THINGS I WANT TO DO/BUY

as far as blogpost titles go, this one is awful, but nap time is too short to spend much time thinking up clever titles. you can have a clever title or a clever post, but not both. that's not to say this post is clever. it's not. but these are all things that have been racketing around in my brain this week so i'm writing them down in an effort to quell the intense spring fever/wanderlust/stuck-inside-itis and its accompanying agitation. daydreaming about a few of these is going to get me through the next 6.5 weeks.

-i want to buy a cute little house and move into it and then NOT MOVE AGAIN for at least five years.
-i want to cruise around the neighborhood my cute little house is in with my family in a madsen bicycle.
-i want five more darling babies to put in my madsen bicycle.
-i want to take a tropical anniversary cruise/vacation with my hubby.
-i want to eat tacos el guero in tijuana.
-i want to take luc to mission beach for an ice cream cone on the boardwalk.
-i want to wear flip flops and shorts on my birthday in december.

that's not too much to ask, right? ;)

46 DAYS TIL WE MOVE!

ODE TO DAIRY

oh dairy, how i miss you! it's been four months since i've been able to partake of your goodness, and i'm feeling it. i'll be honest, when i heard i had to give you up for my luc {totally worth it, btw}, i thought to myself 'this will be easy! i hate milk.' which is true, i do hate to drink plain old milk {ick}

what i failed to realize at that moment is how much i love ice cream. and cheese. and cheesecake. and cream cheese. and sour cream. and chocolate milk. and chocolate. and ICE CREAM. some days of mothering just require a big bowl of ice cream after the baby is in bed, you know? there's no great substitute for chocolate ice cream, fyi. none. the real stuff is the only good stuff.

it's just that, while a glass of milk is completely gross, all the things with milk in them are completely delicious! they're the best of all treats/meals/desserts! what's the best treat? chocolate! best italian food? pizza! {or fettacini alfredo if you're more of a pasta person} best dish at el jalepeno? the bean burrito smothered in their special queso sauce! best dessert? ICE CREAM OF COURSE!

the pediatrician said i can try to reintroduce dairy into my diet when luc is six months old, and i am simultaneously counting down the days and praying his little tummy can handle it. boy oh boy am i excited! i've started a list of all the things i want to eat when dairy and i are reunited again:

CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM
cheesecake factory cheesecake
a giant chocolate frosty
mint chocolate chip ice cream
baked potato with sour cream
everything bagel with cream cheese
a DQ dipped cone
angelo's pizza, extra cheese
ranch dressing on anything and everything
chocolate ice cream
a CHEESEburger
chocolate milk
king size symphony chocolate bar

i'm sure that by the time december 20th rolls around, i'll have added quite a bit more to my list, but for now, these are the things i dream about at night.

especially the frosty. chocolate frosties haunt my dreams.

if you can, savor a bowl of ice cream tonight and think of me. with a little luck and an answer to my prayers, i am only weeks away from enjoying some {an entire carton, probably} myself!

taking that trip you've been dreaming about; a DIY

{the travel guides we picked up last night}

items needed:
desired destination
travel buddy
savings account
pinch of determination

instructions:
1. go to your local barnes & noble or borders and pick out the perfect travel guide for your desired destination. preferably one with really great color pictures of the sights and food and a big fold-out map.

2. spend the evening pouring over said travel guide with your travel buddy, oohing and aahing over all the wonderful things in its pages.

3. determine how much a vacation to your destination will cost- just ballpark it and round up a teeny bit {just in case your train tickets from paris to barcelona happen to cost as arm and a leg more than you thought they would}

4. look at your monthly budget- is there anything to spare? any costs you can cut? how much can you put aside for your vacation?
{instruction pause} now- this is the tricky part. a lot of people get here and end up quitting because it really just seems so impossible to save up for a trip when you're poor and your husband is in school and the economy is bad and you just had a baby and your three children are expensive... but i'm telling you- i'm promising you! -that it's not as hard as you think. example: orlando and i took a trip to paris in 2009. we found roundtrip plane tickets for $650 each. that's it! $650! then our hotel in paris for 8 days was $600 and we had a budget of $30 a day for food (easy- all the pastries and crepes you can eat for $8!) which comes out to $240. then we had a little spending money- totaling $2400 TOTAL for an 8 day gorgeous vacation in paris, france. and paris is one of the most expensive places on earth! think of how much less it would cost to go to cancun or hawaii! in fact, just a month ago, i was surfing for good travel deals {always have my eyes open for something awesme!} and i found a deal for 2 roundtrip place tickets and 4 nights at a 4 star hotel on waikiki beach for $800 TOTAL. umm hello, you can save $800!
{back to instructions} ok so, how much did you decide to put aside? $30? great, then commit to putting $30 in a savings account every month- and don't touch it. that's for your trip only! in one year, you'll have about $360- not enough yet, but it's a solid start. get tax returns? a bonus at work? christmas money? put that there too and you'll be surprised how fast it grows and grows.

5. okay, so now that you've determined how much you can save a month, you actually have to buckle down and save it. which is hard, especially when a trip seems so far away and dinner at pf changs sounds oh so good tonight. this is where that travel guide you bought comes in handy. don't put it away after you poured over it that first night. leave it out in a really annoying place- like smack dab in the center of your kitchen counter or table. somewhere you'll look at it daily. and at first you're going to be annoyed with it's constant lurking... but after awhile you're going to glance at it everytime the eating out bug bites, everytime you really want to go shopping. and you're going to ask yourself- do i want that new shirt or do i want to go to the bahamas? and then it gets easy to save!

6. let bake for appointed number of months- however long it takes you to save. but don't let it take too long or your determination will get too crispy. you should have a definite end goal- like by next christmas we want to be able to take our trip to london. that gives you almost two years to save up, but isn't too long for you to lose your drive.

7. as the deadline draws close and your savings account looks better and better with each passing month, you can start planning the details. break out that travel guide! shop around for plane tickets for several months to get the best deal. plan day excursions, tours, place to eat, and shop for a hotel/apartment to rent. map out each day and make sure you do everything you've always wanted to do- there's nothing worse than finally taking that trip to london and coming home and wishing you had made time to take a boat down the thames. who knows when you'll go back? so make time for what's most important to you and your travel buddy.

8. finally, after all your hard work and months of sacrificing, sit back, close your eyes, and enjoy that plane ride to wherever you're finally going that you've always wanted to visit. feel that joy, that accomplishment, savor it. it will be so worth all you had to give up, i promise. and as soon as you get home, you're going to want to do it all over again.

kara & stacy, bffs

i just got off the phone with my best friend kara. that girl is the macaroni to my cheese.

she is amazing and i absolutely love her. we have been best friends for ten lovely years now and more then once, she has saved me. from pain, from mistakes, from myself, she's rescued me from it all. few things in my life have been as constant, as knowing and loving as she.

we were roommates for four years at byu before she left on her mission and i got married. sometimes i wish i could go back to cornerstone 22, just for a day, and be roomies again. to come home from class and wait impatiently for her to get off of work at jamba juice so we could sit in our living room and watch condo row come and go. and then order pizza and laugh while she and stace play with their pepperoni and we take pictures of our best 'nacho libre' faces. and at night talk her to sleep, cause she almost never made it through a conversation awake once she'd climbed under the covers. i miss it. looking back, i'm really grateful we had so many years before we moved on. now they mean the world to me, all those late nights spent going on 'midnight adventures' or staying up way too late laughing ourselves sore over michaelangelo and such.

all those late nights wouldn't have been the same if we didn't have stacy. that girl is the life of the party. she is hilarious and incerdibly inventive- i've never met anyone who wrote roommate notes like she did- you'd laugh for an hour over the fabulous note she left on the fridge. and then she'd come home and together you'd laugh about it all over again. she is also amazingly kind. when kara left on her mission, she was my rock. she loved me and made me laugh and cheered me up, and it has meant the world to me since. oh how i love her! sometimes, i wish i could go back to her morning bustling and her striped pajama pants. back to hearing a vibrant rendention of a broadway musical coming from the shower and blasting michael buble in the car. she is a treasure, that one.

how i miss them.

i was thinking about this tonight, and then i read this on c.jane's blog; 'I know that now I believe we are all part of one another. That's it's not that we will meet again, but that we have already met before' and i felt so full. full of love for them, full of missing them, full of the knowledge that i have that we have always been best friends- before this life and beyond.

i am crossing my fingers that we live near each other again someday so we can hold each other's babies and make each other laugh when there's tomato sauce on the carpet, but even if we don't, we will always have cornerstone 22. and forever. which is great by me.

love you girls.

our top 12 places to travel to

Hubs and I are big dreamers. And we love love love to travel. So often we like to dream about all the places we are going to travel to someday. We crossed Paris and Barcelona (BEST TRIP EVER!!) off our list last year and this year we plan on doing the Yucatan Peninsula (Cancun, Chichen Itza, etc.). Ahhh I love it! I've had the i-just-want-to-travel-all-my-life bug pretty bad ever since I can remember and I'm glad Orlando caught it too :) Recently we determined what our top 12 places to travel to are- and though the list of places we want to go to is a lot longer, I think we will both be happy if we at least get to see all of these. (Why 12 and not 10, you ask? Because we just couldn't narrow it down any more) I'm putting them here so we won't forget... (these are in no particular order-we will get to them as we can)

1. Hawaii- my pick. This may seem like a silly one because lots of you have been to Hawaii and it doesn't sound like a particularly exotic or different place to put it our the top 12. But I have never been here and it sounds/looks absolutely gorgeous. So I picked it and its staying on the list. Plus compared to all our other places, this one is probably the most affordable, so it'll be perfect for one of these upcoming poor years :)

2. African Safari- his pick. Orlando has always wanted to go on one of these and I think it will be awesome to go drive all over this beautiful continent. Plus it will be so cool to see lions, elephants and lots of other animals in the wild, living free. Can I get a 'hello Mufasa'?! :)

3. Thailand- my pick. Kara and I almost went on a study abroad to Thailand in college and ever since then, I have not been able to get the beautiful landscapes, buildings, and people out of my head. I definitely still want to go here! This also happens to be our only place in Asia that we both really want to see...

4. Egypt- his pick. Orlando has always dreamed of visiting the Pyramids at Giza, and I would love love love to go check out all the art and history I learned about in all my classes. It's one of the oldest civiliztions on the planet! How cool is that?!

5. Morocco- my pick. I'm not sure why, but I have always wanted to go to Morocco. It seems like such a romantic place- exotic fabrics and spice filled air, bazars and souks (shops), Middle Eastern architecture, all nestled next to the Mediterranean Sea. Mmmmmm, yes please :)

6. Greece- his pick. Ancient Greek ruins, beautiful beaches and white villaged-cliffs- what more could you ask for? Greece sounds absolutely stunning visually and I know its really amazing historically (hello Greek Empire, hello Achilles) so its a must-see for us!

7. Jerusalem- my pick. I can't describe how much my heart longs to see this place. It's more than just a cool place to see to me... it's where my Savior walked, taught, lived and died. I can't wait to walk these streets in person.

8. Mach Picchu- his pick. Orlando studied Latin American Studies in college and has always wanted to see this wonder of the world. I am terrified to actually climb this mountain, but I think it will be worth it when I see this view:

9. Nice- my pick. I really loved my short 4 days in Nice and the French Riviera and I've always wanted to go back and do a lot more exploring. It's just so beautiful here! The Mediterranean Sea is warm and the breezes smell divine- I love it. I know Orlando will love it too.

10. Yucatan Peninsula- his pick. Being from Mexico, this is an important part of Orlando's heritage and the history of his people. This will be the perfect winter vacation- sunshine, ruins and beautiful white sand beaches :)

11. Italy- our pick. We both really really want to do an entire tour of Italy, whether is one big trip or split up in smaller chunks... I cannot even describe to you haw wonderful Italy is! I can't wait for hubs to experience it too. Gelato, pizza, art, ruins-, it's got it all! Oh Italy how I love you!

12. Southern Spain- our pick. We both can't wait to go see the southern half of Sapin. Our little taste of this gorgeous country (Barcelona) got us hooked! I want to go for the Moorish architecture, art, and history, and Orlando wants to go for the Iberian history and the bullfights :)

That's all folks! I'm excited to cross these off with my sweetheart over the next 50 or so years :)