San Diego

Sorry about the long delay of this post! Due to technical difficulties (and they really were difficulties! Windows decided to throw in the towel and quit its job unexpectedly. Garrett was able to install Linux and extract all the necessary files that would've been lost, so I'm glad for that... though I lost a lot of my music mysteriously during the transfer to our external hardrive, which is truly an odd thing. Folders of songs don't just slip away... So I'm a little distraught about that. But I'll hunt for the songs I'm missing when I have the time (yeah right!) ;) ), I haven't been able to get this post up before now... so I hope you'll forgive me! :)

The the first two days in Burbank were full up with Thanksgiving feasts we had with family. We had a great time and probably came back weighing about 10 lbs. heavier =P The following week we spent two days in San Diego, enjoying it's beautiful night cityscape and fun attractions - including the Dead Sea Scrolls (Garrett gave the full review on that one), Point Loma (Garrett also covered that), the Hotel del Coronado, El Indio (Mexican restaurant), TGI Friday's, the Westfield Horton Plaza, and more.

The Foursome - watching a movie and looking very concerned ;)






Westfield Horton Plaza - Garrett and I were dropped off here for 6+ hours to hang out together and we had a great time! We spent the longest time in Nordstrom trying on $700 jackets and such. At first I was hesitant, because I had remembered my mama's motherly caution... "If you break it, we have to pay for it." Well, that caution stuck with me since I was a little tot, so I've always been very cautious and careful around stores :) I wasn't worried when walking into that store, knowing my boundaries well... but the minute I saw Garrett run over to a jacket... I got really scared. Horror-stricken I looked around the store and told Garrett about mama's caution. And knowing that jacket was $700, I was even more scared. If he even did anything to that jacket, we'd have to pay! Oh no... he's putting it on! Looking around me, I made sure there weren't any employees to see. I have to admit, he looked quite stunning in that expensive jacket... but that doesn't justify the wrong we were committing! ;) Then the worst thing happened... Garrett slid the jacket onto the hanger, and as he put it back on the rack, I spotted something fall... "Um, what just fell?" He looked and picked up a button. How did I know something would happen? Oh dear. Now I was frantic. I grabbed the button from him and tried to find a place to put it. We found the little sack where the extra buttons went, and thank goodness we realized that's all that button was! A spare! But it was a lesson I tried to drill into my brother's head. Well, it didn't stick, because off he went to the next jacket.
Long story short, we spent most of our time there. And no, we didn't break or tear anything, thank goodness! We both left the store feeling totally humbled and broke (heh).








TGI Friday's - Garrett and I ate lunch here. We shared a Shirley Temple (yum!), chicken fingers, and french fries.

Beat it, bub. ;)


El Indio

Trick or Treat - Valdivia Style

Instead of trying to explain to you how we spent our Halloween evening, it's best to quote an email I sent to Sally Parish, regarding a movie she let us borrow called North & South (by BBC). A small background on this movie and another (Pride & Prejudice) that I will mention throughout this post, is that those two movies are both several hours long and are on 2 discs.

Enjoy!!

Sally ~

You are about to have a good laugh... prepare thyself!

We decided to go ahead and watch North & South on Halloween instead of Pride & Prejudice this year (but we will be seeing Pride & Prejudice before the 1st of the year, you can count on that!), so Mom popped the disc in and we all settled in with the Ben & Jerry's of our choice ;) What a lovely combination it makes! A family movie with your own Ben & Jerry's ice cream container... truly there isn't anything better! ;)

Well, the whole first part of the movie made absolutely no sense! So we all kept saying to each other that it was like Pride & Prejudice, so we might have to watch it a couple times before we fully understand the story. And when Thornton and Margaret were united at the end of the first disc, we couldn't imagine where the movie could possibly go from there. And then we popped in the second disc and everyone who was dead was alive again, and it was like Back to the Future! We all commented how terrible the directing was.

Then we had a horrible, awful.... HILARIOUS revelation!

We watched the second disc first.

So we all hated the movie, had a good time, and went to bed. It probably would have been a decent watch if we had watched it in the proper order, but we don't have the stamina to start at the (right) beginning again ;)

Joking aside, we did make the best of it and watched it as a "mystery" and put the pieces together from the "first" half, which was quite revealing! If you've never watched a 5 hour movie like this before, TRY IT! It really puts you on an emotional roller coaster!

Thanks for letting us borrow it, though. If it weren't for our "blind faith" that you guys put the discs in the right order in the DVD case, we may have watched it correctly last night. But we're not blaming you ;) We're blaming our lack of observation skills =D

Thanks for providing the Valdivias with a unique family movie experience =D

God bless and hope to see you all again soon!

Megan (with lots o' love!)

P.S. Honestly, it WAS a fun night and we enjoyed ourselves immensely!

Read Garrett's version of our Halloween night!

Image courtesy of Foolish Passion

The Rosebud

The Rosebud

It is only a tiny rosebud
A flower of God's design;
But I cannot unfold the petals
With these clumsy hands of mine.

The secret of unfolding flowers
Is not known to such as I.
GOD opens this flower so sweetly,
Then, in my hands, they die.

If I cannot unfold a rosebud,
The flower of God's design,
Then how can I have the wisdom
To unfold this life of mine?

So, I'll trust in Him for leading
Each moment of my day.
I will look to Him for His guidance
Each step of the Pilgrim's way.

The pathway that lies before me
Only my Heavenly Father knows.
I'll trust Him to unfold the moments,
Just as He unfolds the rose.

An "Eventful" Weekend!

A week after arriving home from Burbank on the 12th, we (Mom and I) took off to Springville on the 18th! The Welch family asked us if we could consider helping them prepare their Springville home (which is currently up for sale) for Brittany’s bridal shower that they’d be hosting on the 19th. Of course we said yes, and we were so glad we did! There was SO much to do, that I’m not sure what the Welchs would have done if they hadn’t asked for extra hands. They thanked us over and over again for coming down and helping them! The Bridal Shower was actually a Bridal Tea, and it turned out to be quite elegant ;) Eight families from Oakhurst went down to spend that special day with Brittany (our 19 year old bride), as well as numerous families from Springville and some from northern California.

Hannah and Lilly (two of the Welch girls) came down from the house to open the electronic gate that didn’t appear to be working for us. I punched the “right” code in (or so I had thought), but it just wasn’t opening for us! Eventually, after Hannah tried opening it from the other side of the gate, I tried punching in the code again (and that time I did it right, after all that!) and voila! … the gate swung open (ever so slowly) and we drove on in.

Hannah and Amber’s belated birthday presents!


This is where the magic happens…


Part of the Leever family stopped by to help us girls out =)


Folding napkins and getting the tables set for tomorrow!


Why won't the coffee makers work?!
(We found out later that all the outlets on that wall were shot. It wasn't until Amber tried plugging in her iPod that we noticed we weren't getting any power from them. So Amber went all around this room and the kitchen, using her iPod as a test for what outlets gave power and which ones didn't. A new use for iPods!)


Pretty table for Brittany!



Pretty tables for everyone else ;)





Some folks started showing up just an hour after we finished the crucial preparations. (Mom and I put together the sandwiches, which took 4 hours to make! Yikes!)


Frozen quiche, mmm…


Happy relatives (the top middle young lady is our bride)


Squeezing in and out between tables was a skill within itself!


Stoeppler twins in front, Polach girls in back.


Polachs!



Happy people and lots of cameras!





Gifts…


Where the buffalo (er, bison) roam ;)

The following day we joined almost all our friends at Manzanita Lake in North Fork for the Kennedy’s good-bye BBQ. We all had a blessed time and things went along so well!

Everyone together.



The BBQers.







“For the blog!”


Wyatt Becker


Food time!


What is that?!


“I believe Rebekah may want to make a speech on the family’s behalf…” ;)


A beautiful family.


Friends are friends forever! (sung in half-time ;) )





Mr. Jeremy Becker sharing fond memories they’ve had with the Kennedy family.


Garrett sharing fond memories he’s had of the Kennedy family.

Overall, everyone had a blessed time with the Kennedy family, and I know that they all had a great time with everyone too!

Stay tuned for more Valdivia happenings! =D

Thank you Peter!
(our compliments on the group photo) =D