36 years ago...

It was on this day 36 years ago that my parents united in marriage. Congratulations, Dad and Mom, on all those great years! I'm thankful for your example of a committed marriage. Hope your day is a good one (and that you find time to celebrate together with all Dad's meetings)!

We love you! ~ Laura

America's Favorite Pizza?

Ever heard the saying, "this tastes like cardboard?" Well last Saturday, we ordered a pizza from Pizza Hut -- one large pizza with mushrooms, tomatoes, and ham. As I was eating my 2nd piece of pizza, whatever I had bitten into was pretty tough. I kept chewing (thinking it was a hard mushroom), but ended up spitting it onto my plate. As I took a closer look, it was actually a piece of cardboard! Then I noticed that there was more cardboard baked into the toppings of my pizza! I actually found 3 separate pieces! They were each about 1" x 1/2" each in length.












We called Pizza Hut and told them about it...they gave us our money back. So, tonight we ordered a pizza from Papa Johns hoping that maybe they'd bake cardboard into their pizza as well. No luck! Oh well, it was nice to get a free pizza the first time around.

Anybody else have a story about finding strange stuff in their food that they want to share? We'd be interested in hearing it :)

Natalie's First Shower

This past Sunday, our friend Danielle threw us a baby shower for Natalie. All of the World Impact LA women were invited. We probably had about 25 women inside Danielle's little apartment-nice and cozy! :) After eating yummy food, we played a game about guessing baby clothes sizes and facts about Natalie. Next were the classic "Guess What's in the Diaper" and "Guess the Baby Food" games. Lots of fun! Finally, gifts!

We had a great time and were blessed by so many gifts! Here is a sampling of what we received: hoodie towels, burp cloths, bibs, outfits, books, and gift cards.

Now here are some pictures of our evening...




















Thanks, Danielle, for all you did to make our shower fabulous! We appreciate your thoughtfulness and generosity! We love you!

Laundry Room: Part 2

Our laundry room is finally done! Before Laura's parents left on Saturday, Larry and I finished building the cabinet around the water heater, laid the new vinyl flooring, and put the washer and dryer back in the room so Laura could finally do some laundry (we were all happy about that). On Sunday, I built a shelf unit above the dryer and attached a clothing rod, hung up a rack for our brooms, finished putting trim around the cabinets, and replaced our old ceiling light fixture. And now for the "dramatic" before and after pictures...drum roll, please.

BEFORE:













AFTER:











The best part about the whole project was that we were able to completely redo the laundry room in a week. I think Laura was the most happy about that...I don't think she would have liked our house looking like a complete disaster for longer than that.

Grandpa and Grandma

Early Saturday morning Grandpa and Grandma flew back to Iowa. Having to leave for the airport at 5:15 am, both kids slept right through the good-byes. We had a great time with them here and wanted to show you some of what we did while they visited (besides re-doing the laundry room). We miss you both already!

Elijah's Highlights...playing with Grandpa

















Natalie's Highlights...time with Grandpa and Grandma, sleeping, being awake!!!





















Family Times...

Laundry Room, Part 1

So the fun has begun!

My parents (Laura) arrived on Saturday, the same time we dropped off Tricia. After staying home and relaxing over the weekend, my dad and Dave got to work on Monday with tearing apart the laundry room. Things did not go quite as planned...

First off, the reason for re-doing the room is because there was a large hole behind the washer and dryer that seemed to have been made as an access panel at one time for the plumbing in the wall. After the hole was made, it was never properly repaired but instead a plywood panel was screwed on to cover most of it. Well, we've not only gotten tired of looking at the silly plywood piece for the past 3 1/2 years we've lived here but we've also decided we don't want mice in our house this winter and it'd be best to seal up their entrance!

With all that said, Dad and Dave took everything out of the room and removed the plywood panel so they could properly fix the hole with a drywall panel. But once the plywood was removed, they found a pipe was leaking, insulation was wet and mold was covering the area. Great! Then the pipe broke!!! So off to the hardware store for a replacement pipe where they were wrongly charged for their purchase and the passenger side window all-of-a-sudden wouldn't roll up after being rolled down all the way... So far, so good!

Don't worry...I can tell you things turned around after that. The hole is now patched, the room painted, 2 wall cabinets put together and hung, and the new flooring being laid as we speak. It's looking great and hopefully the washer/dryer can be hooked back up tomorrow so I can wash some clothes again.

In a few days when it's all done we'll show you pictures. I can't wait!

(Still the car window is broken, not rolling up. Dad G, do you want to make a visit to dink on the car?!) :)

Blog comments

I find this a little bit interesting...we post about having our new daughter - something amazing! - and we get 1 comment on our blog!!! Then we find a caterpillar that looks like bird poop and we get 6 comments!!! What's wrong with this?!?! C'mon, people! :)

Two Updates

Update #1

Doug, our missionary friend and apparently part-time professional detective, cracked "the case of the unidentified caterpillars" wide open! The caterpillars we found on our lime tree are actually Giant Swallowtail butterfly larvae.








It looks like they would have been very beautiful butterflies had we not...umm...permanently gotten rid of them. Oops.


Update #2

Tricia is back with us now after her meetings in El Segundo. We picked her up yesterday afternoon then headed to Souplantation for a yummy lunch!!! That evening we headed to the South Park area for a staff BBQ. Tricia got to meet some staff friends and we all got to eat some good food.

Today we spent some time at home playing and also got groceries, getting prepared for our next visitors to arrive. After our afternoon naps, we headed out to IKEA. We are planning on doing a major overhaul on our laundry room next week so we picked up a couple wall cabinets and a storage rack to help with the transformation. Once we finally made our purchases, we went to Panda Express for dinner then headed home.

Tricia flies back tomorrow morning, the same time we pick up our next visitors. The fun continues for us...we'll keep you posted!

Strange Caterpillars

Today we were out in our courtyard looking at our lime tree (to see if we had any limes that were ready to be picked) and noticed that there was a bunch of bird poop on some of the leaves. But upon closer inspection, we realized that it wasn't poop at all but cleverly disguised caterpillars! Strange.












The caterpillars must have been really hungry. Usually you'll see holes in the leaves where they have been snacking, but these caterpillars devoured a whole branch!


We ended up finding 4 caterpillars total. Here is the lovely family.


We also noticed that these caterpillars try to look scarier than they actually are. Above their heads, it looks like they have two yellow eyes and if you look closely, it almost looks like a snake head.


Interesting creatures. We tried looking on the internet to see if we could find out what kind of caterpillars they were, but had no luck. Has anyone ever seen anything like this before?

Auntie Tricia Returns. . . and the OC Fair

That's right...Auntie Tricia has come back to visit us! It has only been about 6 weeks since she was last here and we love that she is here again! She actually has business meetings in El Segundo/Redondo Beach (only 20 min. from us) this Monday-Thursday so she came a little early to spend time with us and meet her niece for the first time.

Today we decided to go to the Orange County Fair, on its last day. Elijah had a great time checking out all the animals at the petting zoo.










Natalie slept through pretty much everything and woke up when it was time to have some funnel cake. I guess she got hungry too :)












We tried our luck at the OC Metro Exhibit spinning the wheel of fortune. As Laura's fortune would have it, she won a cardboard bus bank! Elijah loved it!










We didn't spend all day at the fair. We got there around 4pm and we headed home around 7pm. Just in time to get Elijah to bed and enjoy what was left of the night before we went to bed. It was a fun day!