Goodbye Huntington Beach

We are moving!! It still feels unreal but we signed the lease today. I guess it's official. In just a few weeks we will no longer be Huntington Beach residents. We are so excited for the adventures that lie ahead but we are sad for the friends that we will be leaving behind.We are only going to be a few hours away though so it's not the end of the world.

Jacks loves the sun. He's going to be natural beach bum I already know it.

In June Tyrone got a promotion that we were so excited about since I was already five months pregnant. It was definitely a blessing. He has worked really hard and he deserved it. Then, in September he got offered another promotion to be a district manager down in San Diego. It took us both by surprise but we decided to take it. Tyrone started November 1st and he has been commuting every day. I don't know how he does it. It usually takes him about 3 hours to get home after he's done with work. I can't even imagine. But, it's working and we only have about another week left of it and then we can move down there.

I love that we can go to the beach in November here in So Cal

I am so excited about our new place. For those of you who don't know we live in a one bedroom one bath apartment. It's about 550 square feet. Boy is it cozy! We've lived here for just over three years now. The landlord here is amazing and we live just a short three blocks to the beach. You get what you pay for right? We are pretty squished in this little place but we managed to make room for a new baby in here so I can't complain too much. Instead of a baby's room we have a baby's wall.

Tyrone painted our little guy a surf board. It was just a foam board but after he finished painting it, he decided we should get it glassed and get some fins put on it so we could ride it. It turned out awesome! Let's just say other than this picture the board doesn't really hang on the wall like it was meant to. It goes out into the water a lot. Tyrone is just breaking it in until Jacks can ride it.

We took Jacks to the beach when he was just 5 days old

In our new place we have two bedrooms and two bathrooms. Wahoo!! We also have a dishwasher and a washer and dryer in the unit. I had never lived without a dishwasher until I got married. Dishes are by far my least favorite chore. I will do laundry all day, but dishes are just messy and stinky and they are never done! I'm excited about the washer and dryer too. We live in an upstairs apartment right now and I don't really enjoy carrying my laundry up and down the stairs to do it. I also dislike having to go and get quarters. It seems like every time I go to do the laundry I'm out of quarters. Especially now that I have a little guy I feel like I am doing laundry all the time.

Our new place is now 8 blocks from the beach. It is going to be rough to get used to but I'm sure we can manage. I'm glad that his new position is still here in Southern California so that we can continue to live the beach bum life. It is going to be hard to move away from here someday. Maybe we never will, who knows.

As far as my job goes, I went into work today and told them that I won't be coming back because we are moving. I am looking to transfer down to the San Diego area though so that I can teach fitness classes down there. We will see what happens. It would be nice to at least teach once a week to get out of the house and to keep me in shape. I am just 6 pounds over my pre-baby weight. Not too bad eh? What I weighed right before I had the baby was my weight in college. Pretty crazy. It feels good to be active again.

If anyone knows of fun things to do or places to check out in San Diego, let me know. I am excited for this new adventure and I am looking forward to exploring a new city.

Butterbeer

Last year right before Halloween I got the opportunity to go to Florida with my parents for a week. My dad has been a vendor at the World paintball tournament in Orlando for close to 15 years and my mom and I have never gone. My dad was trying to convince my mom to go and she wasn't interested. So, my dad called me and asked if I wanted to go hoping that if I would go then my mom would go too. Of course I wanted to go! And, needless to say, my mom came too.

My mom and I had so much fun. We went to a different theme park almost every day. My mom wanted to ride every ride in each park we went to. She is a thrill seeker!

Disney World's Magic Kingdom

Disney's Epcot

Disney's Hollywood Studios

Universal Studios

We went to Disney's Epcot theme park, Hollywood Studios, Magic Kingdom, Universal Studios, and Universal's Islands of Adventure where we saw the Wizarding World of Harry Potter!! I was in heaven! I absolutely love Harry Potter. I totally had a crush on him growing up. One thing I knew I wanted to get while we were there was butterbeer. They had stands all over but the lines were extremely long. Finally I just had to jump in line and wait. Totally worth it. It was so yummy and delicious. The best way to describe it is like a butterscotch root beer float. My mom enjoyed it too. I got the souvenir cup so that I could try to recreate it when I got home.

Universal Studios Islands of Adventure

I really wanted to make Butterbeer this year before Halloween but, as life goes, time got away from me and I never got a chance to make it until after. The main reason why I didn't make it was because I could not find butterscotch flavored syrup. I thought for sure Smart and Final would have it but they didn't. They had probably close to a hundred different flavors, but no butterscotch. Finally, I decided to just order it online. I ordered it at 3pm and it was on my doorstep at 2pm the next day. I ordered through the Torani website. I was very impressed. I got the recipe from Iheartnaptime

The recipe from iheartnaptime makes about three to four 8oz glasses. My blender is too small for the recipe she gives so I had to modify it a little.

Ingredients:
0.75 quart vanilla ice cream
Just less than 1/4 cup butterscotch syrup
 24 oz (3 cups) cream soda 
1/2 cup ice

Directions: Put ice cream, butterscotch, cream soda and ice into blender. Mix until combined. Top with whipped cream if desired.

Crocheted Baby Beanie

I have been branching out a little bit on my crocheting lately and I was so proud of myself for making this beanie. The video I followed said that it was for a 3mo. baby but it fits my little 1.5mo old. He fits into other 3 mo. beanies though so maybe he just has a big head. This beanie was surprisingly quite easy once I got the first 4 or 5 rounds done. As long as you know the basics of crocheting you can follow the same video I did. Good luck. If you make one I'd love to see it.

Supplies:
3 or 4 ply yarn
G-4.25MM crochet hook

Here is the beanie tutorial and ear flap tutorial

Baby Bibs

I have been wanting to make baby bibs for a while but I just haven't been brave enough to try it. I finally decided it was time when my husband's cousin was pregnant with a baby girl and I got invited to her baby shower. All of the tutorials online say to use chenille as the back fabric for the bibs but no matter what fabric store I went to, they did not have it. I have used the terry cloth from Joann's before for burp cloths but I think it's a little rough so I didn't want to use that. I went to another fabric store and asked the clerk what she would recommend and she showed me a more elastic, soft terry cloth. It was perfect. They were all sold out of white though so I got a sea foam green color and black. I think they turned out really cute. Once I got all of the supplies to make them, they were pretty simple.

Supplies needed:

• square of fabric 7 1/2" x 10 1/2" for top of bib
• square of fabric 8 1/2" x 11 1/2" for bottom of bib
• square of chenille 16" x 11 1/2" for bib backing (I couldn't find chenille so I used terry cloth. You could get creative here on the back fabric. Minky would probably be cute and soft as well.)
• lightweight fusible interfacing
• thread
• ribbon, ric rac, or trim of your choice (optional)
• rotary cutter/mat/ruler
• 2" piece of 1/2" velcro (I bought black to match the backing)
• pattern from Sew She Sews

 I followed the tutorial from Lots of Pink Here The bib pattern from this tutorial was too large for my liking though. I followed her tutorial but I used the pattern from Sew She Sews

I bought fat quarters for the top of the bib. They worked great and then I'm not left with a bunch of leftover fabric. You could probably make 3 or 4 bibs out of two fat quarters.  

 I skipped the ric rac step on mine because I realized that I didn't have thread the same color. Sad, I know. I had been to the store so many times for this project that I felt like I just needed to finish them. I totally bought the wrong interfacing and had to go back to the store for that already. I hate when that happens. I  think they turned out really cute without the ric rac and I'm excited to make some more.