Oakland Temple

A few weekends ago, Brad and I volunteered to chaperone Youth Conference for a few hours. It was at the Inter-Stake Center, which is a large multi-use building on the temple grounds. During lunch we walked around for a bit and Brad took some pictures of the temple. It is so beautiful!

Iron Chef Walnut Creek

A couple weekends ago, Brad and I were having "one of those" Saturdays where we were feeling *blah* and NOTHING sounded fun to do. Nothing. Well, that was until we decided to have our own Iron Chef competition.

We gave ourselves a $20.00 price limit, walked to Trader Joes and picked out a 3-course meal full of food we wouldn't "normally" choose.

Checking out the goods

The "secret" ingredient? ....um....we skipped that rule

Only 30 minutes to prepare everything

There were some tense moments... "An artichoke? How do I cook an artichoke?"

But we quickly figured out what to do... and it was smooth sailing from there on!

30 minutes later, we had a delicious dinner of ricotta stuffed chicken, steamed artichokes, and tomato and basil bruschetta

Followed by a scrumptious fruit tart

Overall, a very successful, fun, and yummy (but mostly yummy) date!

Blessings of the Temple

Missionary work at Color me Mine... and other weekend activities

Saturday morning came pretty early, with me dragging Brad up a little before 8:00 so we could get to the grand opening of Color Me Mine in Lafayette.

Color Me Mine is a fun pottery store where you paint your own pottery (we always pick the oversized ice cream mugs). The store fires it in their kiln, and you get to take it home a few days later. There is one of these in Provo and Brad and I visited it a few times for a fun Friday night date. It was actually one of the very first dates that we went on! Needless to say, I was pretty excited when I heard they were opening one out here because our mug collection had only made it to two mugs when we left Provo! I was even more excited when I heard they were giving out gift certificates to the first 100 customers. What’s better than a fun date? A FREE fun date! I was all over that.

While standing in line waiting for the store to open (yes, it was full of parents and children, but we didn’t care) (and yes, we were first in line, thank you very much) we met a mother and daughter from Orinda. We got to talking and she found out we were from Utah. Right there we knew the questions would be coming. She found out that Brad served a mission in Korea, we found out she had been to temple square over 20 years ago. We talked about temples, churches, and how sad it is that people don’t seem to find a time for God and religion in their lives anymore. The conversation came to a close when the store opened and we all went to paint and collect our goodies. Before we parted ways, Brad gave her our names and numbers and invited them to come to church with us sometime.

Ever since Brad and I have moved out to Walnut Creek, we have found ourselves surrounded with so many missionary opportunities. It is amazing to see that as we have been looking and praying for these opportunities that they really are out there. From Costco to work colleagues to Color me Mine... we have had some great experiences!

The rest of Saturday was spent visiting an outdoor “How-to” Fair in Pleasanton and then chaperoning the Priest/Laurel ball. We were only told twice that we looked too young to be chaperones... so we didn’t quite make it to 5 like I had guessed. The theme of the night was “A Night in the Orient” so Brad decided it was the perfect opportunity to wear his Korean suit. Lucky for us, we were the couple that got to stand in while the photographer figured out the best lighting. Unfortunately, after the bazillion pictures that were taken, there still wasn't a very decent one of both of us. Sorry, no pictures.

Sunday came a little early, as we didn’t get home from the dance until 2:00 am (chaperones get clean up duty!) and I got up early to make cinnamon rolls and cupcakes for our respective classes (Beehives and Sunday School). For my Beehives, I was teaching a lesson on our divine roles so I decided to make some “divine rolls” for a yummy object lesson. For my first time, they turned out pretty good and very yummy!

The weekend went by way too fast, as always, but it was a good one! Only 9 days until my mom and Taryn come to visit! Brad’s mom decided to get in on the fun too, so she just booked a flight to come visit in April! We are so excited for our moms to come and see us!

Missionary Work at Harvard!

Day of Faith: Personal Quests for a Purpose - 3. Rachel Esplin from Harvard Hillel on Vimeo.

Welcome back!

Do you ever feel too behind to blog? Like you have too much to update, so where do you start? Or it happened so long ago, so you've forgotten all the details? If so, you know what I've been thinking the last few weeks. This post is definitely a "catch up" post, but will hopefully help jump-start my updating.

First things first: Brad is home from Utah! (And has been for about 3 weeks!) After 3 weeks of commuting back and forth, the project focus shifted from Utah and he was given another assignment back in San Fran. I was soooo glad for him to come home. My sweet neighbors took great care of me while he was gone: feeding me dinner, taking out my trash cans, making me yummy peanut butter shakes! (That was my favorite!) Thanks Andrews- you guys are the best!

I got a new church calling in January (has it really been that long since an update?) I am the Beehive Advisor, meaning I teach the lesson each Sunday to the 12-13 year old girls in my ward. I also get to participate in really fun mutual activities on Wednesday nights. Another perk with being in the youth program, is that I get to volunteer Brad for fun activities too. This Saturday we are chaperoning a multi-stake Priest/Laurel ball from 7-11 pm. Brad is so excited! Actually, we both love our callings with the youth (Brad in Sunday School, me in Young Womens) and enjoy all activities with them.

We are currently placing bets to see how many people think that we are a Priest/Laurel couple and not chaperones. I'm guessing five.

Over President’s Day weekend we took a quick trip down to visit my family in San Diego. It was a great trip, and we were able to see all of my grandparents as well. The weather didn’t cooperate too much, and some of the family was sick, but we still managed to have a good time! We always get taken care of when we go home! I convinced my mom and sister to come up and stay with me for 4 days while Brad is in Chicago for work. They are coming out in a little over 2 weeks and we are going to have a fun girls weekend!

And lastly, but certainly not least, I am very excited for this:

This beauty just opened up last week and I can hardly wait to try it out. A couple people from work have already been and say it is amazing and I believe it! We tried to go last weekend, but the wait was over 2 hours and I was too hungry to wait. Maybe this weekend? We shall see!