Micah's Birthday Surprise

For Micah's 34th birthday we took a surprise trip to San Clemente, California. Our friends gave us a weekend at their beach house as a wedding gift, so I planned trip and kept it a secret until we boarded the plane to Long Beach on Thursday evening.

The adventure begins: We got the Long Beach Airport only to find out that I had reserved our rental car at the OC-John Wayne Airport which is just 30 minutes south of Long Beach. So Micah called our friend Jeff whose parent's live nearby to tell him our predicament. He offered many options to help including staying at his parent's, borrowing their car, but this was the best option: (text message conversation)

Text from Jeff: There's a 30-50% chance that any random person is driving right by John Wayne heading south. So strike up some conversations with someone waiting to get picked up. Or talk really loud about it close to them. And I'll bet in 1 to 3 tries you'll be able to get a ride. Better yet ask someone on your flight, cuz then they're mormon and more trusting of you as a fellow mormon.

Micah: Nice idea! Maybe we'll test out your percentages:)

Jeff: Freshman year I got a ride hom from LAX, just made a sign that siad Irvine and stood by where the cars pick people up, and some guy took me all the way home.

Micah: That's it...Here goes. Sign made.



We had talked to a couple asking how far the John Wayne Airport was and told them our situation. Then I got some paper from the JetBlue front desk and since I got us into this predicament I was holding the sign up for people to see. We couldn't stop laughing. Then the lady we had talked to earlier came up and offered us a ride. They were so nice and we enjoyed getting to know them on our 30 minute ride to the next airport. That was our Long Beach Miracle:)

The beach house is amazing! It looks right over the beach and pier...and it's huge! We open the doors for air conditioning and can hear the waves all day and night. It’s so relaxing.

This is the condo. We had that first balcony (all the way around) to ourselves- amazing!

Views from the porch.

Saturday morning. Micah’s bday. Surprise! He looks like a happy birthday leprechaun:)


These are the little presents from Micah’s birthday treasure hunt. Such excitement!



Micah also had his 15 year high school reunion on his birthday. There are few things that Micah REALLY wants to go to, but this is one of them. Luckily we had some Delta credit from our Europe trip since we were delayed 24 hours on our flight home, so we took a vacation from our vacation and flew back to Utah for a day to attend his reunion. It was well worth it. We saw lots of his old time friends and learned about the different joys and challenges that they've faced in that last 15 years. Friends make life so sweet.

Here's my Weber Warrior:


After the reunion we went up to Park City to go see one of Micah's latest real estate purchases. He didn't have the keys to the place yet, but was anxious to see the inside, so he immediately went into MacGyver mode to break into his own place.



On Labor Day we visited the San Juan Capistrano Mission. The architecture was so stylish. The spanish style you see these days was inspired by the early missions such as this one that was established in 1776.


This was a fountain full of lily pads and huge fish right at the entrance of the mission along with pictures of some of the architecture inside.

This is called the great stone church. It used to have seven domes, but now there is only one that remains standing. An earthquake in the early 1800's caused most of the the damage in which 40 people were killed. Still this is one of the greatest and oldest standing ruins in the United States.




This is an alley from inside the Mission.





Across the street we visited the Capistrano Trading Post and found some of the same souvenirs that Micah had seen there over 20 years ago while visiting Capistrano with his family.

On our way back from Capistrano we cruised along Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and saw a sweet car with red leather interior. It seemed to fit so perfectly at San Juan Capistrano Beach.

I took pictures along the way...

We also stopped at a thrift shop on the way to the house.

We went boogie boarding in the freezing cold water at San Clemente Beach just down from the beach house where we stayed. It was really fun, but short lived because the water was so cold.

We ate at the Jolly Rogers restaurant at Dana Point that night for dinner. The food was awesome. I ordered the Plantation Ono fish with mashed potatoes and steamed veggies. Micah got coconut shrimp and teriyaki chicken. They served warm sour dough bread as an appetizer. It was reasonably priced and Cathy our waitress from Minnesota gave fabulous service. Highly recommended.

We ate lunch at The Sugar Shack - great place for breakfast food. Definitely a local's delight.

We don't want to go home tomorrow! This has been such a wonderful trip!

Seattle Christensens Visit BYU

Seth and Amy and their kids came and visited BYU for a day. Micah played tour guide and I was able to join them for part of the afternoon. These kids are so photogenic!

Jacob such a smiley baby! A true Cougar:)


Jayne is quite the performer. Shyness is not part of her make up. She was cracking us up all day as she kept singing one line from a song she learned from the movie Alvin and the Chipmunks, "Three little birds" using a special accents to say "burds." In this picture we told her to do one of her "sassy" poses. This is just one of many:) Her little jazz fingers were very deliberate.

Three future ninja Cougars.



This wasn't at BYU, but it includes more of our nieces and nephews. Once again, from the closed eyes to the crossed legs, Jayne performs for us. Andrew looks tough beyond his years. I'm not sure where Becca came up with her pose, but her confidence makes me believe. They're all getting so big. These are the greatest kids. We love them so much!

BYU Hawaii Freshman Reunion in Boulder, UT

We had a wonderful BYU-Hawaii freshman girlfriends weekend in Boulder, UT at Katie's family cabin. Katie, Steph, and Jess brought their kids and we had a great time playing with them, catching up with eachother, and relaxing.

The surroundings were amazing and the house had so much character - it is over 100 years old!

All the girls - R to L, Laura, Sam, Katie, Steph, Jessica, Charlie, Rachel, Amanda

Johnny kept inching his way closer to us to get in the pic. Glad he did:)

Laura and Mandy

Meet Charlie. Look at those blue eyes!

Avery and Charlie struttin' their stuff. I think Avery is playing hard to get;)

Avery is not quite sure about Charlie's new sword.

Charlie and his mom Jess.

A nearby fishing/swimming pond - but it was too cold that day to take a dip.

All the kids feeding the horses.

What a great weekend - thanks girls!

6 Months

We've been married 6 months today. Our lives are so blessed. Our marriage is wonderful, fun, funny, adventurous, challenging, real, and forever. Even after we dated for 5 years I'm learning more and more about Micah and am continually amazed at what a good and pure person that he is. Something that can be really challenging sometimes, but that I am the most grateful for is that Micah doesn't just let me be...he is always pushing me to be better, kinder and more understanding towards others, easygoing, and grateful. He doesn't just accept my weaknesses, he really believes that they can be overcome and become strengths. He helps me recognize that doing my best is really achievable, but it takes constant vigilance and effort. It makes life so exciting because it's challenging, but real effort and conscientiousness makes a difference that I can see and feel.

We watched a lot of the 2010 Winter Olympics that were in Vancouver on TV (because one day Micah drove to Ogden to get a super awesome deal on a huge TV just so we could watch:) and were amazed at the ability, speed, agility, and dedication of each of the athletes. They are the best in the world at their individual sport/event. As Micah watches these people compete, knowing the amount of time, strength, pushing their limits, endurance, etc. that went into the years to prepare to be there competing for medals, he knows that they are giving their best - an attribute of our Heavenly Father. It's a reminder that our best is attainable. We're here to prove ourselves and to be our best at whatever we decide to engage in. Olympians demonstrate that attribute in the one area they compete in.

Right now Micah and I are reading the autobiography of Larry H. Miller. Micah took an Entrepreneurial Leadership course from him while at BYU and Mr. Miller spoke at one of my work functions (Founders Conference) a couple of years ago. He passed away on February 20, 2009. His book is titled "Driven" which so accurately describes Larry H. Miller. In his book he tells a story about asking for a well-deserved raise from an employer. As he tells it, "After doing a little research, i discovered that I was waiting on 65 percent of the customers by myself, which mean all the other employees combined were handling only 35 percent" and he was workgin 83 hours a week. His request was declined and he was really upset. The same day that he was rejected, he had his monthly dinner with his grandfather who inquired about the matter. I'll quote the rest:

Larry: "No matter how hard I work I can't perform well enough to accelerate my pay, and I'm getting married."
Gpa: "So what do you intend to do about it?"
Larry: "I guess I'll only give them a $1.45 job if they're only going to pay me $1.45."
Gpa: "You could do exactly that and still perform at such a high level that you would outperform your coworkers. So they would never know you were giving less than you had. But you would know, and frankly, you would be teh only guy to be hurt by your underperformance. So, as your grandpay, I am going to promise you that as long as you continue to take their paycheck, if you work as hard as you can and learn all that you can in that business, someday it will pay off many times over. "

Larry's comments: I didn't realize then how profound his counsel would prove to be in my life...It was one of the great lessons in my life, and I have given my best effort in everything I have done since then. Grandpa was right. It wasn't about beating my employers and their policies; it was about me and doing my best because it was the right thing to do.

I love that last line from Mr. Miller - it was about me and doing my best because it was the right thing to do. Pure truth.

Oh Canada

We drove 18 hours up to Vancouver Island with our cousins Eric, Nakita & Reese. Eric drove straight through the night until we arrived at the ferry - a true Canadian. We saw a bald eagle fly right in front of our car. Come to find out that's really common up there. The scenery reminded me a lot of New Zealand. Everything is so green and the ocean views are breathtaking. We stayed at Aunt Jill and Uncle Jackson's house. It was such a fun and unique trip!

Here we are on a British Columbia ferry on our way to Vancouver Island.




Reese was the best road tripper of us all! She laughed and played the entire time. She even woke up at 3 or 4am just smiling and keeping herself happy. You can't help but bond after spending 18 hours together in the car:)

Here is Jackson (cousin Jacob's son) ready to go diving in the freezing cold water. He is an avid underwater sea man. He caught a white back kelp crab and told us all about it while it kept pinching him.

Micah is also part marine biologist as you see him eating squid eggs that we found on the beach.


Two of my favorite things are ice skating and anything involving paddling in water. We went sea kayaking along the beautiful coast of Vancouver Island.


My favorite part of the trip was visiting Mr. Chase. Mr. Chase was born in 1910 and is turning 100 years old in September. After we went seakayaking from Mr. Chase's private beach, we went into his house to meet him. He was wearing one piece jump suit with his work boots on. His house is like a museum full of treasures that Mr. Chase has accumulated throughout his life including:

• A collection of locks and keys that are probably as old as Mr. Chase himself
  
• Mr. Chase's father' s sword that he fought with in the Civil War! There are only two living "sons of the civil war." Isn't that amazing to think that he can say his dad fought in the Civil War? His father entered the war at age 13. What an amazing treasure!
  
• A beautiful and intricate handmade tiara made out of women's hair!

Here is Reese sitting under a tree at Mr. Chase's house while caterpillars kept falling on her head.

Before we boarded the Victoria Clipper to make our way to Seattle, we walked around downtown Victoria. Much of the architecture is the old English style including the Empress Hotel and the Parliament Building.

We stayed at Seth and Amy's house on Sunday night then met Alickya and James for lunch at Microsoft. Amy took Sam and Ellie out of school so we could all hang out together. After lunch we went to Sky High - trampoline land! Jayne was fearless and loved jumping into the pit. Sam was doing flips and Ellie was jumping all over the place. My 33 year old husband even did a gainer into the pit - he's still got it:)

One the plane ride home Micah and I wrote down our goals for our marriage and life together. We have so many things to look forward to in our lives!