San Diego

What a wonderful Memorial Day weekend! Jake and I traveled to San Diego with our friends Brooke and Daniel. We didn't really do much but drive around, eat, and sleep, but it was WONDERFUL!! We left early Sunday morning and arrived at about 8:30. It was super windy and rainy once we got into CA so we were a little worried for our plans to lay out on the beach.
Since it was Sunday, we had planned on walking around the temple for a bit but it was all locked up so we just hung out in the parking lot for an hour. Brooke and I ate a wonderful breakfast in the car while our boys played Frisbee.

From there we traveled to the pier. On the way we saw this green van, Dan loved it so much he made us drive by several times, and was seriously considering finding the owner and asking if he could buy it.

It was freezing on the pier! So windy, and the waves were huge! Once we got to the cafe on the end the guys were hungry and bought some tacos (never mind that it was only 10 in the morning).

After that, while we were waiting for the day to warm up, we decided to visit the San Diego Humane Society! Something everyone does when they're on vacation, go to the pound. This place was ridiculous. I'm happy the animals of San Diego have such a comfortable place to stay while they are waiting to be adopted, but it didn't really look like any of these animals needed a home. The Mesa animal shelter is cage after cage of sad looking animals, it makes your heart hurt and you want to take them all home. In San Diego, each animal had it's own ornately decorated room. With couches and blankets, some even had a TV. It was crazy and didn't make me feel bad enough to want to take one home at all.


By this time we were all tired so we checked into our hotel and had a good nap. By 4:00 I was pretty bored so I woke everyone up so we could visit my cousin Krista, who lived literally just around the corner from where we were staying. She is so cute and I got to see her precious little girl Alila for the first time.
That night we visited Little Italy, where we ate some pizza and visited a local artists gallery. His work was amazing and it made me want to dance. Some pieces were on sale for $10-12,000!! That's where I need to be in my career :) I could sell two paintings a year and be set.

Then we made our way to Old Town. Brooke and I found this cute tin lantern store, we wanted to buy everything in there! We walked around for a bit, grabbed some fresh tortilla's and headed back to the hotel to relax in the pool/hot tub.

Monday was beach day, and the weather was beautiful! While the boys worked up their courage to head to the cold water, Brooke and I laid on the sand and watched them sculpt seahorses :)


It was so nice to relax and not worry about anything! I wish we could have stayed longer but real life was calling. While at the beach though we got to see some advertising for the new X-men movie! There's an article about it here.

Baby Girl Rucker

We're having a GIRL!!!! AH!!!! We are so excited! When we went for the first ultrasound a couple weeks ago we were able to find out her gender but we weren't able to get any good shots of her face. So I had to go back yesterday for them to find some things she wasn't cooperating with the first time and she was so good! We got some nice 3D shots (which are kinda creepy but cool) and learned that her size is perfectly normal, she's right on track. She's moving around a lot, Jake first felt her move a couple weeks ago which I loved. She is very nice to me and doesn't kick when I'm sleeping, mostly when I'm driving. The only thing that's starting to bother me about getting so big is not being able to bend over. If my foot itches when I'm driving I can't get at it! And pretty soon it'll be hard to put my shoes on.
The next big hurdle is picking a name. This process makes me not want to have kids anymore! It's so hard! We've had a couple that we agree on (which is a miracle!) but I don't think we've found it yet. So if anyone has any suggestions please share! I mostly like old and not very common names.

I take my last final today, so starting tomorrow I can focus on summer painting, baby stuff, and everything else I've been slacking on over the past four months. Hopefully we'll be moving soon, we're just not sure where.

Jake said this one looks like Voldemort...

Baby Rucker

So if you haven't heard yet.... WE'RE HAVING A BABY!!!! YAY!!! We had our first look at our little kidney bean last week, he/she is due September 6th! We are crazy excited but can't really do anything to prepare until we move out, and until school is over. As far as pregnancy symptoms and stuff goes... I've never wanted to sleep so much in my life. I've only had one bad day of awful sickness, most of the time I just feel icky, and nothing sounds good to eat. I always thought people were being wimps about the whole morning sickness thing... but now I know better :)
The thing I'm most disappointed about is how Jake heard the news. I found out we were pregnant the day we got back from UT after Christmas. I took a test and it was positive! Jake was at work already, and I wanted to tell him in person so I put the test in one of my dresser drawers.
Now, when I asked Jake what he wanted for Christmas, his only serious answer was socks. I bought him socks (and other things too!), but once I knew we had a baby on the way I bought some baby socks, which I was going to give to him as an extra Christmas gift when I got home from work that night. I was so excited to see his face as he worked through why I would be giving him baby socks.

Well I got home from work and went up to our room, only to find all the drawers pulled out of the dresser, and the dresser gone! The boys had decided to move the dresser to the new house that night. RARR!! So Jake saw the test, and I didn't get to see his face when he found out he was going to be a dad. Sigh.
But anyway... we are super happy and excited and terrified. We also decided that we are the worst people at showing emotion (like during the ultrasound we both just sat there and didn't say anything, but inside we were rejoicing!) So if we ever seem passive about anything baby-ish, just know that publicly we are very shy when it comes to letting our feelings gush all over, and we really are truly so excited to start this new adventure!

Desert Botanical Garden

I loved my biology class this semester. I have never really been a science person, and I usually find most of that stuff so confusing and/or boring. But I had a great teacher and it ended up being one my my favorite classes! Well throughout the semester for our labs we had to go on two field trips and they were fun! The first one was the Gilbert Riparian which is sort of a marsh in the middle of the desert. I'm sure it's beautiful in the spring but... not so much in September. The second one was the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. I loved it!!! It was gorgeous. The dessert really can be pretty with just a little care and attention.

This was in the herb garden, it smelled so good in there

This is my favorite, I love how the spines look with the sun behind them. These little cacti look like a miniature city.

I made Jake come with me but it was fun :) there was a chocolate festival going on at the same time so we got to taste some yummy chocolate!

Ending 2010

I'm definitely behind on posts. The biggest reason being that we lost our camera. Well I found it last week, but now I can't find the cord to hook it up to the computer! Oh well. So now you get lots of writing and phone pictures. Yay!

Life is still great, school ended nicely and our jobs are going well. I'll start school again in a week or so and I'm taking awesome classes! Painting, photography, graphic design, and.... geology. Ok so the geology class probably won't be that fun but it's the only class I need to FINALLY get my Associates. Jake finished his first University of Phoenix class and is on to the next! His first class was a joke but hopefully this next one will be more challenging and interesting for him.
We've moved from Tempe to Maricopa and are living with Jake's parents again, this time with hopes of buying a house soon. However, now that I live here and have to drive 45 mins to work every day, I'm less and less excited about house hunting here. I feel like we're in Limbo and I'm not sure where we should be going. But we'll figure it out with time and with prayer.
So the Holidays! I'm sad they're over but relieved at the same time. (I really loathe Christmas shopping). For Christmas this year we visited my family in UT. Most of the pictures were taken by my parents and can be seen on their blog brendandoug.blogspot.com. My dad is the best blogger around. Here are some of our festive photos...

My wonderful public speaking class friends! That class was so fun, couldn't have asked for a better teacher or class.

This was definitely the highlight of the trip! Jake was swerving like crazy through my mom's office park. She's so cute! The best is her laugh at the end, it's a long video but worth the watch.

I totally forgot about Thanksgiving! It was fun and pretty low key. We had dinner with another family in the ward. The best part of that day though was finding these little guys! Jake caught one before dinner, then as we drove home after dinner we found two more! Jake got out of the car and meowed to them, and they both came running! It was so cute, like something from a movie. We had to give them all away but I'm sure they made wonderful Christmas presents for some happy children.

And that's that! We'll have more to come soon, I promise!

Sorry!

I know it's been way too long, I just don't have time to blog! I have so many pictures to post from Lake Powell and our very first camping trip together! I'll get to it eventually I promise. Things are going great, Jake really loves his job, the people there are so nice and it is a really great company. I got a new co-receptionist at work (for the third time) and she is amazing! We're the same age and have a lot in common, including our husbands working for the same company, in the same building, on the same floor! Such a funny coincidence. And school is just as crazy as ever. I really enjoy it but I can't get anything done around the house because I'm always bogged down with tons of homework. But I'm learning a lot and I'm so grateful I am able to go to school. Next semester should be better (although no less time consuming) because I'm taking painting, photography, and a graphic design class. Woot!
We're moving back in with Jake's parents this week. We've been thinking of saving up to buy a house since they are so cheap and because we'll probably be here until Jake can finish school. (It's a bummer I know... maybe we'll get lucky and he can transfer somewhere!) The drive from Maricopa won't be very fun, especially at 10:00 at night... but we'll survive.
On another note. Um... it's November. Where did this year go?? Seriously! It flew by. I'm so happy though, I love this time of year! It finally feels like fall in AZ. Time to bring on the Christmas music!

Valley of the Goblins

On the drive home from UT Jake and I decided to do some sightseeing. I'm usually too anxious to get to UT on our drives up, and too tired on the drives home to stop and look at anything. So we put Goblin Valley into our official plans so I couldn't make any excuses.
If you've never been you must GO! It's basically this huge valley with tons of cool rocks worn down by an ancient ocean. There is a lot to explore and fun shapes to discover.

Can you see the gorilla?

Find the Ninja Turtle Head

Jake found a Geocash thing! Haha at first I thought it was a snake trap or something, but Jake thought it was a treasure chest and he was right! Don't worry we put it back just as we found it.

Running from the goblins

Jake's jet ski

Kissing rocks

Oh boys. :)

Ok this was probably the scariest driving experience of my life. After Goblin Valley we came across this road (if you can even call it a road). As we rounded the corner onto this cliff there was a barrier with spray paint that read "Welcome to Hell Town" and there was a crow sitting right above it. How's that for creepy? This road had NO railings and it was DIRT. I was seriously driving 5 mph. Jake asked if I wanted him to drive but I knew he would drive over 5 mph and I would have a panic attack. Seriously how anyone can deem this road passable is beyond me. Needless to say we will never be driving that way again.