Texas, Baby.

The last two weekends were a whirlwind with Megan visiting for a midsingles conference in Hunting Beach and then a quick trip out to Texas to meet some new babies over Memorial Day Weekend. Megan sums up the highlights here if you're interested in what it's like to attend a Mormon Midsingles conference.

Now, onto the babies! I started the weekend by flying into Amarillo and was greeted by the Mercado clan and taken to Braum's straight away. Mmmmm ice cream. We spent our precious few hours catching up and playing with babies.

This latest fruit of Rebel's loins: Cullen. He's just about as chill as this picture shows, unless of course he's hungry.

I tried to get a picture with Cadence too, but she wasn't having it. Although this picture doesn't capture it, we had a good time getting our dance on and watching Spongebob SquarePants.

Then I headed South to the LBK to spend the rest of the weekend with the Harringtons and where I had the honor of meeting my Godson, Jude. Look at that face!

My favorite story from the weekend involves bath time. The Harringtons are a great example of great parenting teamwork. Daddy gets Jude naked, Mommy and Kate prepare the bath, while TT and Ginny (Kate's cute name for her Grandma Douglas) take pictures.

Mike was entertaining the crowd by making Jude's butt cheeks talk, but Jude extracted the ultimate revenge and promptly peed on Daddy.

Kate watering Jude to help him grow.

The whole weekend went by way too quickly and although I was happy to get back to my quiet/dirty diaper free apartment, I missed my friends immediately. I'm already looking forward to some California fun times with the babies, hopefully soon!

**End note: I am proud to report that after changing a few boy diapers on this trip I didn't get peed on once!

I always knew I had good taste....

and this just confirms it! Apparently, it enjoys being stared at. I think a weekend walking tour is in order to check out the other winners.

You might be a grown-up if.....

1) You start going to bed before 10 PM

2) You wake up naturally by 8:30 AM on weekends

3) You finally understand the appeal of a high thread count

4) You iron your clothes

5) You're especially excited to get the mail on Tuesdays because that's when the coupons and weekly circulars arrive

6) You buy plants (the kind that require water and sun rather than dusting)

7) You fantasize more about the luxurious outdoor living space you walked by rather than the hunky, shirtless runner

My new 'hood

This post is way overdue since I've been living here for over a month now, but I've been busy getting settled in, yo!

Living so close to the beach I've tried to make it a priority to get an evening walk in. I've seen some pretty cool things on my walks. I took a picture of this house during my first week here. It was my favorite at the time. It's a little hard to tell in the picture, but I love how the all white flower scheme in the front pops against the black. This house sits right across from the beach so I assume they are used to taking pictures of it all the time, but I still looked both ways before snapping the picture and scurrying off.

I haven't been good about having my cell phone or camera with me on many other walks and have missed some of the other cool houses, one had a cool rusty iron dinosaur head in the garden (it was classy I swear) and another yard had a bunch of bizarre shaped shrubs. I think one of them was a small child, but I can't be too sure. I think I remember what street it was on, so I'll try to document it next time I pass that way. But come on, with a view like this it's easy to get distracted, and walk around smiling a lot. :]

It's also a little like Pleasantville around here. Kids ride their bikes to school, play unsupervised in their front yards (and presumably don't get kidnapped), and take evening strolls with their cute Dads and dogs.

I've also had a few run-ins with some Texans. I was out one night wearing my Tech shirt and a guy started giving me the guns up. At first, I was taken off guard wondering why he was waggling his finger at me, but then I got it. Another time I was walking through the Del and had a group of kids start smiling at me and one of them gave me the guns up. I pulled off my head phones and asked if they were on spring break to which the kid replied, "Yes Ma'am". Ah, how cute.

One not so cute incident happened on my way into Panera. I was walking in behind a guy and his girlfriend when the dude let the door slam in my face, and it wasn't one of those times where I was aways behind him or he couldn't see me. I was literally walking in right behind him and he just let the door close behind him. I remember thinking to myself that would NEVER have happened in Texas.

Texas, oh how I miss your manners, but I think I'll stick with the So Cal scenery.

Central-NorCal Roadtrip

Brandy was kind enough to show me around one of her favorite places: Santa Cruz. I had never been, but figured what's not to love about a beach with a fun boardwalk? Santa Cruz did not disappoint. My favorite fashion statement of the day was the girl rocking two belts. Brandy the genius interpreted the trend: one was for function and one was for fashion, obviously.

We started off at the pier (which I think might be the only pier that I've ever been able to drive and park on). The highlight of the trip for me was probably seeing the sea lions lounging around. We saw a herd of them at the end of the pier and got to witness one of them (whom I named Lucinda, Lucy for short) trying to launch herself up onto the landing below the pier. And looking at this guy sunbathing, who could blame her?

~Lucy makes her approach...

~and promptly missed.

She did this a number of times. It was heartbreaking to watch, but that girl wouldn't give up! The backstory that we made up was that she was an adolescent sea lion working on differentiating from her family (who still call her Lucinda although she's told them many a times that her name is Lucy!) Well girlfriend showed them! Here she is after making the miraculous leap.

~And then her family gathered below to celebrate her with chants of, "Lucy! Lucy! Lucy!" And they all lived happily ever after (complete with healthy boundaries). The End.

I could have watched those guys all day, but we were getting hungry so we grabbed some clam chowder from Stagnaro Brothers and made our way over to the boardwalk. Unfortunately, neither of us had coins to get our fortune from the creepy animatronic fortune teller machines, but we did pick up some salt water taffy from Marinis.

Here we are working our "bait" poses. Notice, I finally read the memo about the hip pop.

The fun didn't stop there my friends! Oh, no! We still had the whole drive home. We stopped off at the outlets at Gilroy (home of the famous Garlic festival). Lots of garlic pictures around town, but no stench. What's up with that? Our main reason for the stop, the Coach store was a bust and way too crowded so we quickly moved on.

This little roadside menagerie is quickly moving up the list as a potential honeymoon destination. There's a cool fruit stand, a restaurant, hotel, sweet shop, train, and a creepy carousel. What more could you ask for?

Funny names, that's what. There's casa de fruta, casa de restaurant, casa de motel, casa de sweets, casa de choochoo, and casa de carousel. So amazing, I couldn't even make that stuff up!

Bran and I ended our day with some yummy (and inexpensive sushi) then some more girl talk. That's the way you do NorCal, folks.

Fres-yes

High speed internet, streaming netflix, and the Lucas girls. Fresno (really Clovis) ain't too shabby. On the agenda for the weekend: the Swedish Village, Santa Cruz, and lots of giggling.

Cruise Critic: The list

	Please Sir, Can I have some more?!	Oh no he di’n’t!
12/19 We’re on a boat!	“Washy Washy! Happy Happy!” As they squirt you with hand sanitizer	“Freestyle” as a term
	Hildoug’s mad stamina after a red eye and early morning workout	Where do they keep the ice cream?
		Hard sells on everything!
	Captain Douchebag always auditioning for his next wingman	Where's the freaking clock? I’m on a “freestyle” schedule here, people!
	Bowel Movements as dinner conversation (repeated each day)
12/20 (@ sea)	World’s best euro mullet on one of the male dancers
	Cruise Director Andy
	Towel Animals!
12/21 (Roatan)	Awkward photo hunt and the discovery of my future boyfriend (Harvard alum) and his family photo	Social Stratification. White people building McMansions all over the island
	Lester’s description of “poo poo sand”
	Child-biting monkey
	Getting pooped on by a bird
	Hildoug and I almost falling out of the back of the tour van when the back door popped open going up a really steep hill
	Spotting a woman wearing a mini elf hat
	Mom proves that she has an uncanny ability to predict surprise downpours
12/22 (Belize City)	Jersey family Belikin Beer (Hildoug)	Cave tubing doesn’t really personify the culture
	Red beans and rice. Yum-o! I am the Cheetah Princess!	Bad Bryon – not very friendly, but earned some points from un-stranding me on the rocks and preventing me from getting clobbered by a tree while tubing.
	All you can eat sushi on the boat
12/23 (Costa Maya)	Lonely fist pumper at the swim up bar	A reggae band doing country
	People already wearing ports of call t-shirts	Souvenir guy dropping my Mayan calendar ornament and breaking it. Then finding out it was the only one left in the store. Incident ended with me way over-paying for broken Mayan calendar ornament.
	Second City Comedy Troup was pretty dang funny.
12/24 (@ Sea)	Awesome holiday variety show	X-mas buffet. Yuck-o!
	Multiple naps	Woman saving seats for her family to watch “The Christmast story” then leaving them empty for long periods of time. Then being rude and kicking people out of them when they sat down.
	Mr Pearl contest and watching the drunk cougar mauling the contestants
	Seeing our friend Oscar everywhere
	Andy’s reading of ‘Twas the night before Christmas’ (Hildoug, obvi)
12/25 (Key West)	Going on a walk	2 picture takers at the end of Route 1 taking a zillion pictures when people were waiting
	Seeing the Southernmost point of the US	Making friends (while bowling) at the end of the trip instead of the beginning
	Checking out the Bridge Viewing Room. Hot pseudo-captain. Not hot? Enclosed smoking	No key lime pie ornament to be found anywhere in Key West. Really?
		Missing my favorite Excursions director Federico
		My purse magnet and key card not getting along….again.