Happy Halloween!

Lost. Yes. Hooked.

I had never even seen ONE episode, didn't even know what they were about until one of our friends here in Dublin watched all 4 seasons in 2 weeks, and she told us to start watching them online. So we did--we though, "We have a whole week together to do nothing!" Well, we must admit, we're addicted! We're almost through with Season 2 and it's been SO nice to sleep in, stay in bed for a few hours and watch Lost, and then get up and start our day:) Pretty lazy, but so nice to be together. We must also admit though, that even though we're really anxious to "see what happens next"...the first season was by far the best--so intense! We can tell it's going downhill a little in that they're really trying hard to come up with new "drama" to drag it out...it just bugs us a little that every single character has this huge ego issue! BUT other than that, we really enjoy it. And now we've been told several times that we would really like 24 and Prison Break. Oh great. Here goes all our free time. We don't have cable or anything so we never see anything! Now that I've discovered how to do it on the internet...there's no stopping us:)

Last night, we dressed up and went to the Youth Stake Halloween Dance--yippee! Since I'm in the Young Women's now, we went as chaperons and our job was to monitor the parking lot! Fun! Ben's mom brought us down these costumes that she made--So may I introduce.....

ADAM & EVE!

I felt a little awkward pretending that I was....unclothed.....and some people gave us some strange looks. But oh well! We had fun.

We also just wanted to give a shout out to our scary raptor-like friends. These wild turkeys roam around our complex and especially love the area RIGHT BY OUR WINDOW. Seriously, they are so creepy. They bark like dogs and run like raptors. Sometimes when I chase them I feel like they're going to suddenly turn around and chase me! There are 13 of them and they travel in packs, usually with one dominant male. This one on the right was one that I chased a little bit and then cornered in the dumpster area--look he's all "Thanksgiving-y" :)

Oh and Ben got called to teach Elder's Quorum, which will be fun! We're both little teachers-yay!

And I made these cute "Family" blocks this week! It was a fun Relief Society activity, the Bishop's wife has her own craft business so we all got to make some! She provided everything except the scrapbook paper which we had to pick out on our own. It was a lot more work than I thought, but it turned out really cute!

One more reminder--TAKE COURAGE!

Happy Halloween everyone! Hope you have a SPOOKY fun time!

"On the Beach"

Ben just finished his first big case!! Way to go babe!! He did such a great job and worked so dang hard. He got so many compliments from all of his team members and also their client! They really loved working with Ben and said that he added a lot to their team. They also told me that he grew so fast and so much since his first couple weeks at work--he's basically a pro now! In a lot of ways it was so great that he got put on literally, the TOUGHEST case in the office right at the beginning, because now he has such a head start! Yesterday was their final dinner and presentation with the client, and he didn't get home till 1am! Ah! I certainly won't miss him being on this case, but it was a great experience for him. Now you're probably wondering what this "on the beach" business is. Well...great news! Some of the time with consulting, when someone finishes up a case they don't have a new case ready right away so they call it 'you're "on the beach"' for a couple of days or even up to a couple of weeks till you get put on one. Well...Ben has this whole next week "ON THE BEACH!" I'm so excited!! It really makes it all worth it, ya know, evens it out--7am to 10pm everynight for 6 weeks and then a week paid-time off! Great! We're going to try to do something fun like Half-Moon Bay or Napa Valley.

And about us living somewhere in the next 6 months--Ben talked to his "allocator" which is just the person who keeps tabs on Ben and makes sure he keeps Ben happy, and he said we could transfer as early as February! And he told us to get a list of maybe top 2 or 3 places we would want to transfer and let him know. So that's what we're working on! It would just be a transfer, so maybe 6, 8 months or even a year and then we'd be back in Cali. We're pretty sure it's between South Africa, Spain, London, and Brazil! So make sure and vote!

Ben's family in town!

We are so blessed to have such great family. First of all-THANK YOU to Pa, Nan, Lisa and Jon for driving all the way out here and making such a great effort to see us. (Kraig we're sorry you couldn't come--we missed you! And we miss you too Peg--next time!)
We love you all so much and are so thankful for you and all you do for us. "Seriously, SO BLESSED" :)

They all came in on Thursday afternoon and while Ben was working, we just had a great time talking and catching up. BAD TIMING though for a MAJOR nasty cold to hit me. Seriously. All those high school kids I'm tutoring were doing too much kissing over Homecoming weekend and all came in sick and coughing...so of course--I get it :(

Friday while Ben was at work we rode the BART into San Francisco to see some sights. This is Ben's brother Jon and me playing some card games on the way in:

And this is all of us outside of Ben's building--he was just upstairs but hard at work!

We headed over to Pier 33 to embark on the Alcatraz cruise and tour. Ben and I did it before but it was even cooler to do it a second time to catch all the things I missed the first time. There's so many cool stories and facts it's just fascinating. And the weather was unbelievable. I have never seen SF like that. Every time we've been it's been cold, foggy, and windy and so we dressed prepared for that--we never wore our jackets again! It was SO hot and sunny!
(You can see Alcatraz island behind us!) Jon really loved it--he said he wants to make Alcatraz his honeymoon spot in the future:) This is the view of San Francisco from the island. Haha--and this is all of us with our cute headphones:
After Alcatraz, we took the Historic Cable Cars to Fisherman's Wharf and had lunch at Boudin's Famous Sourdough Bread place--so yummy. And then Lisa, Jon, and I walked to crooked Lombard Street while Nan and Pa enjoyed the rest of lunch and the seats.

At the bottom:

This crooked street of San Fran is crazy!! There were so many cars having fun driving down it, people at the bottom taking pictures, people going up, people going down...they were everywhere! Definitely wouldn't want to live on this street!

At the top:

On our way back to Nan and Pa, I met a family from India! It's so fun to talk to them now and to connect with them by saying, "We were in India this summer!" They all get so excited to talk about their country and they were fun people. They were lost and just followed us back.

We saw these cool Cable Cars that were like boats and wanted to ride one:

And we got to! At our stop, the next car to stop and get us was this cool Ferry-looking cable car! It was fun.
Saturday we relaxed, made some fun meals (thanks Lis and Nan!), took Jon to the airport (had to get back to school the little bum) and watched the Red Sox game. Wow was it cool! I've never really been into baseball but this was Pa's 60+ year of faithful fan-ism and it was cool. What a devout FAN! We taught everyone ROOK which they loved (you've seriously got to learn it!) and played that all night.

This was us at church yesterday:

We had a great big meal, watched The Bucket List, and then of course had to watch the Red Sox game....too bad they were beat. We said goodbye and they're on their way back. Until Christmas...

Ode to our Siblings!

Ben's: I just had to post this sweet picture of Jon and his love Rose. It's a 1969 Caddy and isn't she pretty? He sure has put a lot of time and effort into her. And isn't he a stud?

Mine: My family just got back from a cruise without me! Here were their pics from the trip and they're all just SO DANG CUTE I had to post them. Brooke, James, Anna & Raquel

Next up--The Phipps' for Thanksgiving!!

Columbus Day Weekend with our guests!

What a FUN BUSY WEEKEND!! Seriously so fun. Columbus Day was yesterday and some businesses had the day off. Including my friends, and Ben did! It was so nice.

So Sarah, my best friend from college and her husband Jeff came into town on Friday evening and we all met at Ben's work in San Francisco. We took the trolley over to Fisherman's Wharf, walked around for a while. Looking in shops and watching some street artists.

Then walked to Ghirardelli for some amazing chocolate sundays!!

We came back late that night to our place and then Saturday just slept in, hung out, went to In-N-Out for lunch, and then went to the Oakland Temple for a session. Our friends, my other best friend roommate Rachel and her husband Mark met up with us (they live down south in Santa Clara):

The temple is so pretty and unique. And it was really great to do a session together. We had a really good time!

This is the sunset from up on the temple, you can walk around up top. See San Francisco!?

After the temple, we all went out to eat at Oogie's, or something like that :) We said goodbye to Mark and Rachel:( and headed back to Dublin. Sunday--we went to church. And I got a calling! I'm the Laurel adviser in Young Womens, which I'm SUPER excited about!! I really have always known I was going to get that calling someday and I've been looking forward to it. I'm excited!

After church we did lunch, went to the park to play frisbee and soccer and play on the playground, we watched Ironman, took naps, played lots of ROOK...and just relaxed! Then the best part, Sarah and my TRADITION: We played Dr. Mario while BLASTING N'Sync Christmas! Every year that I've known her, we've done that. (And just like tradition--I ALWAYS WIN!). We would force ourselves to not break it out until November...but we just had to make an exception this year:) They left Monday morning to go finish off some sight-seeing in San Francisco. Thanks for coming guys--we seriously had so much fun and we love you!

Ben had work off too so we were able to hang out all day together. It was so nice. One of his friends from the mission Tim Hendon and his wife Stefanie were also in town! So we went in to San Francisco last night and had dinner at the Rainforest Cafe, which was great and then walked around a bit. They were SO nice and took us all the way home so we didn't have to ride the BART and we could hang out and talk with them longer. They came to our place and chilled for a bit and then took off. It was SO good to see them too! Man, it's great to have such great friends and be able to get together now and then.

NEXT Ben's family comes in town on THURSDAY!! SO EXCITED!! They're staying till Monday so we can't wait. I wish Ben could get work off, but at least he'll have Saturday and Sunday free.

We love you all!

Not in Utah anymore....

♥ 'Vote for Obama' signs are on the back of every car.
♥ NO GRID SYSTEM! Oh this is probably the one we can't stand the most. Laying a city out in a grid just makes COMPLETE sense. Laying all roads that wind here and there and even turn the opposite direction in less than a mile stretch is just stupid!
♥ Radio stations stink here. I thought they would be good here! All there is is Spanish stations I swear. I've gone through the whole range of stations on SCAN 2 or 3 times and not found ONE station I like. So we just listen to CD's.
♥ Motorcyclists are crazy! They don't follow the same vehicle rules they do in Utah. They are allowed to weave in and out and drive in the middle of the lane passing between people. They go to the front of the line at a stop light no matter what.
♥ Ben got pulled over for not wearing his helmet while he road his motorcycle down the street to get me some toilet paper (and QUICK!). He didn't get a ticket though-phewf.
You'll also get a ticket if they see you talking on the phone while driving. Smart I guess.
♥ NO FRY SAUCE!
♥ Instead of having dotted painted lines to mark where lanes are on the road, they have little circle bumps. It's become a game to try to dodge running over them while changing lanes.
♥ We miss 2 gallons of milk for $5 dollars....not ONE gallon for $5.
♥ We miss Cream O'Weber and other Utah food brands.
♥Our families are definitely not 10 minutes away.
♥ The weather is consistent here. But we will miss skiing this winter...and we definitely miss the changing of the leaves.
♥ Taxes are higher--but with it comes so much better landscaping! Freeways, roads, medians, businesses, etc, they all look great! With big trees, bright pink flowers...very cool.
♥ In-N-Out Burger! Need I say more?
♥ There are big nice parks EVERYWHERE. They even have "Dog Parks" where you take your dog to run around play. They have little...what do you even call them?...dog play stations? Sundays, when we drive by it, there are probably a HUNDRED dogs there.
♥ People say my name--"CaMEELe" instead of "CaMILLe" :)
♥ None of our friends here have BLOGS. It must be a Utah thing.

Need Christmas Cards?

It's that time of year! Just wanted to spread that word that my cousin has a business "Cute Cards and More" and she makes FABULOUS Christmas cards (as well as announcements, baby announcements, birthday, calanders, etc). They're way cute and SO affordable!

Try her this year! cutecardsandmore.blogspot.com

Something to look forward to...

Just wanted to say that I'm SO EXCITED FOR THE NEXT 2 WEEKENDS! Some of our best friends and family are coming in town to visit us. My old roommate all through college, Sarah & her hubby are coming this next Fri-Mon as well as one of Ben's friends from the mission, Tim & Steph. We're having Sarah and Jeff with us till Monday morning and then Tim and Steph Monday night. Can't wait to see you guys and play in the city! Also--Ben's cute mom & Kraig, his brother Jon and Grandma and Grandpa are driving out the next weekend, Thurs-Monday. We can't wait. Seriously. Life's all about friends and family.
Anyway one else want to come stay at the B&C Pad?? We'd love to have you!!! :)

Eagle Eye

So we officially went to our first movie out here in California. Big deal? Ya, it was a big deal. The total price for 2 movie tickets came to $32 dollars! Wow right? I know! We saw Eagle Eye with Shia LeBeouf and Michelle Monaghan. It was awesome! We really enjoyed it! Well, we better have for that price! Heck, we could buy 3 or 4 movies at Walmart for $30 bucks:) On a scale from 1 to 10 with Indiana Jones IV being a 1 and The Dark Knight being a 10, it was about an 8. Go see it! Just hopefully you're in Utah!