2 years ago today :-)

Two years ago today was an amazing and wonderful day. I married the man of my dreams at the Pepperdine Chapel surrounded by our family and friends. I am so thankful that God brought my wonderful husband Chad and I together and I am amazed to see what He has done in our lives since then.

We have been living in a one-bedroom apartment together for this entire time and I am pleased to say we have enjoyed it. You really get to know one another when you live in tight quarters. ;-) We are so excited because we are about to (Lord willing) purchase our first condo/house together and I'm sure that will provide a lot of new adventures for us.

I am such a lucky girl to have a husband who is strong, sensitive, funny, thoughtful, loving, and kind. He supports my quilting hobby and all the random projects I am working on, and is proud of what I do for a living. I am equally proud of him for all he has accomplished and how hard he works every day. I know he does it all for us and for our future and that means SO much to me.

I love you honey! :-) Happy Anniversary!

A Great Anniversary Weekend

Our 2 year wedding anniversary is this Wednesday so we celebrated this past weekend with a little getaway to the Four Seasons Hotel in Westlake Village. It was the nicest hotel I have ever seen in my entire life. The rooms were like we were living at Hearst Castle and the entire hotel felt like a museum. It's filled with amazing art and there's even pottery in the guest rooms. There was also a chandelier in our room!!! The bathroom was huge and beautiful and had a widescreen television. The toiletry items that were included were from L'Occitane which happens to be my favorite. I would highly recommend this hotel to anyone looking for a wonderful getaway. We felt like king and queen for a couple days. :-)

This is what our room looked like but ours looked out to the front of the hotel

Wiener Dog riding Skateboard

I came across this video the other day and it makes me smile. It reminds me of our dachshund snickers that we had when I was growing up. She never would have stayed on the skateboard though. :-)

The Breeders' Cup 2008 at Santa Anita

Yesterday I went to the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita and had a really good time. I almost didn't go but when I turned on the tv in the morning and saw the coverage of the event, I decided I really wanted to go. The main reason I wanted to go, is that one of the best horses ever was going to be there. Last year's horse of the year was Curlin, and he was coming back to the Breeders' Cup to go for a second win in the Breeders' Cup Classic this year. He had never raced on synthetic surface so this was a big change for him, and no one knew what to expect. But I just wanted that chance to see him in person and get some good photos. He lives back east and chances are, this will be the only time he will make the trip out here to CA. He didn't win the race, but it doesn't really matter because he's already won it once. He is a gorgeous horse and I was giddy that I got to take some close up photos of him. I waited at the walking ring for 45 minutes to make sure I had a spot. :-) Here are some photos from the event.

Free Blog Layouts

This is a really fun blog where you can get tons of great templates for your blog! I just picked one today and it was so easy to do. I was very impressed by the amount of free backgrounds available so I will be excited to check out the launch party next week. If you add the linky button to your blog, you will be eligible for giveaways!

Chihuahua with crazy radio ears

I thought this was pretty interesting!

Our Trip To Mammoth and Yosemite

A Friendly Alpaca

IMG_1553, originally uploaded by dawnsquilts.

Last weekend my dad and I made a trip to the Underwood Family Farm to pick some produce. They have a wonderful pick your own produce system set up there and also a great collection of animals. We visited the animals after we made our way through all the crops. This is an Alpaca that was very interested in saying hello.

Alaska Cruise Trip- Day 6

Today we arrived in Skagway, the northernmost point of our trip. It was one of our favorite days because we got to experience some amazing scenery and took a wonderful tour. We took the "Experience the Yukon" tour and would highly recommend it to anyone taking an Alaska cruise. Our tour guide was named Bruce and we lucked out because he's the guy who trains all the tour guides in Skagway. It was a 7 hour tour and it went by so fast, it seemed like it was about 3 hours instead.
As we headed out of the town of Skagway on our bus, we were immediately impressed by the view around us. It wasn't too long before we were crossing the Canadian border into the Yukon Territory. On the ride, we learned a lot about the the gold rush, the trail that the gold seekers took, and what life was like for them. We saw all kinds of terrain including subarctic tundra. It kind of looks like the moon because of the lack of tall trees and all the rocks. The land in that area is actually called permafrost because it stays frozen all year round. This causes the trees to not be able to grow very tall because their roots are very shallow.
After numerous stops for photo opportunities, we arrived in Caribou Crossing for lunch and some time to explore the area. The BBQ lunch was good and included all you can eat homemade donuts. We just happened to sit right next to the donut serving area so we treated ourselves to a few. They were little. ;-)
Caribou Crossing is home to an Itidarod sled dog camp and we got to visit with the dogs and hold puppies too! They were so cute and definitely a highlight. They also offered rides in wheeled sleds but we didn't do that. We watched some other people do it and were highly entertained by how excited the dogs get when they are about to pull a sled.
We did some shopping in the gift shop and it was time to head back to the bus. We took a quick little side trip to a very pretty lake called "Emerald Lake" and then headed back toward Skagway.
We stopped next in a tiny town named Carcross and had a few minutes to look around there. We were able to get our passports stamped there so that was neat. There was a little girl who couldn't have been older than 9 or 10 and it was her job to stamp everyone's passports. Very cute!
The drive back to Skagway was even more picturesque than the drive out, because the fog had lifted and we were able to see the majestic mountains surrounding us. They were all carved by glaciars and the valley is just amazingly beautiful!

The Town of Skagway

We saw this young bear from our bus. It was eating dandelions!

What an amazing view!

I loved holding the sled dog puppies

Some more beautiful scenery

One the way back, we were able to stop and walk around the subarctic tundra. These tiny trees are hundreds of years old but don't grow any taller because of the permafrost and the snow pack. It was so cold here, my hands were frozen within about 10 minutes. This area is where the movie "Into the Wild" was done.

All in all, it was a fantastic tour. If you're ever in Skagway, make sure you get to do this excursion. I would rate it a 10!

Alaska Cruise trip- Day 5

Today we woke up at 5:30am so we could view the Tracey Arm Fjords. It was well worth it and we had a wonderful time scenic cruising. Since we didn't have a balcony, we went up to the top deck to watch the scenery go by and take lots of pictures. For a while we could also hear the naturalist narrating the tour. Once we got further into the Fjords they had to stop broadcasting on the outside decks as to not disturb the wildlife in the area. It was absolutely freezing but it was so beautiful, we stayed outside for several hours. At one point we went inside to warm up and then hurried back outside so we could see the Sawyer Glacier- the highlight of the trip through the Fjords.

You can probably tell it was pretty cold by taking a look at this photo :-)

The amazing scenery

This is the Sawyer Glacier. It was pretty interesting to see how the captain maneuvered the ship through the Fjords. When we had the glacier in view, he turned the ship sideways and then flipped it around the other way so both sides of the ship could get a good view. There were a lot of people who had balconies in their rooms and were viewing everything from there.

This shows you what our view from our room was like. We were actually quite happy with it because when we booked the room we got a discount for booking a "fully obstructed view". I was picturing not being able to see daylight at all, so the fact that we could see this much was nice. That orange thing is life boat.

We sailed through the Fjords until about 10:00am and then went back to our room to warm up and get some more sleep. The ship was now headed to Juneau and we had several hours before we would get there. After napping we got up and went to go get some lunch. Today we chose to get pizza because it was quick and easy. The buffet lines were really long because everyone had the same idea and went to eat before we arrived in Juneau.

Once we arrived in Juneau we took the shuttle to town for $3. We went shopping and walked around the town for about an hour before we had to catch the shuttle back to the ship to meet our shore excursion bus. We boarded the bus and went on a tour of the city, lead by a man who has lived in Juneau for 35 years. It was really informative and we learned that there is no property tax or income tax in Juneau. The government makes all their money from oil. The residents even get dividends each year based on how much money is made. Pretty cool, huh?

The bus took us next to the Mendenhall Glacier where we went on a hike and then went to view the glacier. We were warned that there may be black bears in the area but we only saw a porcupine in a tree. It was funny though because a lot of people thought it was a bear and starting yelling, "bear! bear!".

The Beautiful Mendenhall Glacier

Chad and the Glacier

A huge waterfall next to the glacier. If you look closely you can see people at the bottom which gives a perspective on how large the waterfall is.

Kayakers in front of the glacier

Some neat ice bergs

After our tour we got off the bus in town and did some more shopping and walking around. We found a very tasty fudge shop and treated ourselves to some chocolate mint fudge. yum! When it was nearing time for the ship to leave, we took the shuttle back to the ship and went back to the room.

Dinner that night was French themed and Chad was very adventurous and had frog legs. eeek! He liked them a lot. :-) After dinner we went to the internet cafe to try to check our e-mail but the ship was having satellite connection issues so it was closed. Because we had gotten up so early in the morning, we were pretty tired. So we went back to the room to go to bed.

Tomorrow we arrive in Skagway and get to take a 7 hour tour into the Yukon territory!