A trip to Lewiston, Idaho (and Clarkston, Washington)

I may be a month late, but at least I am posting pictures, right? Well anywho, last month, my bro's baseball team made it to the NAIA College World Series. Matt and I had a little spare change sitting around (okay fine it was our tax return) and decided to make the trek, this just may have been his last baseball outing -- which is really weird. This trip was a lot of firsts for us, including our first flight further than NorCal together, first rental car, first college baseball world series, etc. My parents went last year, and I think they enjoyed showing us the place. I had every intention of posting my mom's wonderful emails, but was just too pooped to do it. She just needs to start her own blog. It would be good, promise.

Okay, so this is the fab 4. haha Not really, but it was fun sitting in the stands with these 3 wonderful people.
Mama, My Mom, and I at the River. 3 generations. I love it. But don't mind my squinting! haha
Me and my Bro. As always, I am super proud of him. And I miss him! (come visit please!)
Genny & Mom. 2 moms -- in their son's jerseys. How cute, right? I know...
That my lil bro warming up. He doesn't bat tho, so yeah.. haha I stole a few of these pics from my mom, by the way. Thanks mom!
We spent time with my dad's cousin, Brian, his wife Debbie and their son Jimmy from Haiti (they finally got him after the earthquake). They drove 3 hours each way to visit with us! Their daughter just finished playing at the softball world series in Kansas or something.
The 5 of us after the last game (that we saw). Such a wonderful experience!
Me and the hubs in the stands. Aren't we just the cutest ever? haha This makes me miss my long hair though!
See the woodland / river creature in the picture below? I can't remember what we finally decided it was. Some animal thingie.
High fives after a win!

And there you have it. A few pics from our time in Idaho & Washington. It was very spontaneous for us, which is definitely not the norm, but it was wonderful. If you want to see what we ate, check out my post at Newly Wife. Mom, I will try to get these up on Fbook soon, I swear! haha

Home Improvements

Just a few pictures of the house - from day 1. And some major thanks that we owe to people. As I find more pictures of the work days. I will try to post them here. You can see the knife "fooded" to the stove, as the hubs says. And the last picture is our first night in the house -- our bed in the living room, because our room still needed texturing & paint on the ceiling. Oh how much better the house is since then! Thanks to everyone who helped.

Mexico: March 26-28

It seems as if this is the year of Mexico for the Nadalets. We have been down almost every month, it seems, and have no plan of quitting anytime soon. This particular trip was not for any particular "reason," other than Caitlin needed a ride back to the States (she had gone down the week before with another church, and spent a week of her spring break on the ranch). This trip definitely taught us about how Mexico = Flexico. We ended up driving Scott out to the hotel where Praxis was staying on Friday night, before we even made it to the Ranch. We stayed in Carter's lofthouse, near Jen's lofthouse. It was fun to stay down there and feel like "staff."

Saturday morning came and I helped with breakfast and then Matt & I helped lead different builds. I had never led a build in any sort of capacity before, so this was a challenge for me (even though Steve was really leading, Jen was second in command, and then Caitlin and I were kinda helping out where needed). Also, we had 35 people at our site, so it was a bit like herding cats. Matt led with Evan, and they had only 10 people. I know, we should have sent people over, but our group of 35 were all newbies who wanted to stick together. So we finally finished the build around 4 and went into town (the 5 of us) for tacos and ice cream.

Below you can see Evan running down the "sidewalk" to get Danny's attention, as he drove by. He did it and Danny came by to say hi.

Some very inappropriate bunny cookies.

So we met this guy who was building a house with his Romanian Baptist Church from Fresno. He told us about these natural hot springs on the beach and "all you have to do is dig down and hot water flows up and fills the holw." We had a shovel, got some shorts from the Segundas, and went down to the beach. We dug 3 different holes (the last one was like 4 feet deep) and no hot water. I'm sure the locals were laughing at us gringos going on a Mexican snipe hunt. But we got back to the Ranch and the Johnsons and Van Nesses said it was a true story and they are really there. We will have to go back another time, when we have more time and it isn't getting dark soon!

I think this next picture was right after Caitlin accidentally threw sand at Evan.

This picture kind of encapsulates the night. Chaos. And laughing. And I think Evan jumped on Jen's foot. haha

We ran some errands on our way out of town on Sunday, getting cheap medicine, sodas for Jason -- you know, the usual. And ended with Horchata and ice cream!

Another fun weekend. Another good time getting to know Jen better. Another really long drive, for one weekend. But still, ever so worth it!

St. Patrick's Day

Well I am only 3 weeks late with these pictures! That's better than a month! haha

We have a tradition of celebrating St. Patrick's Day with Kev and Linds. I think this was either our third or fourth year doing it. Check out this post for a picture from 2 years ago. It was a week after our honeymoon, in our cozy (read: crappy) little apartment! We made green beer. I think it was just bud light with green dye. Then last year we tried guinness floats (you know, ice cream with guinness on top). Also in the apartment - our last little shindig there. The floats were okay. This year we just did a 6 pack of Guinness, had to keep it simple since the boys were in a wedding the next day and we were all at the rehearsal this night. Maybe next year we will do a full dinner with corned beef and hash?

Here are some pictures of us enjoying our Guinnesses and being goofy. Well Matt and Kev were being goofy. They were also totally entranced by the "rocket" inside the bottle, it makes the beer smoother and like it is fresh from the draught. yummy!

This is Matt patronizing me. Can you tell? And look at poor Halvsies all flopped around in my lap! haha

A Thursday Night Wedding

Back in March, a couple good friends of ours tied the knot. Matthew was a groomsman, but I was lucky enough to just attend the wedding. I don't know if that's the right word - but it was nice to not worry about what happened when and making sure everything went smoothly. Here are a few pictures:

The guys walked in like a mob with their sunglasses on - spreading out so that the groom could "appear" from behind them. It was awesome

Me and the hubs at the table. We like to be goofy!

Marcos (another groomsman) insisted that we have a good picture together. Mom, here is one of us smiling all nice and pretty -I think we look pretty dang good, if I do say so myself hehe

Kevin & Linds, our good friends. Kevin was also a groomsman.

Being goofy!

Again with the goofiness...

Jake'snew father in law gave him a sword during his toast. That was pretty dang sweet!

This was the group that we went camping with on New Years. The 3 guys were obviously in the wedding, we girls sat together during the ceremony and called ourselves the first wives club - cuz we were just waiting for our hubbys! Isn't the bride just stunning?

Lastly, the favors. Delicious cookies. I'm going to post the recipe on Newly Wife soon. :)

Happy Anniversary

A little over a week ago, Matthew and I celebrated our second anniversary! I cannot believe it has already been 2 years - and at other times it feels like it has been way more than 2 years! haha We rented our friends house in Havasu and just spent some time relaxing. Matthew was sick Friday, but felt better by the time he woke up Saturday. And I have been super stressed at work, resulting in sties (stys?) in my eyes. Thus, my glasses. I normally love my glasses, but for whatever reason they just made me look droopy and tired in these pictures.

That being said. It was nice to get away and have some quality time together. We spent a lot of the time just chillin on the couch watching movies. On Saturday morning we went over to the Canal and walked around the London Bridge (yes, the real bridge from London) area. After we had lunch, back at the house, I spent some time reading a book and soaking in the rays -- with a mimosa, of course!

Here are a few pictures...

That's the London Bridge, and see how droopy I look. Matt was tired too, and forgot to shave. haha
I was excited to see Safeway, it reminded me of home!
Our before dinner snack, various cheeses (Cheddar w/ Porter, Irish Stout, Cheddar w/ Chives, Cheddar w/ Carmelized Onion (my all time fave), Stilton w/ Oranges & Dates, and another one!) accompanied by bread, crackers, and salami.
Can't get the picture to rotate, but here is me with the wine and snackeroos. My crochet bag is on the floor :)