yum.

sweet potato curly fries are a favorite around here. rich has perfected the curliness. ;)

beach day

the best way to get our nephew carson to hold still for a picture is to bury him in the sand. :)

i wasn't as successful with catching his little brother hunter.
brooke and lindy are pro jumpers as you can see. this is how excited i was to spend an entire day outside (111 degree temps in vegas right now don't really allow that). yep, really excited!

i loved everything about our weekend in L.A. the beach, seeing lots of dolphins, boogie boarding, playing with our adorable nephews, catching up with family, getting pedicures with the girls and of course picking more grapefruits from diane's tree!

travel bug

my friend liz posted this video on her blog and i love it! i had to share. rich has 3 weeks off right now and i really wish i could take work off the entire time to travel the world with stops to visit our family and friends all over the country and my brother in london! someday...

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

it's a good thing rich is happiest working away on projects in the garage while i'm at work. also, i do get to take a bit of time off so we can travel to see family in california, idaho and utah. can't wait!!!

update time

here's some other stuff we did in july...

turned 26 (yep, both of us!)

i loved planning rich's birthday since i had a bit more planning energy this year (no wedding planning for the 4 months before). we had a little surprise birthday breakfast with friends, then took a motorcycle ride through red rock on rich's old seminary teacher's bike. rich was really excited about this, but will probably never want to go again because i made him drive so slow. i'm okay with that. then we went to dinner with rich's parents and i gave him a coupon to buy whatever tool he wanted for his bday(i can't keep them all straight). rich spoiled me two weeks later with a pinata (presents and goodies inside), chalkboard paint on our wall(something i always talked about doing), flowers, and a trip to max brenner's. max brenner's is one of my favorite nyc restaurants and they just opened one here! they gave me a nice little piece of chocolate (pictured below) for my bday. loved the presentation. as a health coach i said good job on smaller portions, as the birthday girl i ordered the s'more sundae. yum!

earned cub scout badges.rich is the greatest to come and help me.. especially when there's a machete involved. :) this is a pretty fun job i have to say. stay tuned for our webelo band!

celebrated 1 year!our anniversary was on a sunday, so after a busy morning of meetings, a musical number and a primary lesson rich surprised me with a sweet video of our first year. the next friday we went to a ben folds concert at the cosmopolitan downtown. it was an awesome concert and amazing venue!

worked on projects.can you guess which project is mine and which is rich's..hehe. rich finished his two projects (thank you mark for the awesome buggy!!). my chair on the other hand still looks about like this. i'll head back to the garage when the temps get back down to the 90's!

downed slurpees on 7/11.rich showed me his secret slurpee ingredient.

showed jape the town for the weekend!i guess you already saw that we rode bikes. we also showed him the strip, the new bridge and checked out the atomic testing museum. my favorite quote of the weekend from jape, "so this is really what it feels like to bake in an oven!" such a great weekend with my big brother!

so there you have it. july was pretty packed and really great. happy summer!

biking lessons

my big brother j.paul came to visit this past weekend. we had to make sure he had a chance to try out all of rich's projects.
rich's projects are now approved by a royal college of art design graduate! :)