Celebrating in the City

We went into San Francisco to celebrate John's birthday this last week.  It was a gorgeous day and we walked around for a bit and then had dinner at this great restaurant on the Embarcadero.

The restaurant is called Waterbar - and it is mostly seafood - but everything we had was INCREDIBLE.  It instantly became one of our new favorite places.The next morning we had breakfast at the Palace Hotel.  This room was amazing - it made me feel like I was in Paris, and the food was delicious.  I had Macadamia Nut Waffles with coconut syrup - I am still thinking about it!  I love when you do something unforgettable - and this quick trip into the City was very memorable.

We had so much fun we've decided we need to go into San Francisco a lot more often!

My Maricopa/Mesa/Chicago Adventure

After Madden's blessing everyone went home except - me and Michelle (and Naomi) stayed to help Tiff pack up her house to move to Chicago. I am pretty unexperienced when it comes to moving and I find the whole project a little intimidating - but Michelle was a lifesaver. We worked so hard we even got everything packed in enough time to squeeze in a little fun on the final day. After we had Tiff's house all empty and Randy hit the road for the 27 hour drive to Chicago we had some time to just hang out in Arizona until we would fly out to Chicago to meet up with Randy - it was great to have the down time to just relax and visit.

We attended the Kindergarten graduation of Tiffany's class. They were all so excited about the new baby. It was sweet to see Tiffany with her adoring students. One little boy wanted to know "how you got babies?" Tiff just smiled and said you just get married and then pretty soon a baby comes along. His response - " I wanted you to get marrried lots and lots so you can have lots and lots of babies!" I will miss the funny things Tiffany would share about her Kindergarteners - thank goodness for grandkids :)

Naturally, I took lots of pictures of Madden - I even caught some smiles.

Thankfully, Tiffany and the baby and I flew to Chicago. When we got there Tiff and Randy's apartment looked mostly like this -

-

. . . but when we were all done unloading and organizing it was looking like this -

Tiffany and Randy love their new home outside of Chicago -

Madden's Baby Blessing

Here's the whole bunch of us in Maricopa, AZ for Madden's baby blessing. It was a wonderful day for all of us -

The proud parents . . .

Michele and John and the kids came down to AZ and suprised Tif and Randy - it was a quick weekend for most of us but we all had a great time together.

Can you believe how cute Naomi looks all dressed up for church?!

On the Saturday before we got some time to just hang out together and visit and play with the kids. Everyone loves Uncle Landon - he's so good with all the kids, but John and Landon headed back to Calif on Sunday night to get back to school and work. Although we were all together less than 48 hours - it was all wonderful and I was so grateful we could all be there to share in Tiffany and Randy's happiness as they blessed their precious baby.