The Summer Recap

In honor of it officially being Fall but officially still being as hot as mid-summer, I have decided to give my readers (all five of you) a quick summary of my summer highlights. In essence, I will paint a picture using words and…well, pictures. Here goes!

This year summer started way back in, I think, February when we went to the S.F. Giants Fan Fest. I got to actually WALK ON THE FIELD! And I saw Will Clark, my favorite Giant from my younger days.

The next important summer event was a little thing we (I) like to call "Friendrichment." You know - friends getting together to learn something or do something productive. In this episode we made 72 hour emergency kits. Thanks AmyAnn for putting this together!

This is a picture of AmyAnn running the half marathon that I was supposed to run with her. We signed up for the American River Parkway half marathon, but I pulled a dumb muscle in my leg so badly that I wasn't able to run with her. Instead, Jenn and I were the cheerleaders of the race. It was rainy and so much fun. Way to go runners! I'll be there next year (hopefully!).

Ariane joined my Stockton ward on a day trip to Big Trees. It was absolutely beautiful, but we did spend a bit of time looking at the map...lost. But we always found our way back.

June was actually a super busy month. Our big family trip this year was to San Diego, where all four of us kids took surfing lessons. Now, are we "surfers?" I'd say no, but we sure had a lot of fun. Here's the land portion of our lesson. David, my mom, and I all got spray tans for the trip. :) Totally worth it.

We totally look like locals, huh? Here's Danny, David, Kari, and me.

Perhaps the fact that I struggled to even pull the WETSUIT on was a precursor of how well I'd actually do in the water. In my defense, it was a new suit and it was very tight.

Shoot! I did have a picture of me looking like I was standing up and really surfing, but I forgot to upload it. I'm also not blog-savvy enough to add it in now. So...here's me kind of surfing.

And then fully wiping out. I have to say that surfing was so much fun and I'd totally try it again. I'm an excellent boogie boarder, so I'm sure that I could eventually get the hang of this. :) Definitely a fun day with the fam!

We also went to Legoland! We really did have a couple of kids with us even though you haven't seen pictures of them yet. We didn't really go to Legoland with just adults. This is Kari, Mollie (my sis-in-law) and me.

Ok - so this may seem silly, but this was one of my favorite parts of the week in San Diego. My mom and I took my niece, Kallie, and my cousin, Emma, and we went to La Jolla for a couple of hours. On the way there, we somehow decided that the girls were part of the "Miss Nancy's Bucket-of-Fun Tour" and Mom and I were the guides. We pointed out silly things all along the drive and our walk, and the girls would just "ooh" and "aah" like we were showing them priceless works of art or something. It was great! We looked at the seals, climbed trees, watched kayakers (our family), and walked out on the rocks along the shore. We'll be taking bookings for tours again next summer. :)

On the rocks.

In the trees.

Toward the end of June, Jenn, AmyAnn, Ariane, and I finally got the chance to see Wicked in San Francisco. Oh, how I loved it! Anyone want to go again?

Outside the Orpheum Theater with Lindsey and John.

The last major event in June was our good friend Jenn getting married to Chad. Hooray!

In honor of her wedding, we made the cupcakes for her reception. I think that learning this new skill also falls into the Friendrichment category. So, we made cupcakes...

...and cupcakes...

...and more cupcakes...

...and even more cupcakes.

Eventually we had 400 cupcakes! Yum!

Then we attempted a cake topper. This is me with my first cake with fondant. And, thanks to KB, the fondant actually tasted good! Homemade is the only way to go.

Here's the finished cupcake tower. The top kind of looks like a hat, but that's ok.

Delish...

The friends at the temple.
And, yes, I caught the bouquet. What can I say? They asked who really wanted it. So I fought Ariane (I did some classic boxing out. Thanks Dad.), and I won! But I did share the flowers with others. We all deserve them, right? :)
And I got to finish the night with a dance with Jenn's little brother, Brady. So cute!

Ok - This post is probably FAR too long, but brevity's not my thing. I'll try to be shorter in the future. Just as a final update, I did finish the summer with a move back to the Sacramento area, and the start of a new job.

That's the update of my summer. Now you know, and knowing is half the battle. G.I. Joe, right? I wasn't allowed to watch that cartoon.