Newport and Catalina

I'm a little behind on our blogging but here's the pictures from our trip to Cali. We took a ferry over to Catalina Island for the day.

The weather was absolutely perfect.

  

We took this awesome semi submerged boat where you get to feed the fish. It was really neat.

It was some pretty high tech equipment. =)

It's kind of funny that my picture has 1 fish while Caleb's has like 20.

Clearly his picture was after we fed the fish.

I was surprised how colorful the fish were.

There were only 4 of us on the boat so we could move around to get the best views.

On the way back they let us ride up top.

This huge pelican was right next to us ready to eat small children.

 We decided to have dinner at the Irvine Spectrum

We met up with our friend Pete,

we rode the ferris wheel,

 then got a churro. Best vacation ever!

We made sure to take this cute picture to bring back for our friends and family.

We finished our basement to help sell our house and IT WORKED. We officially moved out last month. It was a pain showing our house and always keeping it clean, but luckily we only had it listed for about 4 months. We decided to move to be closer to Salt Lake where Caleb works. Plus the 650 N exit is AWFUL!! Here are the last pictures of our Clinton house.

 

 

 

 We are going to miss our ward and neighborhood, we've made so many good friends in Clinton. We were lucky to have so much help while moving we finished everything in about 2 hours.

 

We moved in with my little sister Kim, Jonny, and Baby Claire in Layton while searching for our next perfect house!

Basement - finished product

I just realized that I never posted the pictures from finishing our basement. So here you go.

Bedroom before

 

Caleb was busy studying for the GMAT during our renovation so I was lucky enough to get to put in the insulation, spackle, paint, and do about 85% of the tile work all by myself. Haha

Jed helping to frame the closet in the bedroom, while Caleb tried to de-pants him.

 I sent this picture to Caleb who was upstairs studying and said, "wish you were here"

 

 So he took a break to come see the progress.

 

Finished Bedroom

 

Bathroom Before:

 

 

We did custom tile around the shower, and it turned out to be pretty easy.

 

 

 Caleb was outside cutting the tile and came back with this awesome line across his face.

 

Finished Bathroom

We were able to finish the bedroom, bathroom, and hallway for a little under $3,000. It's kind of funny but the hardest part of the entire project was putting up the dang blinds. Haha

Natalie's Chocolate Chip Cookies

Here is the recipe for the delicious chocoloate chip cookies that Caleb swears changed his life. Just remember if you try these you'll never go back. They're just that good.

Natalie's Famous Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 c shortening

1 1/2 c brown sugar, firmly packed

1 1/2 c sugar

4 eggs unbeaten

3 1/2 c flour

2 tsp soda

2 tsp salt

2 tsp vanilla

12 oz pkg semi-sweet chocolate chips

4 cups oatmeal

Bake @ 375 for 10 minutes on greased cookie sheet