A reminder to be strong and courageous.

We had a very fun Memorial Day weekend! Andy and Mary flew in Friday night and stayed through Monday Afternoon. We of course started the fun at In N Out; Jonathan got a 4x4 and Andy got a burger "animal style", me and Mary just got classic ones. Saturday we got up early, went to breakfast at Posh Bagel and then to Half Moon Bay (with Shinobi in tow) and then headed to Stanford's campus and Downtown Palo Alto for sightseeing and more good food. Sunday we went to San Francisco and wandered around Fisherman's Wharf and Golden Gate Park. When our legs couldn't take anymore walking, we returned home for BBQ, Mexican, and Thai pizzas and the Terminator movie (which features our Governator and some lovely imagery of the Bay Area after a nuclear bomb). This morning we strolled around Los Altos and enjoyed the sunshine until we had to take our friends to the airport. It was great seeing familiar faces! Shinobi loved having them here too and is exhausted from all the attention he got.

I am happy to report my basil is growing back and there are some strawberry leaves in my mini garden. We are still going strong with our workout and just completed week 5!

It was another busy week. Jonathan is done with his first Advertising class and will be starting the next one in June. His intern program is almost done too.

I met up with Sakura at Ikea on Friday night. We spent almost 4 hours there! It is so huge! And they have such cheap food! And cheap everything! I managed to leave there with only the essentials: a new throw pillow, a bamboo plant for my desk at work, a cheap milk frother for our at home coffee drinks, and a candle.
This weekend the temperatures were in the 90's so we escaped the heat on Saturday by going to the beach. We checked out Pacifica for the first time. They have some really cute beaches and there were a ton of surfers out. Shinobi is turning 2 years old next weekend, but since the Andy and Mary will be visiting, we celebrated this weekend by letting him dig in the sand and chase rocks on the beach. We went to the movies/air conditioning to watch Star Trek last night with Pete and Charissa. Unfortunately/fortunately we have a heated pool so it doesn't provide much relief on days like this.

Here are some photos from Pacifica, all the little black dots are surfers:

It was an interesting week overall. Jonathan had two twelve-hour days for work because of meetings. I started a bible study on Deuteronomy with Charissa and Stacey at our apartment on Wednesday nights. My beautiful basil got mysteriously eaten one night by some sort of critter. We had our usual Thursday night Lost/The Office with the Nick and Stacey. We had Pete and Charissa over for dinner and hanging out on Friday and got lunch at a delicious pot pie restaurant in Los Altos with the Nick and Stacey on Saturday. Our car hit the 60K mark and cost us a pretty penny to get maintenance on today. And it rained two days this week!

We are starting week four of our workout and are looking forward to a little more relaxed week ahead.

It was a little rainy this weekend so we started Saturday morning with coffee and bagels (our favorite ritual), ran a lot of errands, did a lot of cleaning, and had Jordan and Allison over Saturday night.

On Friday, May 1st, I celebrated my 18th born-again birthday which is pretty exciting. It was good to look back on how far I have come and realize how much more I have to learn. We went to a Young Life fundraiser dinner tonight and it was nice to reflect on how much being a student leader through that ministry shaped me through my high school years.

I want to give a shout out to our 15th set of visitors, Andy and Mary, coming down in a few weeks. We are excited to see you both. And the Russell and Sara have confirmed a visit to the Gowins Gardens Bed and Breakfast in October :)