Our life in Hollywood

We're in California. Please don't rob my house. Devan is carpeting the visitor's center of the Los Angeles Temple. We drove all day Sunday and he's been working since Monday morning. He's been working really long days giving us plenty of time to play. Our hotel is right in the middle of Hollywood so we've been able to do some on-foot sightseeing. On Monday we bought a three museum pass and went to Ripley's Believe it or Not and the Guinness Book of World Records Museum.

Tuesday was the wax museum

Wednesday was the beach at Santa Monica

When we went to the beach last, I couldn't keep Hannah out of the water. This time she was afriad and wouldn't go in. I'm very disappointed since there's nothing I love more in this world than playing in the ocean.

Once we were a safe distance away from the ocean, she loved it.

Today we went to the California Science Center.

This is a hurricane simulator. The babies didn't like it at all, but when it was over, Hannah didn't want to get out,

Maggots in action

We've also been having a great time swimming in the hotel pool every day. We miss Devan, who has been leaving for work before we get up and getting home at 8 at night, but we're grateful that he works so hard for us.

Lets Go to the Movies!

Hannah got to go to her first movie! (That's kind of a lie because we did go to the drive-in a couple of times the summer she was born, and we took her sleeping to Harry Potter last summer, but this is the first time she understood she was going to a movie) We saw Iron Man 2 and How to Train Your Dragon. She fell asleep near the beginning of the dragon movie, but she seemed to like Iron Man. During every fight scene she'd crack up and say, "He fell down!"

And after reviewing the last three posts I realize that yes, all we do is eat.

Anniversary Lunch

The day after our anniversary, we went to lunch at the Rodizio Grill, the most amazing place in the world. It's a Brazilian steakhouse... all you can eat! And it's a fancy restaurant too. They have cloth napkins.

There's a salad bar, but we only chose a few things...

There's feijoada, which is like a black bean stew served over rice. Traditionally it's made using all parts of the pig, snout, feet, ears, etc. When it's made for Americans, they just put sausage and ham and normal parts of a pig in. For years my beans haven't been measuring up, so my goal this year is to learn to make fejoada, I just need to get a hold of a pig. Devan also has little mini French fries on his plate. He didn't know what the real name was, but he said they were all over the place in Brazil. They'd put them on hamburgers, or in beans and rice. So good!

The real reason you go to Rodizio is for the meat. They bring out big skewers of different kinds of meat and cut it right onto your plate. This is Fernando. He went to school with Devan last fall. He is bearing turkey wrapped in bacon.

The rolls are called pão de queijo. They're a cheesy roll. Devan says they have three different tastes, one when they're hot, another when they're cold, and another when they've been sitting for a few days and are starting to mold. We only got to experience them hot and cold because Rodizio doesn't let you take food home. Once before we were married Devan bought some pão de queijo from a Brazilian store and shared it with his family and me. He was sure to let us know that if we didn't like it we shouldn't eat them because they'd cost him $.50 a roll. He loads up on them when he goes to Rodizio Grill.

Chicken hearts

Yummy! They actually aren't my favorite, but how can you not?

My absolute favorite is the grilled pineapple. I ate 5 slabs of it.

Fried banana

We had such a lovely time and were so stuffed. We went home and immediately laid down for a nap. As full as I was, all I could think about while I was falling asleep was beans and rice and fried bananas.

Three Years

We celebrated our three year wedding anniversary this week. I was thinking over the last three anniversaries earlier today trying to find pictures of them. There aren't any pictures from the first year, but this is the one taken closest to our anniversary.

This was Mother's Day weekend 2008. Hannah was 4 weeks old. Look how tired we all are. I'm telling myself it was from the 850 mile drive to Washington that day, not the baby. (I'm starting to get nervous to do the newborn thing again.)  We were back in Utah the next week for our anniversary, but we stayed in with a lasagna that night.

May 19, 2009

On our second anniversary, Devan and I were sealed together for eternity in the Draper Temple and Hannah was sealed to us as well. Before this, I used to talk about how stressful our wedding day was. I looked back on it and could see all the happiness that had come because of that day, but the actual day wasn't a particularly fun memory. The day we were sealed was peaceful and perfect. It was the best day of my life.

And in keeping with the tradition, May 19, 2010... 

We decided we wanted to go to a restaurant called the Rodizio Grill for our anniversary (we went last year too, just the night before our actual anniversary.) It's an expensive restaurant and we'd save $16 by going for lunch instead of dinner, so we saved it for the next day when Devan didn't have work. Instead we took a drive and ended up at the Little Acorn, about an hour south of us. It's a cute little burger place and Devan used to go there as a kid when his family went on vacation. Also, I'm not positive, but I think it's where Devan and I went on our first date that was just the two of us. Anyways, there are some memories there.

It was nice for the three of us to spend the evening together. I love that every year when we celebrate our marriage and our family, Hannah has been around to share it with us. And on our fourth anniversary, we'll be a family of four!

Devan brought me 3 red roses in honor of 3 years and he brought one for Hannah too. What a good dad!

Hannah is becoming quite the little woman lately.

She's learned how to apply mascara...

And to vacuum...

Devan helped her, I'm sure, but he says she vacuumed almost her whole room by herself.

We haven't had a whole lot of adventures lately. We're hoping to take a couple of trips soon, but work and weather keep getting in the way, so we'll see.

Last weekend we ordered produce from Bountiful Baskets, which is a food buying co-op that services many states. Unfortunately, Washington isn't one of them. You pay $15 for a share of produce and they use the money however they can to get the most bang for your buck. For our $15 contribution, this is what we received (baby not included)...

(Bag of apples, head of lettuce, bunch of spinach, 6 tomatoes, head of green cauliflower, 4 green peppers, 7 corn on the cob, bunch of bananas, oranges, mangos, and a watermellon.) We've been eating like kings.

And another $7 for an Italian vegetable pack

I made the most amazing, completely from scratch eggplant parmesan and tonight I have a spinach lasagna planned with the squash, mushrooms, onions and fresh herbs. Of course I'll still have to use meat or I'll have a revolt on my hands, but I'm just so excited! 

In other exciting news, Devan has been able to get full time work the last 4 weeks, so we're finally doing okay financially. We've been able to pay off the debt we incurred from the 6 months he didn't work much and will hopefully be able to start saving a little because ... we're going to need to pay to deliver a baby in 8 to 12 weeks! I know that this is going to be the hardest part of the pregnancy, but it's going by so quickly and I'm so excited how close we're getting! And other than not sleeping at night I'm feeling incredible.

Hopefully next time I write I'll have stories to tell of an exotic vacation.

First Camping Trip of the Year

We had big plans this weekend to take a 4 day camping trip to Southern Utah. Then this happened...

...on April 29th. We'd already gotten Hannah all excited about going camping and we'd just purchased a new tent to accommodate our growing family/ bodies. So we decided to camp inside this weekend.

This new tent is a big one. We had to shove our couch and coffee table into the hall and then walk sideways around everything. This was especially hard since I'm just as wide sideways as normalways these days.

Thursday afternoon we napped in the tent and then had hotdogs for dinner and roasted marshmallows for dessert.

 

We ended our evening by turning off all the lights and playing cards in the tent with the lantern on.

We played camping all day Thursday and then Friday Devan went back to work and didn't get home until 9 at night. Hannah and I hid out in my bedroom all day because having the living room so crowded just stressed me out. We slept in the tent again Friday night, but Saturday morning no one got to eat until the tent was taken down and the couch was out of the hallway. We had a fun little "stay-cation", but I'm excited to go camping outside sometime soon.

On a separate subject, I've started going on long, long walks with some girls from church. Last Monday we went 9 miles and we all forgot to sunscreen our children. This was Hannah that night.

Luckily, even though her skin is so light she doesn't seem to get really bad sunburns. She didn't act like it bothered her and neither of us were red anymore after a couple of days. Today we did 6 miles, but I remembered the sunscreen.