The rest of the week in San Diego was pretty laid back. Jon and I ended up rented a car and going to over to Point Loma. They have a military cemetery there, a light house and some good views. Here's some more pictures curtousy of Jon.

Jon and I are really bad about taking pictures of each other so the only pictures of us that exist from this trip are the last two. Because we stayed a little long in San Diego we were able to make a trip to the San Diego temple. It's such a beautiful temple and it was really nice to be able to spend some time there.

On day two in San Diego, Saturday, we had made plans to go to a concert in Irvine. Jon's been a real trooper and taken me to several shows of bands that he's not that into. I'm really big into music so when a band I like comes along I have to jump at the chance to go. Last summer Jon went with Cody and I to see A Perfect Circle and the year before that we saw Blue October for my birthday. A couple weeks before we were headed off to California I looked to see if any of the bands Jon likes were playing any shows this summer... Oddly enough there was a big festival in Irvine the same weekend that we were going to go to San Diego. I wasn't too sure if Cody would want to go but Jon figured that we should ask anyways. Cody said he'd be more than happy to go which was good because let's just say the planets aligned that day... Haha...

Anyways so Saturday... We headed out early Saturday morning to meet up with our Brother, Devin, and his wife, Kim, before the concert started. Devin lives a couple hours away in San Luis Obispo so we were meeting with them at a half way point in the LA area. It just so happened that we ended up in the same neighborhood as the LDS - Los Angeles temple. We did a quick drive by of the temple and then ate at a decent little Chinese place. Right as we were finishing up we realized that we had accidentally left the tickets for the show at Cody's, two hours away. Luckily, Cody's room mate was home and we were able to get the tickets scanned and print them at a Kinko's close to the concert... It was actually the second Kinko's we went to. The first was in a hotel lobby and it was closed on Saturdays but open on Sundays... What's up with that?

After getting that all sorted out we headed to the show. When we got there Cody had arranged to meet up with a friend from out of state so we hung out with them until the good bands started. There were two stages set up. One for the opening not so famous bands and then the main stage which was closed off until they were ready to start. To be perfectly honest it was kind of stupid and ended up delaying the start time of the main stage a good half an hour. Once it all got started it was a pretty good time though! The coolest part of the shows was that they had a rotating stage with a wall in the middle of it. This allowed them to set up the next band while one was still playing eliminating that really annoying loll while you wait for the bands to set up. However, all good things must come to an end at some point... Because of this your ears had almost no time to rest and it did start to get a little uncomfortable. I'm sure we were some of the few who even cared because everyone else seemed pretty drunk.

It was a great show and included music from (a bunch of bands I'm not familiar with...) Garbage, Pennywise, Silversun Pickups, Offspring, Incubus, Coldplay, and surprise guest Soundgarden.

Garbage did a great job and it was fun to be able to see part of their comeback tour. For some reason their sound equipment didn't sound that amazing causing them to sound unbalanced/ distorted so that was a little disappointing. Jon enjoyed the Offspring more than he expected and was surprised at the number of songs he knew by them. Soundgard was a surprise guest that night so we were pretty shocked to see them. They also played their new single that they did for Avengers so that was a lot of fun to see live... especially since we had just seen the Avengers the night before. Incubus is one of my all time favorite bands so it was such a great experience to finally be able to see them live. It was amusing to see like 1/3 of the audience leave after their set before Coldplay came on. Coldplay was a lot of fun to see and luckily Cody was able to endure their happy music and didn't have to punch himself in the face.

Some time in January or February of this year Jon got offered a second internship at Google. Since we found out that we'd be headed to California for the summer we had a lot more time to plan and prep for the move. We both finished the semester in April and I even graduated! It was a little surreal... a couple things changed in the last year and I found out I could be done earlier than planned. After being in school so long and the grueling work load of the illustration program I just decided I needed to be done... for now. Since we were completely moving out of our apartment this time we decided to have a later start date for Jon's internship. We had a little over 2 weeks in between the time school ended and his internship began.

During that two week time frame southwest was having a sale, we snatched up some tickets and headed down to San Diego to visit my brother Cody. Originally we had planned to go from San Diego to Tuscon. My sister in law was expecting and the baby was supposed to arrive that week. Little baby Bennett just wasn't ready to come so we ended up changing out plans and staying in for a week. We arrived fairly late on Thursday night and Cody took work off on Friday. So we spent the day at the San Diego Zoo! Jon's becoming a bit of a photographer and snatched some really great shots!

Our admission included a ride on the "Skyfare" which gave you a birds eye view of the park and lets you see Balboa park a little better. While up there we saw some beautiful architecture, some gorillas and a peacock hanging out on the top of a building.

We were extremely grateful that Cody let us crash at his place. He's great company to have around and both Jon and I are always happy to spend time with him. After we finished up at the Zoo we met with one of Cody's good friends and had dinner at a hip little joint. We got Polenta which none of us had ever had and it was delicious! The food was good and it was a great way to end a sun filled day of walking around in the sun... Now mind you this was only day one and there's even more awesomeness to come!

For Christmas my whole family met up in Vegas. We had a lot fun and did some pretty exciting stuff. At least one of us was sick the whole time we were there... My mom, Cody and Jon were all sick when we got there and then I got it pretty bad once they were better.

Ahead of time the lady folk decided to work on a craft project together. My mom and I are a little obsessed with the wood letters that you can get at (www.thewoodco.blogspot.com) the wood connection out in Utah. So we all worked on a project together while the men bonded over some Starcraft. The whole video game was actually something I looked for in my future husband. So I was pretty relieved when I found out that Jon played, I knew he'd fit right in.

While we were there we went to a couple shows. One night we went to KA, it's a cirque du soleil show. I really enjoy the cirque du soleil shows and I wasn't disappointed with this one at all. The have a rotating stage which allowed them to do some really awesome stuff. If you ever have the opportunity to see it I'd highly suggest it.

One of the nights my Dad took the whole family (except Mom and Baby Jill) to see Tournament of the Kings. We were assigned to "Mother Russia" as we called it. It's a fun show especially if you have kids. What am I saying it's pretty good for adults too... I mean the food is pretty tasty and you get to eat with your hands. I accidently threw my broccoli on the floor when I was trying to pull it apart... I got made fun of for that one.

After that show ended Cody, Kim, Jon and I had to book it to our next show. Earlier in the week we started talking about Trans Siberian Orchestra and how much we'd like to go. Randomly enough we looked and found out they were doing shows in Vegas that week. So we decided to go. It was a really good show! I didn't really know many of the songs in the first half of the show but the second half was amazing. I mean nothing really compares to their version of Carol of the Bells.

All in all it was a great trip. I was a little crabby at points but my family survived. I'm really grateful that my family especially my parents such an effort into getting us all together.

As we left the bay area we decided to take the long way home. We spent the night friday night in Oakland and went to the temple Saturday morning. It was our first time at the Oakland temple. After we finished up at the temple we drove into San Francisco and visited the Golden Gate Bridge. Neither of us had been there before so it was just a neat experience to go check it out. It was pretty overcast that day so Jon was a little bummed that he wasn't going to be able to take as many pictures.

That next week we headed up to visit Jon's parents before school started. We were scheduled to spend Thanksgiving with Jon's parents that year and it's a little hard to make it up their when the holiday break is short so we just decided to visit them in August.

We were lucky enough to have our really good friend Topher pick us up at the airport and show was around town. I've never been to Seattle before and I wanted to see what it's all about. We wondered around Pike's place for a little bit and then grabbed some lunch and chocolate for dessert. It was a little too fancy for my taste. I'm an American girl that loves her snickers! We weren't able to spend too much time in the city because we had to drive and catch the ferry. Topher was kind enough to drive us up there and came with us all the way to Friday Harbor. The next day we just showed Topher around the island and did a little sight seeing. The island is fairly small it only takes about an hour to drive around but there's still lots to see. I even got to see some new places which was a lot of fun.

After Topher left we were able to just enjoy some relaxing time. Jon and I did some more sight seeing and went on a hike to watch sunset. It was a good little trip. I know Jon really misses home so it's always good when we can get back there and he can get his island fix.