Sacramento Temple:)

 We finally got to go to the Sacramento Temple! I've been looking forward to going for a while now!  Its such a pretty temple!  Its a mini temple but I was surprised at how much it felt like a larger temple!  The landscaping was beautiful!  It was really neat how the landscaping differed from one side to the other.  The front had many flowers and a fountain and the back kind of reminded me of the mountains in a way.  REALLY beautiful!  We got up at 4 in the morning to make sure we made it on time, and it was WELL worth the trip! This is one of my favorite parts about the summers, is visiting new temples that we haven't seen before.  I really enjoy it.  And each temple always amazes me.....EVERY TIME!  (Below are just some scenic shots of the temple)

 Can't ever get enough of the flowers! Gorgeous!

 Loved the unique arches at this temple.  I feel like its one of the parts that stands out the most.

 Around the back side (east side) of the temple.

 You can kinda see how the landscaping is a bit different around the back, a little more "natural" looking I guess you could say.

 Love the fountains!

Beautiful place!  I love that peaceful feeling when you find the temple location and see if for the first time.  I guess the best way to describe that feeling is "HOME".  Its just a sense of security and assurance that your in the right place at the right time, and its the same feeling no matter what temple you visit.  Its a peaceful and safe feeling.  Grateful to have had a wonderful morning with my sweetie!

Ruffle Skirt

Here is another project that I started.  I actually love to go into thrift stores and find material that people just get rid of!  I love it!  I found the stripe piece and the white piece for $1.50.  Not Bad!  I knew the strip piece would not be enough to make a full skirt so I thought it would look cute to do a ruffle.  And for some reason I love knit skirts! Seriously thats pretty much all I wear all summer long! LOL!  

Summer Quilt....DONE!

 Well, I finally finished my quilt project that I have been working on.  It has been a fun project.  I love the summers because I feel like I have a little bit more time to work on things that I have been wanting to do.  This is officially our "Summer Sales" blanket for our bed now :)  We can never pack a lot to take during the summer because of space, so I don't take a comforter set I usually just take a blanket to put on the bed.  And we can't take a lot of decorations so sometimes I feel like our room is a bit plain.  So, I think this quilt did just the trick to brighten up the room! :)

 I wanted to use corduroy for the back and I found a really soft corduroy print that I liked, so it worked out nicely!  And I love that my sewing machine has a bunch of fancy stitches to finish off the edges with! 

Trip to SAN FRANCISCO!

 This past Sunday, we took a little trip to San Francisco!  It was  so FUN!  We stopped at the Oakland Temple on the way.  The Oakland Temple is special to us because my dad served his mission in this area and was a guide at the Oakland Temple before it was dedicated.  This was the view from the back of the temple overlooking the San Francisco Bay and the Bay bridge.  SO BEAUTIFUL!

 This was behind the temple!  I serisouly love all the landscaping!  The Church does so amazing on all their Temples landscaping! I'm always so amazed at the perfection!

 Such a pretty temple.  Its fun to think that my dad was here when he was 19 years old serving his mission.

 I love to take scenic view shots of the temple! This one almost looks like its fall time.

 This is the back of the temple.

 This temple kinda reminded me of the Hawaii temple.  It felt very tropical here.

 This was a view of one of the streets downtown San Francisco!  This place is so busy and I can't believe how many houses there are crammed in there!

 This was a view still at the temple looking away from the temple.

 LOVE the FLOWERS!

 Me and My little buddy CASS!!

 We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge!  Very cool!

 It was a busy day and there were lots of people so we climbed up on this stone wall to at least be separated from the rest of the people. 

 Me and Cass at Fishermans Warff

 We went to Fishermans Warf to see all the little shops and the boats and to look out at Alcatraz.  That was really neat.  I wish we could have gone over to Alcatraz and went on a tour but there was not enough time to do everything, oh well.  Maybe we'll have to come back. 

 There was this super cool art museum, stadium place.  I actually can't remember what its called but its a great place to take pictures and have weddings.  We were driving by and saw how cool it was so we stopped and walked around for a while. 

 We went down the famous curved road here in San Francisco.  Its the length of a city block but it is on a huge downhill but it twists and turns like a snake!  FUN!

 Alcatraz!

Aaron and Cass by Alcatraz.  It was such a fun day.  I hate when fun days come to an end.  We got to see so much in one day, I feel like the drive was totally worth it!  At Fisherman's Warff there is always a lot going on.  We saw break dancing, graffiti artists and their amazing paintings, people playing musical insturments, and people doing funny acts.  Such a great day!  Thank goodness for our pictures to remember it all!  

Bidwell Mansion

 Me and my little buddy had so much fun hanging out while she was here, she left today :(  But while she was here we went and did a lot of fun things!  One of which was Bidwell Mansion.  It was SUPER AWESOME!  Bidwell Mansion is where John and Annie Bidwell lived many years ago.  They settled the town of Chico and named a lot of the roads here.  They were very well known and had a lot of land and TONS of orchards.  It was interesting to learn about their story.  John was 46 and Annie was 26 when they got married.  And he was 6 foot 1 inch tall and she was 4 foot 8 inches.........quite the difference!  And they actually wrote letters back and forth for a year and a half before they were married.  She was a very strong Presbyterian and he had no religion at all.  After their letters back and forth, John was willing to do anything to win Annie over, so he changed his ways.  She had told him "NO" when he asked her to marry him the first time, but after he changed after that long period of time, she told him that he needed to ask her again, and then she said, "YES"!  There were a lot of things that we got to learn about the Bidwells and the history here! Supper Fun!

 Cass is standing by Annie's square grand piano that John bought for her for her wedding present.  It took all the modes of transportation available at that time, (boat, train, horse and wagon) to get it from New York, and here to Chico. 

 This was the room across from the office, I loved the flags hanging!

 This was us, trying to be in the mirror without the camera showing :)

 This was Annie's wedding dress.  She was sooooo tiny! And very short!

 One of the first indoor toilets! It was called the elephant toilet because it looks like an elephant head.

 This was the guest room.  Many respected people and people with high status where friends of the Bidwell's and stayed here.  There were so many fireplaces throughout the house, three of which were in bedrooms. 

 This was John and Annie's room.  That bed is AWESOME!!! I love it!  Never seen anything like it! The room was so huge that I could'nt get it all in the picture.  I loved the vanity/fireplace/and armoire in the room as well!

 Another view of the mansion.

These were the buggies out in the barns for display.  This was such a fun day that Cass and I had, and very neat to learn an awesome piece of history about this place!

Moved....bitter sweet

 Well, we have officiall moved from Arcata, which is totally bitter sweet for me.  I loved the area there! One of the prettiest places I've ever been to!  I'm going to miss the horse riding and the ocean and the mountains, and the greenery and the flowers!  Just amazing!  But, I will NOT miss our apartments :)  They were just fine, but thats all I would say is fine. LOL.  It's nice having apartments like that because then you REALLY appreciate good ones when you get them :)  The picture above is on our move, the scenery that we left behind. 

 On the way from Arcata to Redding through the mountain pass, its seriously is one of the longest mountain passes ever! But very beautiful.  It was a lot more green when we went throug it two months ago, but it's still pretty.  And it has an amazing fishing river that runs through it.  Kade wanted to stop and fish sooooo bad :)

 This picture is for my dad.  This was a little town that we passed through and of course there is a lot of logging that takes place here, so I know he is going to find this HUGE pile of logs interesting.

 Our new home!  We totally lucked out and got the apartment that overlooks the pool.  We can go out onto our balcony from our bedroom or from the living room.  I really like the floor plans of these apartments, very well thought out. 

 I'm loving my new kitchen since I have more than one droor now:)

 My beautiful niece came to visit me!!!!!! I love her to death! I wish she could live out here with me! We would have a blast, just like we are now!  I don't want her to leave......  We had just worked out in the fitness center here at our apartments and we decided that a little dip in the hot tub would be nice!

 Do you think this cat was risking one of his nine lives by drinking chlorinated water????  Meow!

 Pool time with CASS!!

 OK, so she's probabley not out here JUST for me.....hehe!  I think Aaron only has a little bit to do with it! :)

 While the boys are out working we go exploring....and sometimes get lost!, and we found ourselves at the "not so great" part of Bidwell Park.  This was called horseshoe lake, and its more like a puddle! haha!!!  But still fun to see somewhere new! 

 Now we found the real lake!!! Lake Oroville is BEAUTIFUL!  There are tons of house boats that sit, waiting for someone to vacation on them, and there was a fun bridge that we had to drive over, which I'm sure is going to be put to shame by the bridges in San Fransico this Sunday.  (Thats the plan to go to San Fransico, so hopefully it all works out:)

 This day was such a fun day! I don't know what got into us girls but we were just silly all day! Everything was funny! You know those moods that just randomly hit and you can't seem to get out of them:)  This was one of those days.  And the sun was really in our eyes in the picture!

 You all know that I love scenery! So here's another scenery picture!

 So this little guy started all the laughing for the day!  We were taking a walk by the lake, and ran into him, (we will call him Buff....I'll explain in a sec) and he was startled by us, and ran like the wind.  But he stopped and starred us down, and then he started doing push-ups for a long time! hahahahahahaha!  We where laughing so hard!  Thats why we called him Buff.  I think he was trying to impress us! LOL  We came home and told Kade and he said,"Oh yeah, havne't you seen that before?" He said he used to catch lizzards all the time and has seen them do that.  But it was still super funny!

Such a beautiful lake!  Wish I had a houseboat, and a speed boat, and some jet skiis, and a big nice truck, and fishing stuff, tubes, lots of BBQ food, wake board, scubba gear, and..................:) You get the idea :)