Date night!

Aaron knows how much I love surprises and trying to guess what they are... so earlier this week he announced that we were going on a 'surprise date night' on Saturday. Yay! I love it when he does this!! Every once in a while he plans a date night and wont tell me what it is, just tells me what to wear. So much fun!!

I actually kind of had a pretty good guess about what it was this time, but didn't want to completely ruin the surprise, so I waited patiently until Saturday evening. Turns out that I was right... he had gotten tickets to see Miss Saigon. :) We had a great time getting all dressed up and heading out for the night. We had biked all over Santa Monica earlier in the day and we were pretty beat from the sun and exercise, so we skipped our dinner reservations and replaced it with a nap on the couch and dinner at home, and got to the theater in plenty of time before the show.

Weekend in Portland

This past weekend Aaron and I headed on our quarterly(ish?) pilgrimage to Portland, Oregon. We timed this visit so that we would be there for our nephew Carson's 2nd birthday. Lucky for us he was born right near Mother's Day, so we also got to spend Mother's Day with my mom.

We arrived Thursday evening after a full day of work, so we pretty much just hit the hay when we arrived at Jason & Amy's place. Friday was just a hang out day. Jason and Aaron spent some time cleaning up the backyard in preparation for Saturday's BBQ and Amy and I spent some quality time with Carson. We rounded out the day by meeting Nate, Amanda, and my mom for dinner.

The big party was Saturday - lots of family and a couple of friends came over to BBQ and celebrate Carson's day. He is such a cute little guy! He learned how to ride his motorized 4 wheeler. He's pretty funny about it too... riding it forward in a pretty straight line and then rather than steering/turning, once he gets to the other side of the yard (or once he ran smack into the side of the house!) he gets off and pushes the car back to the beginning and rides again. So cute!!

After the party we went back to my mom's place so we could wake up there and spend Mother's Day with her. Worked out pretty well! Our long time family friends, the Reitmeiers, came over for a 'picnic.' The original plan to go out to a local winery for a picnic got switched out since we weren't confident about the weather. After the picnic my mom, Aaron, and I drove through a north east neighborhood on a hunt for open houses. Go figure that no one was hosting any due to the holiday. But we still drove the streets and picked up fliers for homes that looked interesting. We're not looking to buy, just looking to look.

Our flight home on Sunday evening actually had a bit of excitement. As we were taxiing out to take off, some guy sitting near the wing *swore* he saw a flame. Uuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrcccccccchhhhh!!! (That's the sound of the plane screeching to a halt.) I counted at least 9 or 10 fire trucks and a couple of police cars that came out to the rescue. Apparently, once we had stopped for several minutes, which allowed the sun to set to a different angle, the guy that thought he saw a flame realized that it was actually the reflection of the sun. Doh!! Too late though. We still had to turn around and go back to the gate so that the maintenance people could do their thing. Turns out that all said and done we were only delayed by about an hour. But good Lord, we were so sick of sitting on that plane by the end of it! So happy to land in LA and get home!

More photos from the weekend are here.

Grandpa Lohrberg turns 80!

My grandpa just turned 80 and the family planned a big party for him. It had been so long since I had been to Nebraska and Aaron had never been, so we of course went for the weekend. Thursday was pretty much just a travel day, but we got to Lincoln in time for dinner with my grandparents, Aunt Rhonda, and cousin Sophie who were in town from San Diego. Friday after lunch out at a local spot my Aunt Amy and grandpa took us on a tour of the city where we got to see a nice mix of family historical spots (schools and homes from growing up) and University of Nebraska highlights. We were pretty stoked to get a personal tour of the training facilities and football stadium - thanks to Aunt Amy who has special access!

Friday evening we drove up to Omaha to my Uncle John and Aunt Amy's place to celebrate their children's birthdays. We greeted my Aunt Sue who drove in from Colorado that evening and my mom and Dave who just got to town from Oregon. We then left in time to make the drive back to Lincoln in time to catch the second half of my Uncle Bill's band playing at a local spot. They were really good and Aaron was immediately impressed when the first song we heard was a cover that is also on Rock Band (so Aaron of course knows it well) and he said that it sounded *exactly* like the original. Grandpa came out to hear his son play and even got a few birthday wishes from folks in the crowd after Uncle Bill announced to the crowd his milestone. There is a great story here about how Grandpa may or may not have snuck out of the house to get to the bar!

Saturday was the big party... we think about 110-120 people came! It was an open house at the Knolls Country Club. Aaron and I spent the time being introduced to friends, neighbors, and extended family who had all come out to wish him well. We had put together an ambiance slide show showcasing photos of my grandpa throughout the years (right click and select 'save as' to get to the powerpoint. And don't worry, Aaron is working on putting the photos online separately for those of you who don't have powerpoint). We received a lot of compliments for doing the technical labor. :) The after party was over at my Aunt Amy & Uncle Jim's place where about 40 or 50 of the family members (yes, my mom's family is that huge!) went for pizza and games.

Sunday we overslept so we missed church and once we found our keys to the rental car (doh!) we grabbed lunch and then visited two of my Uncle's homes for tours and final visits. For lunch it's worth mentioning that I officially broke my veto on Panera Bread, which I suppose I have to admit that I enjoyed the sandwich. I still wont go back to the one in Santa Monica, but the next time we are in Lincoln we can keep it in mind as a food option.

All in all it was a great weekend! We were so glad to be there to celebrate with everyone and also really treasured the quieter moments just catching up. Here are all of the photos from the weekend.

Frisco to visit Funzel

Since it had been forever since I last visited with Funzel, I made a special visit up north. My company is generous with our days off, so I took a Monday and Tuesday to hang with one of my oldest and dearest friends. We didn't have much on our agenda which was pretty nice. Mostly just hung out and caught up. We did a little shopping (necessary) and treated ourselves to a mani-pedi (also necessary). This photo is from when Aaron and visited last fall... but it deserves some blog-time. Anyone who has driven down Olive Ave in Porterville and seen the guys crouching beside their pimped out rides gets the humor in it. Good times!

Cherry Blossom Festival

Aaron and I went to the 7th Annual Cherry Blossom Festival this morning in downtown Los Angeles. Our friend's Derek and Andrea have been telling us about it for the past several years, but this was our first time heading down. Andrea's family seemed to be very involved in the festival - as we sat with Andrea to chat at her butterfly making booth, she kept introducing us to all these people in official tee-shirts and walkie-talkies. There were three stages set up for entertainment: martial arts, Hawaiian culture, and a general song and dance stage. Lots of vendors and food - we of course had some kettle corn (not exactly Japanese culture - but oh so good!). We were really glad that we went and will hopefully go again next year!

We also went up to Thousand Oaks this evening to my step-aunt's (sounds weird calling her that!) place for a get together. My dad's wife has been in town visiting and they threw a party at her place this evening. It was really nice to be invited and we had a great time getting to know some more of Sue's friends.

Oh, and last night was date night... Aaron took me to our favorite movie theater (the Landmark at the Westwood pavilion) and then to dinner at our favorite Brazilian restaurant, Bossa Nova. If you're a fan of the romantic comedy and are interested in something a little bit off the beaten path, I recommend finding a place where they are showing Priceless. It stars the same girl from Amelie and was super cute and heart warming.

Weekend in the OC

This past weekend Aaron and I went to Orange County. You see, to me Orange County is *far* and it requires a whole weekend commitment to go. We met up with Rosemary, Kelley, and Zack for a hike near Irvine Lake. It was more of a suburban hike - started out right near a street and then twisted around through some hills with some really nice homes (think swimming pools and tennis courts) in the not too distant horizon. Even though we weren't in the thick of wilderness, it was still really pretty nice and there were loads of wildflowers in bloom. I didn't remember sunscreen, so both Aaron and I ended up a little sun-kissed. Certainly not crisp, just enough to remind us that we live in Southern California where even in the month of March you can get too much sun.

That evening we went over to my mom and Dave's place where we relaxed a little before heading out for a Thai dinner and a musical at Cal State Fullerton. That's another really amazing thing about being in So Cal. For not much more than it costs to go to a movie, you get a full production musical by some really talented people.

What's up with Julie & Aaron?!

Dude... I can't believe such a long time has passed since I last posted on our blog. I'll partly blame my lack of blog effort on my overload on work things. Who wants to spend even more time in front of a computer after 12-15 hours on one at work? Yes, I have been pulling those hours lately. Blugch!

Anyway, a quick recap on all things Julie & Aaron over the past several weeks since my last post:

I have taken 7 trips to Phoenix which (I'll save you the math) averages out to more than once a week. We took a weekender up to Mammoth with Darren, Jo, Kelley, & Zach. Aaron's friend Dave treated us for Aaron's birthday to the Linkin' Park concert at Staples Center. I've been able to squeeze in a few tennis evenings with Min and enjoyed a Sunday evening with my book club (I loved the book we read this time - Peony in Love by Lisa See). We celebrated a friend's 30th birthday at a swank downtown spot. Hosted our friends Vince, Jonalyn, & Devin for brunch. Aaron of course has been playing in his Sunday basketball league and we have both been playing Friday night volleyball. Oh, and we have been spending some time out in our backyard with the hopes that it will be BBQ ready sometime in the near future.

And now... today is Easter! My Aunt Kath had us up to her house, which of course was a treat. So much good food! Grandma Drews was there and pulled a classic move which made me smile. When we were passing all the food around the table she passed her plate as though it was one of the dishes to be served. :) She of course quickly realized her mistake and handled it with grace and a smile. Good times!