Diddy Reese

When people heard that we were moving here, I often would hear, you have to go to Diddy Reese. Diddy Reese is a cookie joint where you can make your own ice cream sandwiches. When we first got here, we tried to go a couple times but the line was always way to long and I never thought it was worth it. I mean, I bake pretty darn well so who needs to wait in line forever when I can just go home and make it myself. Well, it finally took some friends coming into town to make us go. I have to say that I was impressed how good the cookies were and the line went really fast. Our dear friend Ann came into town and she grew up around here and really wanted to go so we went to Diddy Reese and had a great time.

Doug's brother Adam, his wife Lisa, and son Steven came to visit us this weekend. Off to Diddy Reese we went. There we were minding our own business in line when a homeless man came and just hit, yes hit our dear dear Steven....hard. What the heck???? He said that he did not like the way that "the baby" was starring at him. As Steven was crying, it took everything in me not to go hit him back. Call me insensitive, but that is an innocent boy he was talking about. Anyway, Diddy Reese is still the bomb but watch out for people standing around you. Who would want to hurt this adorable little guy??

Canning

Sometimes I get on these kicks and right now it is all about food storage and canning. I have been prepared for awhile with a two year amount of food storage (yep, that is what I brought to the marriage) but it was only the basics. We also have our backpacks ready with our 72 hour kits (Doug calls them our week long kits because I added so much more). I am going to have a hard time seeing other people suffer so I really want to be prepared. Lately because of some amazing women in our ward I have been learning how to cook with food storage. You can check out our enrichment blog to see recipes here. Not just getting the basics to survive but enjoying eating with it. The recipes they have taught me have been amazing and all the fun gadgets they have. My In-Laws gave us a wheat grinder for Christmas and it has been great making wheat bread with freezer jam. I have been canning the important stuff like chocolate and cake batters;) Last week I learned how to can meat, I never knew that one could can meat but you can. Other people may think that this is gross but when we really need to use it and everyone else is eating rice....again, we will be eating steak and chicken!! Yes, this does have something to do with all the earthquakes that have been happening.

Mothers Day with Mom

I know that Mother's Day was a couple weeks ago but it is never to late to do a shout out to our dear mothers!! This year I spent Mother's Day in Escondido with my brother Robert's family because my parents were there visiting. It was great to spend some time with my mom, I never realize how much I miss her until I have to leave her. We had a great weekend shopping, grilling out, and talking.....what us Finck's do best. On Sunday my dad was so sweet and bought me a bouquet of flowers, he says that in my heart I am a mother (love you dad). I was also able to spend some time with the kids and you can never beat that!! I love you mom and I am so glad that we were able to spend some time together. I so hope by next year I will be a mother for real:)

I also wanted to tell my mother-in-law how much we love and appreciate her as well. I lucked out when it comes to mother-in-laws. It has been a complete joy living closer to my in laws and getting to know them more. Doug was able to go spend the day with his mother and it makes me happy that he cares for her so much. We love you Katie!!

Crafty

I have become good friends with a co-worker named Katrina and she is expecting her first child. For her shower I offered to help with the food and she ended up hiring me to make some cupcakes and I added my own surprises. She asked me to do this because I have started to be quite the baker lately and I use my fellow employees at work as my testers because Doug thinks that everything I make is delicious (good man!!). I made the ever so good chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese filling, top with cream cheese frosting. My friend Heather came over and thought me how to use fonded so we added beautiful flowers on top. While I was at the gym with Melissa, she had mentioned seeing cupcakes that look like baby rattles and they were just adorable so we went with that. Then I once again wanted to try the mini cupcakes from bakerella so I made those with pink colored chocolate this time, they turned out so cute. Here are some photos to give you an idea:



On the shower invite it asked everyone to bring the new mother diapers but I wanted to get creative so I again asked for help from Melissa. She helped me make a diaper cake that turned out cuter then I could have ever imagined. First, we went to Joanne's to get fabric, ribbons, and bows. She then taught me how to make burp rags and wash clothes. We added the burp rags to the top of the cake then added the burp rags around the cake with the diapers and wait for it.....made suckers out of the wash clothes....so cute. Melissa is so talented, you should check out her own little business, she is amazing. Here are some more pictures to give you a better idea:

Thanks to all my friends and all their talents, I am learning so much from you:)

Happy Birthday Jenny

True to fashion lately, I am a little late at writing this post but I wanted to say Happy Birthday Jenny!!

The girls celebrated by going to a movie:



We saw 17 Again. Honestly I was not impressed with the movie but it was a fun evening with the gals.

The next day we enjoyed a BBQ with the gang and did our best at singing Happy Birthday.

Exciting Week

Last week the Halls were back to their exciting life. It started off, thanks to Papa Hall, with Doug and I going to a Clippers game. Even if they did lose by 40 points, it was still fun to go to the last game of the season and sit in great seats.

The next night, one of my dreams came true thanks again to Papa Hall. He got us floor seats to go see Bruce Springsteen in concert!!! It amazes me that he is 59 years old and still rocking it and looking good. Bruce ran around stage and was completely entertaining in jeans and his guitar. An unexpected guest, Social Distortion came and sang a couple songs with him. That is when Doug finally got excited. He sang Thunder Roads and I was in heaven.

Then the next day we went to a Dodgers game with the Larson's. This was our way of saying happy Birthday to David Sr. It was a great day, we had great seats, and got to see five home runs. It was my first time having a Dodgers Dog and I was not disapointed.

Enrichment

We had an Enrichment Activity last week that I really wanted to share, it was such a great one and all based on service. Sisters in the ward signed up to contribute services that they had to offer like babysitting, baking, photography, dinners, etc. Then at the activity the sisters that were there had a form to fill out that gave them points like, have you cooked or babysat for anyone in the ward, have you picked anyone up from the airport, have you helped the missionaries, etc. The more service you did, the more points that you earned. Then we had an auction using the points that we had. We had paddles for the sisters and everything, there was nothing that the committee forgot, everything looked amazing. It was so fun to see all the talents that we have in our ward and to see more friendships build within the Relief Society. I just thought that it was a great idea and I think that all of you should steal it for your ward.

Easter Time

Last week was Easter and it made us stop to ponder about many things in our lives. Last year at this time we were living in NY, expecting a baby, and Doug was just "talking" about moving to California. We had our NY family over for dinner and life was good. At that point I was in a very happy place and thanking the lord for all of our many blessings.

Forward to now and we are still thanking the Lord for everything that we have been blessed with. Doug got into a great school and we were able to have Easter dinner with friends and Doug's amazing family. As many people know, we had to terminate our pregnancy because the baby was growing in my tubes and was unable to grow. We are now in the process of adopting and just got approved on our home visit, this is a happy day. We are now just waiting for our background check to go through and we will be officially approved. We can't wait to have a little one bless us ever more.

In preparing for Easter this year, we had little David over to color Easter Eggs


Then went to Heather's place to make Easter Candy. These are the chocolate and coconut nest that we made for decoration.


Still good to know that Easter in 2009 for the Halls is still all good.

Instant Girlfriend

When Doug and I started dating in NYC, Doug's roommate at the time was Bill Edwards. Bill now lives in LA as well so we finally met up with him for lunch last week. We talked about the "good old days", meaning while Doug and Bill were dating. These two guys went everywhere together and were once told that they were basically the same guy. If one was asked to dinner on Sunday (which was every Sunday...look at these hotties) it was just known that the other would follow. Doug is very proud of the fact that he had great Sunday meals every week but never had to cook. When Doug asked me out for our first date, it was only fit that the following question was, can Bill come as well? Our date was a day at the beach so we invited Mala as well and off we went. A day of just hanging out turned into the wonderful marriage that Doug and I have now. Bill gave me the nickname of Instant Girlfriend because we all went from hanging out at the beach that morning to me being Doug's girlfriend by the next night. Lets just say that Doug and I knew we were meant for each other right away. Bill admits to being sad that it meant his and Doug's relationship had to come to an end but he knew that one day he was going to have to let go. It was so great to see Bill, he is one in a million (that is for all you single girls out there because yes, he is still single.)

Sayer Visit

My sister, Angela and her husband Eric and two kids Luke and Brie, came to visit us last week during spring break. They kept little Westen at home:(

We had a great time taking Brie to Disney Land for her Birthday. She had lunch with the Princesses and Luke was able to get "The Force" from the Jedi Training School. This was a good day.


We also took the kids to the beach for the first time, ever!!! It was so fun to see their excitement and it did not take to much convincing to get uncle Doug is the freezing cold water.


We then went to Robert's ranch for the weekend so that all the cousins could play together. We did the normal, rode motorcycles, rode horses, the kids road goats and milked them, and enjoyed all of Hailey's amazing cooking.


I was sad to see them go. Week's like this make you remember how important and specials families really are. I can't wait for the day when we have children of our own to share all these experiences with.

To check out all the pictures from the trip click here.