am i in heaven?

...nope, just sprinkles. which is my idea of heaven.

my mom and i drove up to orange county to go to roger's gardens (an awesome garden/gift store) and look at their christmas stuff and their gardens. -by the way, if anyone is wondering what to get for me for christmas i found it there! it's a chandelier and it only costs $2,700. that's just pocket change!!!

anyways, after roger's gardens we went over to sprinkles which is this awesome cupcake store in los angeles and orange county. (it was on oprah -- ooh la la!) i pulled out my camera and took a picture, while the girl behind the counter told me that there is no photography allowed in the store -- oops!

look at all the pretty little cakes!!!












yum!

we ordered a lemon one and a pumpkin one so that we could share them.







now brynn, i know what you are going to say. i put the milk in the photo specifically so that you wouldn't say that they look like boobs!!!


















the cupcakes are totally awesome.













mom loves the lemon one!!!

















we ate both of the cupcakes...







but we don't like the dots on top that they import from france - yuck.



















we decided to go buy some more to "take home to our husbands."







dad looks so happy!











and i am happy because vinny doesn't really like them - more for me!

mindi is my hero!!!

mindi durst is my hero!!!

thanks for figuring out my picture problem!

love you...

pics from the post of vinny's car trouble

am i alone here?

am i the only one who can't get photos to load onto blogger.com? it's making me so crazy!!!

hasn't this happened before?

Saturday I (Vinny) was out and about appraising and, as usual I found myself on a very unfriendly dirt road. I went to back up and there was this little rock I didn't see that hit my undercarriage. The rock, like the iceberg from Titanic, was much larger underneath and as I went over it the tiny piece that hit my front axle enabled my car to push the whole rock out from the ground, revealing a much larger menace which did some damage. My car became high- centered and I was stranded in a dead-cell-phone-area on the outskirts of the Cleveland National Forest (which is no where near Cleveland, by the way). Luckily these burly 3 men where nearby and although they didn't understand English they certainly understood my situation. They saved my bacon! I refer to them as my 3 amigos. They didn't want their picture taken. They didn't understand the word "blog" either. Oh well, I snapped one anyway and caught 2 of them on camera! Gracias amigos!

sorry - the picture thing on blogger isn't working, so stay tuned for the photos.

a proud sister

so i just got a call from my little brother Alex, who is a political science major at byu. he is an awesome guy. first of all, he is tall and handsome, served an awesome mission in harrisburg, pa, and he's super good in school. he's at byu on scholarship. i can brag about him since he's my brother. his gpa is off the charts amazing and he's hoping to attend harvard to get his law degree and mba all at the same time. anyways, he just called to tell us that he got accepted to the internship program he applied for. only 22 students are accepted all together. he is going to washington d.c. for the entire summer, but he doesn't yet know who he'll be interning for. isn't he amazing? we sure think so!!! stay tuned for some pictures of alex - i'm having trouble with my photos right now!

a sign from above?

vinny was in the car today, full of road rage at the slow moving traffic. then he noticed this license plate in front of him.

hmmm...

cravings...

this is how i feel about chocolate cake today!

quick fire update

there are still a number of fires in southern california, but the one in fallbrook is either out or contained. the evacuation order on all of fallbrook has been lifted and everyone is allowed back in. the entire trailer park on reche rd, (near the spackman's house) burned down. also, sad to say, spencer hampton lost his house, too. our prayers are with all those who lost their homes. and we are so thankful for the fire fighters for working so hard to save so many homes. they are true heroes.

a moment of dancing in honor of scott's b-day!

happy birthday to an awesome brother! welcome to your thirties! we love you!!!

six months of waiting...

as all of you know vinny and i are trying to adopt a little girl from china. we put our application in with our agency well over a year and a half ago. this is an extremely slow process. today is the six month anniversary of having our dossier (all of our official paperwork) logged in at the chinese adoption headquarters in china. it's a big day for us! when we started this process we were told to expect to wait from our dossier being logged in and our referral date (the date you get to see a picture of your baby) about one year. now that estimation has reached TWO YEARS and could still possibly climb higher. but we know that all things are in Heavenly Father's time frame and we are ok with the wait. it's just more time to buy frilly dresses and dream about how we are going to decorate the nursery! seriously, we can't wait to go to china and hold our sweet baby in our arms, but the past six months have gone by faster than we expected. thanks to all of you and your support during this wait - we love you all!

no soup for you!!!

let's boogie!

here's a little something to make you laugh...

update on fallbrook

ok. so, late last night we heard that certain neighborhoods in fallbrook were being let back in. my parents made some phone calls and learned that their neighborhood is one of them. they packed up this morning and headed home to see that ALL IS WELL! my mom even said that the air quality isn't too bad. there are definitely areas that still aren't allowed back in, like east of Gird Rd, but the fire is gradually being contained. our thoughts and prayers are with all of those who are displaced and especially with those who have lost their homes. we have heard that at least 200+ homes were lost in fallbrook. we have heard rumors of people we know losing their homes, but i won't post this until we know for sure. i'll update again when i learn anything new.

fires in fallbrook

just a quick note for those wondering about my family in fallbrook. there are two fires raging there, and the ENTIRE town of fallbrook has been evacuated. my parents and their dog are staying at our house. my cousin brett went into fallbrook very early this morning and my parents house is safe, as is my aunt and uncle's. my dad left a little while ago to go check out the house, but every road leading into fallbrook in barricaded. craziness. i'll update again later if anything changes.

Car Splash Fuzzy Memories Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey

incognito

today vinny and i went grocery shopping. it's time to make some soup!

i know i don't look happy in this picuture, but i am. i just don't like how my smile looks.

love you all! come on over for hot soup!

Monty Python - Dead Parrot

Apple Pie in the sky

Yesterday Vinny and i went to Julian with my mom and dad. we all piled into the mighty avalon, where dad tried to kill us a number of times on the winding roads.

(The avalon is the middle car - dad did an awesome job of parrallel parking!)

The weather was cool and fresh. and so were the apples! for those of you who don't know, julian is a sleepy little mountain town where we go in the fall to pick apples and eat and eat and eat apple pie. preferably with cheese on top. want a taste?

sorry, we ate it all! there is also a shop with tons of kinds of yummy stuff: from candy to nuts to chocolate to apple cider to candy apples.

these are vinny's favorite apples - covered in sugar!

vinny kept looking for the tree that grew these apples... but couldn't find it.

we also saw a sad homeless man. do you recognize him?

Wait, isn't that dad?

come to think of it, where's mom?

oh, there she is!

peekaboo, mom!

we had a super fun time in julian!

the monty python sketch is one of Vinny's favorites. enjoy!

middle of the night

i'm trying to sleep, but (obviously) cannot. so i decided to show you where we came up with our blog name - soul rebels. we love the band old crow medicine show (thanks bridget!) and i fell in love with their cover of bob marley's tune. it's awesome. and if vinny and i are anything, we are soul rebels.
Enjoy! i think i accidentally did the slide show as a seperate entry. i'll get the whole blog thing soon, i promise!