2009 In Review: February

February was kind of a transitional month because Daniel had just gotten home at the very end of January and was getting used to life again. It was actually a really easy transition and I know that we were all very grateful for that. We were able to go on our very first family outing with Daniel and we decided to go out to Simi Valley to see the Reagan Library. I highly recommend it! You get to tour Air Force One and see Marine One and get to do a whole bunch of other cool stuff. Here are just a few pictures from our adventure:

He we are, minus Aaron (and Diane, of course), in front of the library. Aaron was standing on the far left of the picture and the stranger taking the picture for us cut him out. I suppose beggars can't be choosers. :(

Here's our sweet Aaron pie! Proof he was there! He had a tiny scratch on his forehead and insisted on wearing that lovely colorful Band-Aid. haha! I just love him!

My cute parents with a statue of Ronald Reagan

A good one of Daniel and Nancy

Me hiding on the American side of Checkpoint Charlie

Here's Nancy with a picture of her mom! She was in elementary school when Reagan was president and people used to call her Nancy Reagan and ask if Nancy Reagan was her mom...since they're both named Nancy, of course!

Some of the menfolk with a gi-normous picture of Reagan

The sexy Wheeler women! ; )

Here we are rocking it old school! When we were kids, we used to pack an ice chest and eat sandwiches, chips, sodas, and some of those generic sandwich cookies whenever we would go out on a family day trip. I didn't realize then that our little picnics would be such a fond childhood memory, but doing it after so many years was awesome!

More of our magic picnic!

The park we stopped at happened to have a duck pond, so we got to use some of our extra bread and give the birds a little snack! Yet another fond childhood memory!

2009 In Review: January

So, this has probably been THE craziest year of my entire life. My recap for 2008 consisted of a few pictures and very brief captions. Since this year has been so...ummmm..."eventful", I thought I'd take a little more time on it and do a post per month. Here we go!

In an earlier post, I talked about Daniel's mission homecoming, which was one of the best days ever! He came home at the end of January (scheduled to return January 23rd, but actually got home on the 24th), so that means that the earlier part of January was devoted to cleaning. I had been buying furniture and stuff for when I move out for a while and storing it, temporarily, in his room. Needless to say, it took quite a while to find new homes for all of my crap. : ) BUT when Daniel actually got home, it was well-worth all of the work!


Here's Wiss holding the sign that she and the boys made for Daniel (the boys call him Buddy!)


The boys are SOOO cute in their "Uncle Buddy Loves Me" shirts. Here they are just waiting for the plane to land.


Awwww! Getting in place for him to come!


There he is! Diane is on the left and Daniel on the right. It's pretty cool that they were on the flight together...eventhough all of us at home were super jealous! : )


Hugging my baby brother for the first time after not seeing him for 2 years! Words cannot describe! I actually cried when I hugged him eventhough I'm not really a crier when it comes to things like this.


A few days after Daniel came home, we went to Disneyland. Daniel went with Melissa and the boys early in the morning and then Nancy, David, and I joined them as we got off of work. Before we all got there, people kept telling Daniel and Wiss how cute their kids were! Haha! Awkward! lol


Daniel and Nancy


Daniel and David


Daniel and me

Whad'ya Know! I'm 25!

Sooo...on September 28th, I turned 25! This one was seriously on of the best birthdays I've ever had. I always get really nervous when my birthday is near because I had a string of 5 or 6 birthdays on which really crappy things happened. These days, I just hope for a birthday without disaster and don't really expect anything great...I know...slightly pessimistic and kinda sad, right? This birthday, I enjoyed a day with NO disasters and instead had a great day (or couple of days) with family and friends. It was great! On my actual birthday, Jake invited some people to dinner at BJ's. There were about 15 of us and it was fun and no fuss! Perfect!











The next day (Tuesday), we did a family thing. All of my siblings, except Diane, were able to come. Jacob and his 2 little boys came too. We had dinner and did the birthday cake thing and just hung out for a bit. Then, we all decided to go to a park that Daniel had found on one of his runs. It is Fontana Park; you should seriously check it out! It has a ship to play on and a tower, lots of little bug toys to climb on, etc. We now call it the "Alice in Wonderland Park" because the caterpillars, snails, ladybugs, etc. are painted in really bright colors...kinda psychadelic and very cool! We all played there, grown-ups and kids alike, for quite awhile and it was lots of fun!

My Trip to Ireland

Too Good To Be True?

I woke up this morning to find this clip from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on my AOL welcome screen. I thought it was absolutely amazing (as per my minor/not so minor obssession with all things Saved By The Bell)! A Saved By The Bell reunion would pretty much be the best thing that could happen at this point! lol So, without further adieu (you must be reeling with anticipation) I present to you, this clip, which has absolutely nothing to do with me! : ) Perhaps it will turn your frown upside down like it did mine! Enjoy!