California here we come!

So several exciting things have happened around here. The most important are: 1) We got a new camera. We been saving up and I finally bought a new camera while I was in Utah, but I still haven't really learned how to use it so we used both cameras this week. I bet you can tell which pictures we took with the old camera.

2) We decided to celebrate Larry's birthday with a trip to Southern California. We decided not to spend much on birthdays this year so we could buy our camera, but we found $10.00 tickets to Burbank on Skybus and that fit the budget. Yes, I'm totally serious; we flew from Ohio to Southern California for $10.00 each!!!!!

We flew out Monday morning and spent most of Monday around LA. We started off by visiting the house Larry lived in until her was 12.

Next stop, Tito's Tacos. When we first got married, I didn't really understand the joys of tacos from this hole in the wall, but with Larry tutoring me, I've really come to appreciate it. As you can tell, Larry was pretty excited.It's been several years since either of us had seen the Walk Of Fame so we headed to Hollywood next. Here are Larry and Creed at Grauman's Chinese Theater. We had to look for some of our favorite stars. I found Doris Day.Larry found Johnny DeppAnd Creed found Jimmy Stewart (he appreciates the classics). Here he is trying to explain to Larry the many merits of Jimmy Stewart.And here's Larry trying to teach Creed some of Fred Astaire's moves.And last, but certainly not least, we drove down to Irvine just in time to catch a book signing with one of my favorite author/illustrators, MO WILLEMS!!!!!!! I think I'll blog about that on the childlitbookclub blog soon, but here's a picture of Creed in awe of Mo (as he should be!)
Then we made it home in time to greet Grandma from work and pick up some Carls Jr. Pretty perfect day one, huh? More vacation details to come . . .

Something's Brewing

Have you seen the Martha Stewart Halloween items at Michaels yet? They are so cool. I wanted to buy them all! Like these creepy Halloween party invitations that say, "Don't Forget!" and have a plaster finger with a black bow tied around it. And the big silhouette window clings like this.

And the best part is that you can now use Michael's 40% off coupons on their Martha Stewart products!

Weekend fun

I love weekends that Larry doesn't work! Friday night we were in charge of a ward BBQ. Larry had never grilled before and he had three grills going with hamburgers and hot dogs so he gained some grilling experience fast!

Today was our friend Jessica's birthday and they invited us over for dinner so we did our best to provide some birthday cheer since it's been an awful weekend for Donny and Jessica. They are incredibly thoughtful friends who do so much for us so we wanted to something special for Jess. I designed a new banner and some tags for her Etsy shop, and I'm so happy with the way they turned out.

I'm trying to finish a design draft for the company my mom works for, but I'm having total design block there. It was nice to take a break and work on something so simple and fun.

We also picked up several pints of Jeni's ice cream since they needed some good comfort food and who can resist Jeni's? Larry picked the flavors: Frostop Rootbeer, Peach sorbet, Passionfruit Sorbet, Apple cider five-spice, and bananas with honey. Donny and Jessica already had a pie from Just Pies so it was a night full of my favorite local desserts! They also had an awesome early birthday gift for Larry. Check it out!

An OSU potato head!!!!!!! I didn't even know they made those.

The evening ended early enough for us to make it over to David and Nikki's to catch the end of their outdoor movie night. They were screening the original Willy Wonka (one of Larry's favorite movies of all time). I couldn't get a good picture because I didn't want to use my flash and disturb the other viewers, but Creed was in awe of the big screen.

So now we can add another way that Creed is like Larry: 1) He hates it when anyone touches his nose 2) He thinks peas are disgusting 3) He's in love with Willy Wonka. SCARY!

The Fords go to Los Angeles

So Larry and I are trying to plan our trip to Southern California, and we know we'll be up in the LA area for a day. Any suggestions for things to do there? We were looking online and came across this fantastic museum that gave me the willies. I'm thinking we're going to leave that off of the list.

Sitting Pretty

Well, we've been back in Ohio for a week and we've had a good time just hanging out together.

Wednesday, Creed and I got together with Reba and her girls and I'm so sad that a forgot to bring my camera because there's so much I wanted to share. The Pink Moon Cupcake Bakery recently opened in Powell and you know how I love cupcakes so we had to go check it out. The cupcakes were yummy so I decided to bring some home to the Zozes and Larry. Look how fun the takeout containers are! And as long as we were in cute downtown Powell, we had to stop by my favorite shop there, Bloomsbury Loft. Every time I stop there the store is totally different. I love stopping by to see the latest. We also stopped at the Spray park. The fountains are much too big for Creed, but he still had fun dipping his toes in the puddles.

And speaking of Creed, here's how he sat this morning, using his hands to prop himself up.

And here he is this evening. Look no hands!

Utah Highlights

Ok, I don't want to sound like I hate Utah; I LOVE it, it's just not quite home anymore. This trip actually reminded me that I have a lot of fun things to look forward to in Utah. I spent a whole day shopping with my mom and Candice and drooled over some amazing Halloween decorations. Who doesn't love Ikea, Gardener Village, and Dear Lizzie? Here's Creed in a cute shop in Gardener Village (sorry for the poor picture)

And speaking of Halloween decorations, my mom started decorating or Halloween since Candice's kids are really excited about Halloween and she is going all out this year. She only had the decorations that she bought this year up and it was incredible, but of course I forgot to take any pictures. Any chance you'll send me some mom? I do have pictures (that I did not take) of the two decorations that she bought me for my birthday so you can see what impeccable taste she has. I heart Lori C. Mitchell Halloween figures. Isn't she cute?

I also managed to make it to the BYU Bookstore with Mary Ann. What is it about the BYU Bookstore that I love so much? I went to pick up a BYU shirt for Creed (since once we move to the University of Utah he won't have many chances to wear BYU gear) but it's my favorite place to pick up cheap shoes that not everyone has (we're talking Payless prices here). I could have bought six pairs easily, but I limited myself to two.

I also got to eat at some of my places like Cafe Rio, Magelby's Fresh, and J Dawgs. And of course my parents beautiful back yard.

Creed and I were able to go to two of Grant's flag football games (Who knew there are first grade flag football teams?). They were awful, but that was one of the cutest things that I've ever seen. Here's Grant accidentally getting tackled.

And Creed and Cole on the sidelines.

Cole adores Creed and every time I turned around there was Cole watching Creed, eager for any chance to give him his binky or pat his fuzzy head.

The thing I looked forward to the most was Candice taking new portraits of Creed. I'm seriously so lucky to have her for my sister. Here's one of the pictures that we ended up with, which Candice posted on her blog. I can't wait to get the rest because believe it or not, there are a few I love even more than this one.
I really thing there are quirky fun things to do in every town, you just have to discover them so I'll just have to explore a lot when I get to Utah. For example, few people know about it, but I love Startup Candy Company. When I lived in Utah during elementary school, we had ballet lessons in downtown Provo and sometimes my mom would let us walk across the street to Startups Candy shop to pick out a sucker. They are big, old fashioned suckers on wooden sticks and they have the most amazing flavors. My mom used to sell them in her quilt shop too. The store has closed, but the factory still operates not far from there and you can still visit it to pick up your favorite flavor of suckers (it's the only place that always has all of them in stock) or you can buy cheap lolliflops that didn't turn out perfectly. They have odd hours (Mon - Thurs from noon to two). If it hadn't been for Larry's stepgrandma, I never even would have known about it and I love going there. They sell the same suckers at Sundance, and speaking of Sundance, we stopped there when were were up the canyon for Creed's photo shoot and did you know that this summer they have moonlit skilift rides during full moons? Wouldn't that be so romantic and fun (and cold, but that's a good excuse to cuddle up). None of my friends in town had even heard about these things and it makes me wonder what I might be missing around my own town. We only have one year left and we've already made a list of the things we still want to do here and we're working on crossing them out!

Creed goes to Utah

Creed met a lot of my favorite people while the two of us were in Utah, and while I neglected to take many pictures of the things we did, I did take a pictures of some of the people he met. So here they are in the order that I took them.

First, Mary Ann, my best friend since elementary school before we lived in Hawaii, and her adorable baby Malan. Malan is only two months older than Creed and these two really seemed to have fun together (although he was a little jealous of all that hair!) Keri & Jack were staying with Grandpa Ford (Creed's Great Grandpa Ford) and we visited everyday. Jack and Creed were endless entertainment to Grandpa Ford.

We had a Borup family get together on Sunday, but I didn't get a picture of the whole group. Here are my dad, Grandma, and Uncle Cory. Isn't she the cutest grandma ever? I would love to be as cool as she is one day.

And here is Grandpa Borup

Larry's mom's family, the Lewises, also got together on Sunday so they could all meet Jack and Creed and I didn't take a single picture!!!! I guess I was just to busy having fun and trying to figure out who all the cousins were without Larry's help. Larry's brother Scott couldn't make it, but Creed had a chance to meet him the next day. Thanks for coming so far to visit us Scott!

And Creed also got to meet one of my best friends from high school, Melinda, and her beautiful girls Laura and Sara.

And Last, but not least, three of my roommates from my freshman year of college, Em, Dayna, and Nikki. It's been way too long since I've seen them. So I have to admit that I was not as thrilled as Larry at the match for fellowship in Utah. This is our seventh year in Ohio, and the longest that I've ever lived anywhere so Ohio really feels like home. There was one night that I went on a walk with Creed and cried at the thought of moving there, but looking back at these pictures, I know it will be nice to be so near so many of our family and friends. I guess the rest of you will just have to move there!

Creed at Five Months

I'm posting these really late, but here are Creed's five month pictures. I can't believe how big this kid is getting. He's cuddly and chubby and cute. And awake right now even though he shouldn't be so I better go.

Keri & Jack

I'm a little behind in blogging. We had a great time with Keri and Jack, but I was suffering from camera frustration so I didn't take many photos. Keri has some great shots, but this is all I have from my camera for now.

Saturday we spent the day at the zoo. Creed enjoyed the hoards of kids more than the zoo, but he did take notice of a few animals. We wore him out so here he is sleeping with a sleeping manatee in the background.

Then we spent the evening at gallery hop. It was cool to see the arches changing colors. Sunday was spent at church and Inniswood checking out the bug sculptures with Jack. Then Monday we spent the day in Amish country. We ate lots of cheese, shopped, and saw lots of animals at Rolling Ridge Ranch. Here are Creed and Larry with a calf.

And Keri and Jack watching animals from the car.

Creed loved the emus, but Larry thinks they're terrifying so he said this picture made his heart stop when he saw it.

I think Larry's favorite part of the day was discovering an OSU gnome that he HAD to take home. You know how I feel about gnomes so let it be noted here that he ha agreed to keep thi in the backyard out of general view.

It's been so nice seeing these two cousins together. The best part was that Creed and I didn't have to say goodbye because two hours after Keri & Jack left for Utah, Creed and I headed out to Utah too. We miss Larry, but we're keeping busy. More about that soon.