Boise in da Summa

I'm loving being back in Boise!!!! I haven't been home in over a year! That is way way way too long for me. We've only been home for a few days, but those few days have been fantastic. 

First, on our way home we passed by a pretty rainbow....Jeff and I both got excited and took a picture.

 Then we passed the "crazy" house in Utah. When I was little and we would drive down to Utah we would always pass this run down building with spray paint and my brothers and dad was always scare me by telling me that that was where all of the psycho's and crazies lived.

 Utah was looking so pretty!

And then we came home to this :) We didn't get in until a little past midnight, so my mom had left us a treat- although she was still up to greet us :)

mmmm bike riding on the greenbelt with my little brother mattie

                                  

To cool off we (just jeff) jumped in the river to cool off

Showing off his muscles

It's good to be back in Boise!!!! Although we are leaving in a few days for Lake Tahoe and then my Grandma's house, it was nice to have some time with Jeff to show him how great Boise is in the Summer- today we're floating the river with Matt- wish us luck!

Laguna

While in Newport we decided to go down to Laguna Beach to check out Jeff's Aunt Sue's house. It is the perfect house! It's up in the hills and has the BEST view. The picture below is from their backyard, except it doesn't really do it justice. You have ocean views from all of the back rooms of the house and you can see pretty far up and down the coast line. Aunt Sue also has a great garden! She grows a lot of berried and peaches- they were delicious. Sue also has tons and tons of books. I was in heaven. She let me borrow a stack because she's so great. I love Aunt Sue and I love her house!

 My phone camera does not do this view justice

 Me and Brooklyn

 Me and London down in the garden by the peach tree

 Jeff and London sampling the berries

It was a great way to spend the afternoon. After Sue's we went to a yummy mexican place for food and spent the rest of the day walking around fashion island mall. I took Jeff into Anthropologie for the first time! haha he actually liked it better than I thought he would. We went through all of the kitchen stuff and he actually liked everything I picked out. Who knew? Thought he'd totally hate all it- but he actually liked it and loooooved the candles. All in all it was a really great day :)

Zuma Beach

One afternoon while in Newport Jeff, Matt, Mike and I went up to Zuma Beach in Malibu. I thought it was so pretty! I also found out that this was the beach my dad had gone to every Saturday while he was growing up, so it was fun to see where he used to hang out. 

Zuma Beach

The last part of the week I finished reading The Pilot's Wife

       

Jeff and his brothers met up with some old friends and played some sand volleyball

       

While they played I started reading Pope Joan- it was really good- very interesting.

They played volleyball until the sun was starting to go down....which provided for some pretty great pictures. Mike's the karate kid.

Even though our Tahoe picture's better, this one's still pretty good too. 

Sailing! Ahoy!

On our last day we went sailing! We drove up to Redondo Beach, where Jeff's dad has a friend with a boat. We didn't actually go out until later in the day, but the afternoon had great weather so we just chilled with all of the pretty boats and went to a bbq during the day.

And we're off! One of Jeff's all time favorite movies is What About Bob- and he especially loves the sailing scene. He was quoting lines from that movie the whole time we were out. Ahoy!

and this was also the day I found out I do not have the stomach for sailing. Don't let the smile fool ya, I thought I was going to be sick! I was so nauseous out on the water. I should've known better though- I get motion sickness on airplanes! I'm weak. However.....Jeff loved the boat and the chance he had to steer. We're really glad we had the opportunity to do this! 

Miss London

On Wednesday, London (Jeff's 3 year old niece) and I decided to take a break from the sun and play a little dress-up with some fabulous bows- courtesy of Aunt Sue. She was so much fun! And London LOVED my camera- especially the function on my phone that lets you direct the camera back at you- so you can see yourself when you're taking the picture. Every time we took a pic, she'd say "again, again!" 

Jeff and I were dating when she was born and it's been fun living so close and being able to go over and visit and play with the girls. Jeff always says he wants our first kid to be a girl and i'm pretty sure it's because he really looooooves London. We'll miss them in Dallas! For now though, I think we have a pretty good  collection of pictures from my phone to look at whenever we miss Miss London :)

Bikes & Sailboats

Bikes and the beach are a fantastic combo. Going out with Jeff on the

 bikes was easily my favorite thing we did that week.

 Jeff and I rode down to Huntington Pier one morning and it was so much fun!. Not only was the view fantastic, there was a great ocean breeze that kept us cool.

We also rode down past Newport Pier and checked out the harbor...

...where we had a Jeff photo shoot.
 sexy.

Beach Bums

and this is where we spent 90% of our time....

All of the boys helping fly the kite 

Brothers :)

 mmmm summer reading.
Reading in the summer is the best. I read four books while we were in Newport- The first part of the week I read The Namesake and The Glass Castle. Both were pretty good-really easy reads, so...perfect for the summer!

Matt and London- Matt served his mission in Brazil and was telling me awesome stories

 about kite fighting-but we were nice and let the other people nearby fly their kites in peace and didn't attack them with our kite- even though kite fighting sounds really cool.

 aww and here's Mike! He was the most patriotic out of all of us. I'm pretty sure this day was the 4th- the beach was crazy packed, and lots of partying going on in the houses around us- but it was all okay bc everyone was very festive and mostly just super loud. Jeff and I were in charge of dinner the night of the 4th, so we had a bbq and I decorated the cake :) 

my masterpiece

At night on the 4th we went down to lay on the beach and watch the fireworks. Definitely a great 4th and a great week.

Going to Newport & Volleyball

This past week Jeff and I went down to Newport, CA with his family to spend a week on the beach. It all went by so fast! Our beach house was so close to the water and the weather was perfect. Unfortunately, Jeff and I both forgot to grab our camera, so we just used my iphone all week long. Sorry if these pictures are a little fuzzy! 

The first night we were in town, Jeff really wanted to go see the men's national team. They were playing just up the road in Long Beach that night against Puerto Rico. I wasn't super jazzed to go watch volleyball, but I'm really glad that I went- they were so good! The same teams had played the night before and had gone to five, but this night the U.S. won pretty easily.

The game was held at long beach's pyramid- Jeff played a lot of away games here and would always talk about the ceilings- and yup- I've now seen it- it really is a giant pyramid. 

 aww brothers. Mike also wanted to see the team play. He just graduated from high school, where he played volleyball and was #7, like Jeff :)

 Jeff and I went for a walk along the beach that first night- it was so pretty! 

yeah, this was definitely the start to a really good week.