California - part 1

So this post is a long time coming. I am not sure why it took me so long to update my blog but I haven't update forever!

Back in October for Fall Break we got the opportunity to go out to California to see Brighton's brother and sister in-law. I have to say it was one of the most relaxing and enjoyable vacations I have ever been on. If we haven't annoyed Dallas and Mindy too much, we hope to do it again!

Here are just some of the pictures from our adventures...

Dallas lives 30 minutes from Disneyland so of course we had to visit the happiest place on earth.

While waiting in line for Soarin, what are they doing? Checking their fantasy football. Can you tell they are related? On a side note, guess who is number 1 in our fantasy football league? Yep Yep, yours truly.

Also, just like Disney world, Disneyland has High School Musical!!! Brighton, Dallas, and Mindy were super nice and let me take time out of their day to watch the High School Musical parade. It was awesome!! I stood in between two kids who had better dance moves then me. They were inspiring.

If you haven't been to Disneyland in the fall I recommend it. They have some pretty fun decorations

Dallas and Mindy also told us about the new night show at Disneyland called World of Color. I HIGHLY recommend it. I don't have any pictures of the show because I was totally mesmerized during the whole thing but I would have gone every night if we could have gotten there early enough to get tickets. It is a show with all of these pyro techniques and the water fountains...go see it.

We did however, get some fun before and after shots.

Dallas and Mindy also live 15 minutes from the beach. After visiting the beach I decided I want one here so I could run next to it. You know how awesome that would be?

Our day at the beach.

Brighton's first attempt at surfing. Conclusion? A lot harder then it looks.

At the harbor Brighton and Dallas got us some ice cream and in the process found a shop where you could pick out an oyster and keep the pearls that were in it. We went back at the end of the day and picked out two oysters and made me my first pearl necklace. Mindy picked out one oyster that had three pearls in it (a less then 1% chance) and made some earrings with it. It was something I would do again. However, I get nervous trying to pick out one oysters. Which one which one?? Brighton on the other hand had more fun picking out the oysters then anything but I do love my pearl necklace.

Well I do not have the rest of my pictures from our California trip yet so I am ending my post here for the day. I will continue with the rest of our week as soon as the pictures upload. Stay tuned.

Icing on the Cake

Last weekend for me was not the best. It is one of those that you just trudge though until you come out the other side. And I am happy to say I came out the other side!! But I do have some pictures to show from my adventures.

To give a little recap, my grandpa was in the ER last Friday and had a severe blockage in his colon. (No more details than that, I promise.) My family was super helpful to come take care of my grandpa that Friday and Saturday and everything ended well. The rest of my family had a vacation planned for that weekend and they were going to cancel because of my grandpa but since he was doing better they decided to go. Well after the trauma of not getting any sleep for two nights straight I was looking forward to a relaxing Sunday. However, I woke up Sunday morning and my grandpa was in more pain. Long story short I had to give him more laxatives and... well you get the pictures. Not a fun Sunday.

I am not sure why but I was super emotional all last weekend. The ER was super hard to be at. The last time I was there was when Brighton's mom passed away and every image I had from last December came flooding back and I just cried my eyes out! I never do that. I cry but I don't bawl. It was also super stormy and rainy all last weekend. Now I usually am not a seasonally depressed person but the rain was destroying any happiness I could muster up. Why?? I have no idea!

After helping my grandpa out all Sunday day I was exhausted and I wanted to talk to some of my family. So I was walking down the stairs to call my brother and his wife in Omaha when I looked out the door and saw this...

Oh my heck!!!!! I had to do a double take and sure enough, a tree in my grandpa's back yard had blown over and fallen in my neighbors back yard. Great! I knew I hated the rain and weather last weekend for a reason! After trying to get a hold of my neighbor (who by the way is super nice) I decided there was only two options at the point I could do. Cry or take pictures. So after taking a little breather I took pictures. :)

I had been telling my family since we moved in that this dead tree should go and now I got my wish! There is more than one way to skin a cat. :)

My amazing husband cutting up the tree. Brighton was phenomenal all weekend to help me out. He let me cry and was there when I needed him. When the tree fell he didn't even say anything. He just went right into my grandpa's garage, got a chainsaw, and starting cutting up the tree.

Since the tree was so dead it actually didn't take us that long to clean up. It pretty much snapped in our hands.

My neighbor Joey. When he came home and saw the tree he asked if we had added a new addition so his home. And then he and his family helped us clean it up.

We were super lucky with how the tree fell. It missed all of the power and phone lines, all windows, any part of Joey's house and anything of worth. It did break the fence but it needed replacing anyway. I like to think of the tree as a blessing in disguise. It actually helped me to get outside and smile, I did end up enjoying the wind and clouds, and it got rid of a tree that we have wanted gone for a long time.

Moral of the story? Blessing came in every shape and size!

High School

I went to update my blog about my past Sunday event and I realized that I am a lot further behind on blogging than I though. Oops. So keep you eyes open for a few more post in the next couple of days.

The night right before Brighton and I left to Disneyland some of my friends from high school got together for dinner! Man, it brought back a whole lot of memories. By the end of the night we were are crazy old high school selves laughing at the lamest stuff! But that is why were are friends right? What happens in high school, stays in high school.

Who needs words when you got pictures.

Family Time

I was not quite sure what to call this post but I figured since this post is about time a Saturday I spent with my family it would be called family time. However, all my post are about times I spend with my family so I am not sure why it is different than any other post oh well.

This first set of pictures are of a piano recital my mom was in. My mom has been teaching piano since before I was born and she is phenomenal. However, I never get to hear her perform. I hear her accompany student and hear her accompany singers but never perform. So I thought it was awesome to hear her perform at the Libby Gardener Hall a couple of Saturdays ago. It was a performance to raise money for another piano teacher whose husband just had a heart transplant so it was a lighthearted, fun, concert. But my mom did amazing!!!

My mom is the one with the blonde hair (clearly).

The entire group. There were some phenomenal songs played and I am bound and determined to learn some of them.

Part of my family and my AMAZING mother!!!

Now I was the only one in jeans because right before my mom's concert I went to a fire in the canyon with Brighton's family. I was planning on making it home to change before the concert but I didn't have time. So I sat away from my family (because I stank) and was totally under dressed. :)

This next group of pictures were supposed to go before my mom's recital pictures but oh well. That takes way too much time to figure out.

Brighton's side of the family! All at the fire and playing at a stream nearby.

Maleaha has this thing that when you say cheese she squints her eyes! It was so cute.

I love time spent with family!!!

Concert #2

My sisters and I decided to go to another concert since we loved the Tim McGraw concert so much. So what concert did we go to? The Brad Paisley concert. And we loved it! It was completely different than the Tim McGraw concert but just as good. I didn't get as many pictures because I got there late but I guess that happens when you get off on 6 wrong exits!! Don't ask, the story raises my blood pressure. :) But Darius Rucker calmed me down and I ended up enjoying it!!

This picture describes our whole pre-concert experience.

Brad Paisley!

Homemade Salsa!

I was super excited to go grocery shopping today because my boss gave me a whole bunch of tomatoes from his garden and I was going to make homemade salsa with them. I LOVE eating homemade salsa. I looked up a bunch of recipes, talked to a bunch of people and assumed that making homemade salsa would not take a rocket scientist. So I went to the store, bought all of the ingredients and started blending.

Now let me back up a little bit. I don't cook a lot. Cooking is not my forte. I won't lie. As a matter of fact my grandpa calls Brighton the "chef" because he sees him cooking more then me. It doesn't hurt my feelings. I am fully aware of my short comings. But every now and then I do like to try. Well after 3 1/2 years of being married I have learned not to put any onions, peppers, garlic, fruit, or anything spicy or acidic into the meal or Brighton won't eat it. Correction he can't eat it. He will be up all night with terrible heart burn and this is even when he takes Prilosec OTC. Severe heart burn just runs in his family.

Back to my salsa story. I am blending everything together. I put the tomatoes in, cilantro, lime juice, a LITTLE bit of garlic, a LITTLE bit of onions (like 1 TBS), and a LITTLE bit of green peppers. The salsa has to have a little bit of taste right? So I taste it and it tastes a little spicy. Okay more like really spicy. What?? How is it spicy? I ask Brighton to come taste because I need to know if I am just being overly paranoid or is it really spicy? He taste is and looks at me kind of funny and tells me he thinks it is spicy. Why? So I told him what I put in and he looks at my cutting board and laughs.

Apparently these are green peppers...


Not these.
Brighton had to tell me that I put jalapenos into the salsa!!!! What??? Is he sure? He is pretty sure. So I come to the computer look up green peppers and sure enough, I put jalapenos into the salsa! GRRR. When shopping I made sure to look at the green pepper tag to make sure I was getting the most mild form of peppers out there. Duh! What was I looking at? How could I do this!

Maybe you are thinking, now Brooke don't be so hard on yourself. Well if this were my 1st or maybe 15Th mess up I wouldn't be so hard on myself, but really it happens EVERYTIME I cook! I burnt rice in college 3 times before I finally took rice out of my diet. And that was even with a rice cooker. Who burns rice with a rice cooker?!? Me! And I just don't get it.

Sigh, now that I have vented I do feel a little better. I now have a whole bowl of salsa all to myself. I guess come tomorrow I will be okay with that. As of right now, I do not understand why my brain is not wired for cooking! Even as something as "simple" as salsa!

Piano

So the picture is not the best but it will suffice. Last year for my 24Th birthday I got a piano. Since moving into my grandpa's house we finally had room to put one, so we got one. I was super excited. I looked at all different kind of pianos. New ones, used ones, baby grands, uprights, full grands. But none of them had the sound that I wanted until I found this one. I know this one is not the most fabulous looking piano out there but the sound is amazing! Ha ha it is like music to my ears. Just kidding, but it seriously does sound just like I wanted. Even out of tune. And I didn't pay a fortune for it. Phew.

I however, wanted a black piano and this one originally came brown. So I naively thought that we could refinish it. I WAS WRONG. Take my advice, DO NOT ever try to refinish a piano. And Brighton will agree with me. After taking the whole thing apart, taping the keys, and 10 weekends later I have the piano I have today.

It doesn't look fabulous but at least I don't feel bad or stressed about accidentally nicking it or dropping all of my piano books on it. I feel like it is my piano because I (aka Brighton) spent many hours painting it.

And for my birthday this year my mom got my piano tuned. They lady who tuned it said it has a rich sound and will hold its sound very well. Also, she said the piano should last me for a very long time and she actually offered to buy it. I couldn't tell if she was serious or not but I told her no.

So as for now here is my new piano, with a new fresh coat of paint, and newly tuned!

(On a side note, we are working on painting the front room where the piano is located and redecorating. Those posts to come.)