Cafe Rio!  We ordered a Tres Leches and an employee brought this out to us.  There's a tres leches under all that whipped cream!  I think the worker was new since we got extra strawberries and cream.





V-Day

This year we didn't have any V-Day plans since I was up super super late the night before and Matt would be working late. But last minute, his friend called and offered him 2 tix to the Lakers game! How could we pass up? It was so much fun! Our seats were in a suite and we got dessert and enjoyed the game. They were giving out free t-shirts "I <3 Lakers"...hmmm we wore them, but it's not true ;) After, we went to SPITZ. I loooove their food. They have the best greek wraps. Yum Yum! We really enjoyed our evening. Just what we needed.

One of my favorite things...

is meeting Matt for lunch.  I love how work and school for us is on the same street and about 4 blocks in between.  Our schedules don't usually work for us to meet up, but every now and then it does!  So when that happens, we have to take advantage.  Last week we met in the middle and ate at a yummy bakery.  Doesn't Matt's sandwich look so good?  It was!  The hard part is going back to work/school...it's hard to leave each other.  As cheesy as that sounds, it's true!





This is bad...

really, really bad.  A couple of months ago, Matt and I finally stopped at this doughnut shop we'd been driving by for a couple of months.  We both like doughnuts, but these are the BEST!  And the bad part?  It's within walking distance from our apartment...and 24 hours.  Oh no... 

Malibu

Can you believe it? Another update? ;)

With everything that went on last year, Matt and I were excited for this new year to recover and relax...but that didn't last long! Before Christmas break Matt was called as the ward mission leader (just to give you an idea of how busy he is, he meets with 6 companionships every Sunday) and I was called as the 2nd counselor in the RS Presidency! So with that, we have very little time to relax, Saturdays just aren't long enough...if we even get that.

To take advantage of our weekend, Matt and I drove to Malibu. One of our resolutions this year was to go on all the nearby hikes and other LA-ish activities that are FREE. We went running on the beach and after we went to DUKES! We love this place, but usually we go to the one in Hawaii. Matt came across this location so we just had to go for our date night.

Last week we also found Beard Papa's (another Hawaii fave) in Little Tokyo. Yum! Matt's the one who wanted to go, however, when we ordered he ordered a cream puff...with no cream.

I love the Asian markets here. Produce is SO much cheaper than regular grocery stores. But this last market I went to had these cute little baskets with wheels! It's nice since I don't usually like pushing around a huge cart or carrying around a basket.