September 2011

For my birthday in September, Jeff surprised me in the morning with breakfast in bed and a gift package that had a bunch of envelopes. As I opened the envelopes, each one had a little present with two items...such as movie tickets, a Cheesecake Factory gift card, a shopping gift card, etc...and the last envelope said..."and a friend to do it all with...", and inside the last envelope was a flight itinerary for my good friend Cassi, my freshman roommate from BYU. Jeff talked to her and flew her out from Utah to Fresno for my birthday!! It was such an awesome surprise! He took care of Jamisen and Cassi and I got to go out to eat and shop together. She brought her little girl Lenna who just turned one and stayed for a couple of days. We also made a quick trip to Monterey since Cassi had never been there and we wanted to show her the area... Here are the pics below...

While we were shopping we liked this brown leather jacket so we both bought it. This picture is to add to the collection because in the past we have bought the same things and matched without knowing it or planning it. One time we both showed up at a swim party with the same orange polka dot tankini from Target on. It was pretty hilarious

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Lone Cypress in Pebble Beach

Mission in Carmel, CA

Lenna and Jamisen at Dennis the Menace Park...future girlfriend/boyfriend

Fisherman's Wharf Monterey

These are my beautiful Laurels...I am the Laurel advisor at church and we kidnapped one of our girls for her birthday in the morning and went to breakfast at IHOP in our PJs! The majority of these girls are seniors and I am really going to miss them when they graduate

August 2011

Jeff had a chance to meet Mitt Romney when he came to Fresno. Since tickets to attend the breakfast were extremely expensive, only Jeff got to attend. :( I was so excited for Jeff to meet him because he really admires Mitt. Every night he watches Fox News and reads political articles analyzing the 2012 election. Although I would have also loved to meet him, I'm not quite the political buff that Jeff is. When Jeff met him he mentioned that he also served a mission in Paris, France (as Mitt did) and they were able to speak French to each other and compare mission notes. Pretty neat!

We are pretty excited about this next picture....our little pomegranate tree that we planted in the Spring produced it's first fruit of the season! Surprisingly it grew 5 pomegranates but a couple split open before they were fully grown and then birds got to some others, so by the time they reached ripeness we were left with one big, beautiful, juicy pomegranate! We revelled in every bite and I'm pretty sure it was the best pomegranate I've had.....but I may be a little biased! There is just something about eating the "fruits of your labors" that is so rewarding!

One of Jeff's work trips in Monterey happened to coincide with a big Car Show. One of the days Parker and Kayleigh drove over to see Monterey and we decided to go to Carmel. I saw so many Ferrari's, Lamborghini's, and then this little beauty....a Buggatti. At the time I actually didn't know what it was but I was walking along the street and saw a bunch of people stopping and taking pictures so I thought, that must be a really nice car so I'll take a picture and show Jeff. Later that night I showed Jeff and he told me that the Buggatti is the most expensive car in the world (1.6 million dollars!) and only about 50 people own them. If only I had known this at the time, I would have appreciated it more when I saw it in person! :)

2011 Recap - Schill Family Reunion Newport Beach (August 2011)

Every two years Jeff's family holds a Family Reunion in which one couple is in charge of planning the whole thing and gets to choose the destination. A few years back our names were drawn for Summer 2011 and we were the lucky ones to figure out a place for 42 people to stay! It didn't take us long to decide we wanted to show them Newport Beach. Jeff loves Newport (almost as much as I do) and wanted to show his family the area and I kept thinking how much easier it would be to plan in a spot I already knew so much about. After a ton of calls and sweet-talking, I was able to secure 3 beach houses about a block from the beach the week after the Jolley reunion. This worked out so perfectly because not only did we get to spend 2 glorious weeks in paradise, but we were able to borrow so many things from my family for Jeff's family to use since some were flying and couldn't bring a lot (like beach chairs, boogie boards, sheets, bath towles, fans, etc.) We had such a great week and were blessed with beautiful weather the whole time (it's always a gamble)! Needless to say, the Schill Reunion at Newport was a way different experience than the Jolley/Parker reunion at Newport. The Schill's are an active bunch so we had to plan a lot of activities to keep everyone busy. You name it, we did it. Our activities for the week included: sand castle building competition, basketball game, Minute to Win it competition in the park, BBQ in the park, riding bikes to Balboa Island for a Balboa bar, game night of classic Schill family games, Talent Show, white elephant gift exchange, roasting hot dogs and marshmellows on the beach, boogie boarding, and walks to the pier. I'm exhausted just recounting everything! As I said earlier, it was a fun week full of wonderful memories. Lucky for us Jeff has lots of siblings so we will have a sixteen year break before we have to plan another one! ;)

About half of the grandkids in front of the Newport Temple (the others were still arriving)

Funny story about this picture, we knew we wanted to get a family picture but trying to coordinate outfits with 42 people is pretty much impossible so we decided to go with the most basic item everyone owns....a white shirt and jeans (I know, pretty cliche). The night we were all dressed and ready to take the picture we all walked down to the beach in this massive group and it was hilarious to see people stare and wonder what was going on. I'm sure we were a sight to see!

Jamisen loves bananas, so when offered one dipped in chocolate and smothered in sprinkles there was no hesitation!

I don't think this boys hair could get any whiter!

This is our neice Erin. She is doing one of the Minute to Win it challenges where you have to roll an oreo down your face and land it in your mouth without any hands. She was a pro!

2011 Recap - Parker/Jolley Reunion

2011 Recap - July

Jamisen enjoying cooling off with the sprinkler in our backyard on a hot summer day in Fresno....

Little stinker kept spraying his cousin Kaitlyn and laughing...

In July we made the long drive from Fresno to Utah to celebrate the 4th of July and to visit family and friends. Jeff is always trying to keep the car clean and it is almost impossible on a road trip. Jamisen got into the Costco-size bag of goldfish and we heard a big ripping sound, and Jeff turned around and yelled "Nooooo...my car!!", as he turned around and saw this...a guilty face and piles of goldfish everywhere. After that you pretty much give up trying to keep things clean...

We stopped in Las Vegas and got Seredipity frozen hot chocolates on the Strip with Jeff's mission friend Brian and his wife Laurel who live there. We had fun catching up...

The best thing about coming back to Utah is catching up with all the amazing friends we had back there. It is even more fun now that we are all having kids. We had dinner at Wallaby's (Brisket and a side of Smashers...so good, we missed that place) with our friends Ben and Vanessa Rucker and their daughter Chole. As you can see Jamisen and Chole are getting pretty cozy...

Me and Cassi frolicking in the fields up and Sundance...so good to see Cassi and Luke and their little Lenna again... This picture took a couple takes to get it right...:)

So all of my roomates my freshman year at BYU have been really close over the years and most of them still live in Utah. So we decided to all to get together (minus Adele and Krystal...you were missed) for a little get-together BBQ at Rachel and Jonny's house. We took a little picture of all of our kids and it is still bizarre for me to think that we are all moms now to all these kids. As you can see Jamisen was loving it as he was surrounded by all these beautiful little girls. That's our little ladies man!

BYU Freshman roomies...

One of the highlights definitely was the famous Stadium of Fire! Definitely one of the best firework shows in the country and a perfect way to celebrate Independence day...

We also got to meet our future sister-in-law Kayleigh! She is the best and her and Parker are so cute together...aren't they. Here is a picture of one of our many late night Utah snow cone runs...

Stadium of Fire fireworks...

BBQ and Trampoline in Jeff's family's house backyard... Jamisen wanted to jump all day..

I absolutely love Utah during the 4th of July...perfect weather, everyone is so patriotic and there is so much to do. Here we are at the Freedom Festival Parade...