one final festivity...

holy smokes. so one more thing. dave suprised me last week since i was out of town for my birthday by taking me to vegas for the cirque du soleil show "O." OH. MY. AMAZING! it was incredible. it's a water show and has a stage that comes up and down out of the water so one minute someone is diving in from incredible heights, and the next, someone is running across stage covered in fire. if you've never heard of or seen a cirque, i highly recommend it. this one may have spoiled me though. definitely the best i have seen. i had been dying to see it and now i know why. i love the cirque and this was such a great way to celebrate. all dave told me was that we were going "north-east." i had no idea what he meant. i kept thinking we were going to victorville or something "fun" like that. haha. so we drove up in the morning, hung out in vegas for a few,

saw the show,

ATE CAFE RIO. (oh man...funniest story. cafe rio in vegas closes at 10. we got there at 10. dave runs to the door and it is locked, but out walks a family. being the polite gentleman that he is, he holds the door for all of them and then walks inside. he was so embarrassed...but so proud that he was able to get me cafe rio.) and then drove home. it was a blast. i just loved that dave knew exactly what i needed for my birthday this year. 8 hours in the car with just him. :) for reals! we had such a great time. i love spending time with him. with school and all the other craziness, sometimes i feel like we hardly see eachother, so it was such a great adventure. at the end of it all he just looked at me and said "yeah, don't think i'll ever be able to top this." and i totally agreed. haha. i just love and adore him more than i ever thought possible and am SO grateful for the adventures we have together.

the rest

so last week was my birthday and dave spent forever researching and making homemade sprinkles cupcakes. apparently the owner of the cupcake place went on martha stewart and gave 2 of her recipes out. peanut butter chocolate chip and strawberry. he spent all night the night before making them and when i walked in the door was SO excited to show me. they were DELICIOUS!!!

Then, on my birthday, i took off with erin to meet up with the choplettes up in san jose. what a great weekend of time with some incredible girls. we went to the california academy of science, walked across the golden gate bridge, and ate chowder at pier 39. so refreshing to spend time with these girls who have been such an important part of my life. it was a short weekend and was super sad to be away from dave, but he and i are going to celebrate my birthday this weekend.

here are some pictures from the weekend.

i kNow, i kNow...

so much has been going on lately! my goodness. i have so many pictues, so i apologize in advance for how long this post is going to be...

one night while dave was on pager, jordy and i got to go see cats at a local theater here. not gonna lie, super strange play, but fun to spend time with the jordster. we figured out what was going on during the play by reading the synopsis on my phone during it. we did love the music and the dancing though. funny to see people wiggle their bodies like cats. jordann had a good time trying to act like them. the outdoor theatre here has grass seating so we sat up in the back and had a subway picnic.

October 1 was dave's 30TH BIRTHDAY!!!! i begged him to take the day off so we could have a fun day of suprises i made him cinnaman roll cupcakes (his favorite) and we went to disneyland. then i took him to a pirate dinner show and we had so much fun.
probably the best ride at CA adventure!!! Then the next day we had a party with the families. dave requested a 3 layer cake (3 layers in the shape of a 0...haha) with the middle layer chocolate chip and the frosting fluffy. easy order, huh? but super fun to be creative. and it turned out good. well...good tasting. on the drive from our house to his parents, it started looking like a dr seuss cake. then a few days later, i went to the wild animal park with ammer. we can't believe we have been friends for more than 15 years! it was such a great day!yes, we made the other kids wait so we could take a picture. haha. a little 10 year old girl even offered to take the picture for us.

The next day, i tried a new bread recipe that an older lady that works in the temple gave me. it was SO good and she taught me how to braid it like a pro. just for fun, here's a picture of the dough, pre rise and pre bake. just cuz it's pretty.

and since there was a request to see our tile, here are a few pictures of that (i had the camera out at home... disregard the lack of baseboards, that's another project. :) ) Didn't dave do SUCH a great job!!!?

For dave's birthday, i had wanted to take him to a super good shaved ice place i discovered in San Diego. But since it was south instead of north, we went a week late. it is a fantastic hole-in-the-wall Hawaiian food restaurant and the shaved ice was almost as good as Shimazu in Hawaii... made us want to go back for another visit...Then we went up to visit with Elida for her 91st birthday! she joined in on the singing and we had a good time with family... and since i'm sick of dragging pictures down the post, i'm gonna do another post with the rest.