McKenna & Mike Tie The Knot

If you haven't noticed, I've been on hiatus. Not on purpose. Ever since I moved back from London, I've been working on becoming an active member (read: adult) in society. That doesn't mean I haven't been having fun and snapping photos of some important memories.

In September, my sweet cousin, McKenna married the love of her life in the San Diego LDS Temple and I was privileged to be a guest and witness them proclaim there love and vows before God and their families.

 San Diego LDS Temple. As beautiful as this photo is, it just does not do it justice.

My best gal, Shannon. The mother of the bride.

The cute couple after they exited the temple.

The beautiful bride showing love to all.

 McKenna sandwich! Father and brother of the bride embrace.

So happy for my sweet cousin.

Sibling love. 

I couldn't stand not being in the picture with these two cuties, so I allowed one finger to photo bomb.

Mother and grandparents of the bride. What a proud day for them all.

 First dance as husband and wife.

 Daddy/daughter dance.

 Newlyweds <3

 Susan " Someday, my prince will come" B.

Summer Time Adventures

It hasn't been hard to acclimate back to my California ways since being home. One of the things I miss about living in London is constantly seeing new places and visiting foreign lands. I do my best to do the same now that I'm home. Adventures in my own backyard, so to speak. 

 Richmond held an alumni reception in Santa Monica. As the most recent alum, I really enjoyed seeing others that graduated before me. It was so nice to visit with old friends, eat good food and be so close to the ocean.

 The 'rents took me to Bennihana for graduation dinner.

 Celebrating Destiny's high school graduation. Welcome to the real world!

 I landed a sweet summer job as a nanny for my best friend. I'm not one to sit around the house during the summer. I try my hardest to get the kids out and about. We took a quick trip to Tom's Farm one day.

 We have had a lot of pool days.

 We rode bikes on the Santa Ana bike trail and ended up at In N Out for lunch. 

 These two have become fast, best friends.

 Biking brood.

 We met friends at Chino's Children's Museum.

As a service project, we made cookies and delivered them to the Corona Fire Department. The men were so nice. They invited us in and let the kids climb on the truck and showed us how stuff worked. Darn the luck, all four of those men had wedding rings on!

 We take weekly beach trips. My ward has a beach day and it's so nice for the kids to have other kids to play with and I feel better knowing the women around me are watching each other's kids. The weather has been pretty good. There have been two days that were yucky and we left early to hit the pool.

 The kids and I met Kaylene for lunch.

 Free Slurpees from 7-11 on 7/11.

 We fed the birds at Magnolia Bird Farm.

We go to free movies or $1 movies at least once a week. The kids I watch are great. They are mostly well behaved and their momma taught them manners! I really enjoy hanging out with them and doing fun stuff. What a great job!

 I love the 4th of July! One of my favorite holidays. It is nice to be back on U.S. soil for Independence Day. This year, I was put in charge of our ward pancake breakfast. I think it went pretty well, if I do say so myself. It was at a local park and it lasted about two hours. We had almost 200 people show up. I thought it was a great way to kick off the days activities.

 My bff, Tammy and her husband came and partook of yummy pancakes

 As did these loves. My niece's sang a patriotic medley. I tried super hard to upload the video but blogger is being impossible.

 I made my very first pie, all by myself!

 Extra pie dough, sugar cookies.

 Daniela and Blake came to stay with me for the weekend! I was so stoked that theses two were coming into town and I had fun playing hostess. I sent them to Huntington Beach for the day and took them to watch Corona's fireworks at night. When we got home, we ate apple pie and visited a bit.

My cute cousin, McKenna is getting married next month, so we are celebrating her bridal shower. There is a lot of love in that Susan sandwich!

Susan "that's what a hamburger's all about" B.

The Flower Fields Meets Mean Girls

Down in Carlsbad, California, cascading down a hill, overlooking the Pacific Ocean is 50 acres of Giant Tecolote Ranunculus displayed at The Flower Fields. It is truly breath taking. I thought it would be the perfect location to take my Holga Camera and get some great shots of flowers. My camera, however, did not agree with the Wal-Mart 35 mm film I tried to shove into it. Luckily, I had my point-and-shoot as back up. I went with my cousin, Shannon and we spent almost two hours walking around and enjoying the colors, smells and beauty.

I thought it would be really boring to just show picture after picture of flowers, so in celebration of Mean Girls 10th Anniversary on April 30th, I decided to include my favorite Mean Girls quotes! Really, I could have typed out the whole movie, I love it all!

"On Wednesdays we wear pink."-Karen

 Gretchen: "That is so fetch!"

Regina: "Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen! It's not going to happen!"

"Get in loser, we're going shopping." -Regina 

 "You got your freshman, ROTC guys, preps, J.V. Jocks,

 Asian nerds, cool Asians, Varsity jocks, unfriendly black hotties, girls who eat their feelings,

girls who don't eat anything, Desperate wannabes, Burnouts, Sexually active band geeks

 The greatest people you will ever meet,

and the worst. Beware of plastics." -Janis

 "I know, right?" -Cady and Regina

 "She doesn't even go here!" -Damian

Karen: "If you're from Africa, why are you white?"

Gretchen: "Oh my gosh, Karen! You can't just ask people why they're white!"

 "Would you like us to assign someone to butter your muffin?" -Jason

 Student: "Nice wig, Janis. What's it made of?"

Janis: 'Your mom's chest hair."

 "That's why her hair is so big. It's full of secrets." -Damian

 "That is the ugliest effing skirt I've ever seen." -Regina

 Regina: "But you're, like, really pretty."

Cady: "Thank you."

Regina: "So you agree? You think you're really pretty?"

 "YOU CAN'T SIT WITH US!" -Gretchen

 "It's like I have ESPN or something. My breast can always tell when it's going to rain." -Karen

 "I know it may look like I was being a bitch, but that's only because I was acting like a bitch." -Cady

 "Somebody wrote in the book that I'm lying about being a virgin, 'cause I use super-jumbo tampons, but I can't help it if I've got a heavy flow and a wide-set vagina." -Bethany Byrd

 "I just want you to know, if you ever need anything, don't be shy, okay? There are NO rules in this house. I'm not like a *regular* mom, I'm a *cool* mom." -Mrs. George

 "Four for you Glenn Coco! You go Glenn Coco! And none for Gretchen Weiners." -Damian as Santa

 "You smell like a baby prostitute." -Janis

"Boo! You whore!" -Regina

Susan "I know, right?" B.