The Hunger Games Party

We never went to the movie theaters to see The Hunger Games movie. It's just to dang expensive! We decided we'd wait for it to come to Red Box. But then we found out that our good friends, Gabe and Leslie had pre-ordered it! So we started planning a Hunger Games party! After they put Brooklynn to bed, we broke out the Hunger Games themed treats that I had made and were about to start the movie when there was a knock on the door. It was the missionaries. Needless to say, they were jealous! We all chatted for a bit, then they headed on their way and we started our party!

We discovered that a lot of this food wasn't shown in the movie. You had to read the book to know about this food :)

We took some of the pictures at our house before we left, but we had to put some of the food together once we got to the Smith's house.

San Diego Scene 7

We have often driven by Torrey Pines. The area where Torrey Pines turns into Del Mar is one of our favorite beaches to take a walk on because of its beautiful cliffs. But today we decided to do some hiking in Torrey Pines. As we drove in, around 10am, we noticed the most beautiful boogie boarding waves we have ever seen! We wished we had our swimming suits and board with us and we would have ran out to them! But since we didn't, we just decided that we need to check out the websites telling you about the size of waves before we go out boogie boarding next. Hopefully that will help us pick the ideal beach for that day and time that we're going out!

Anyways, we took a hike through Torrey Pines. Although there was slight ups and downs, it was a fairly level hike. But because we're in the middle of a heat wave (we're in the 90's!) it was more than a leisurely stroll; plus, I tried to keep our pace up so that it was a little more difficult :)

When we first started hiking I kept telling Ammon, "This is just so beautiful! The colors! Look at the red rock and the blue-blue ocean! Wow!" Ammon didn't have as much enthusiasm as I did for the beauty of it all. I couldn't figure out why he wasn't taking more picutres and "ooo-awww"ing like I was. Then, I took off my sunglasses and realized my sunglasses must have some kind of tint in them. It was still all beautiful, the colors just weren't as vividly beautiful. I laughed and told Ammon how my sunglasses were making it more beautiful.

Kimberly, the last picture is for you!

Take A Look!!!

Take a look at our updates...AND there's still more to come! Don't miss our new blogs that date back to April (shame on me, I know, for not doing it sooner)!

Enjoy!

Eggetts come to California

As July came to an end and August began, we had a fun week with my family! My parents had originally planned to come into town a week later, so Ammon and I had planned a camping trip with a few friends. When my parent's trip got moved up, we just re-worked our schedule a little.

On Friday, Ammon took a half day at work and we headed to Julian, CA. We had heard fun things about this small town, and thought that our campground was close to it. We had an enjoyable time, but it was a lot smaller than we had thought it would be! We had planned to spend a few hours there, and was able to stretch our time and stay for a whole hour! We were listening to The Hunger Games audiobook during our drive, so we just went to our campsite and listened to the book for a bit longer. We walked around the Dos Picos Campground for a bit, then started a fire to cook our tin foil dinners. Since we were only going to be staying one night, we decided not to bring our tent, but brought hammocks instead. However, this campsite didn't allow anything in the trees. Lucky for us, we brought our air mattress as well. But we didn't end up using it. After our friends arrived, we ate dinner, roasted smores, and had a great time around the fire. When we were all heading off for bed, Ammon and I decided to just drive home instead. It meant a better nights sleep, and we didn't feel like we'd miss out on much by going home now, since everyone else was going to sleep now anyways!




Saturday morning we woke up well rested - maybe a little tired because we had been up so late, but our bodies weren't hurting from camping :) We still had to do some camping clean up before the family all came over in a few hours. My parents had driven to CA all day Friday, then Saturday morning went to the Safari Park with Elise's family. After the Safari Park, they came over to our place and the kids "took a nap" (or that was the plan) then we all went down to our pool and played there. JD was so cute because some other people in the pool were playing with a big ball, and that was THE ONLY THING that JD was interested in! So Ammon went and found a few of our balls that JD could play with in the pool. JD loved it! That night we brought in food from The Kebab Shop for dinner. I think everyone LOVED it!! It is one of our most favorite restaurants, and one that we will DEARLY miss after we have moved! Visit www.thekebabshop.com if you want to be jealous :)

Sunday we went to church, then came back to our place and mostly relaxed the rest of the day. Oh, the reason my parents ended up coming a week earlier than originally planned was because my dad had a business trip here in San Diego this week. My dad's meetings started Sunday afternoon, so he took off to his meetings and the three of us just hung out here at the house. This trip was very much more relaxed than the last time my parents were here. We mostly just enjoyed eachother's company!

On Monday Dad and Ammon had to go to work, so Mom and I went shopping! We had a great time and found some great new things - all at JC Penny's; one of our favorite clothing stores! After work, the 4 of us had and my dad made the most amazing cookies for us! It's his famous chocolate chip cookie recipe, but instead of chocolate chips, he put in white chocolate chips and craisins! They're to die for!

On Tuesday after the men went to work, Mom and I made yummy pumpkin muffins. Then we went to San Clemente to spend the day with Lina, Elise and her kids. We made some very cute cards that Mom had prepared for us! It was a lot of fun!

Wednesday...Mom and I made more cards during the day, then went and picked up the men from work and headed out to Coronado Island. We had a picnic dinner (thanks Subway!) on the beach then went boogie boarding. There was a slight breeze, I had goose bumps, so Ammon had a hard time convincing me to get in the water. But once I got in, I was tons warmer! We had a blast boogie boarding with my dad, and my mom had fun watching from the beach. We saw a lot of dolphins, and some got really close to us at one point! We had awesome waves and were catching them quite easily!

Thursday was Dad's last day of meetings, and he got done at noon. So Ammon took a half day as well, and we headed to Del Mar. One thing that we had wanted to do while living here in San Diego was go to the Del Mar Race Track to watch some horse races. So we did! We had such a wonderful time! Dad had enough foresight to bring along a little fun money (Mom's comment after placing a few bets was, "Now I understand why he said we needed some cash today!" Lol!). After we got the hang of the betting, we did pretty good! Ammon and I want to go again! Next time we'll do better at it and hope to make back the money we had to pay to get in ($6/person)!




Friday came very early in the morning for us. We were taking the first boat at 7:30 am to Catalina, and it departed from Dana Point, about an hour north of us. This was another "small" city, but much better that Julian in that there was actually things to do there! Because we're spoiled by our San Diego beaches, the beaches on Catalina didn't do much for us, but we loved exploring the city! We wish we would have had more time to wander around and explore. We took a tour of The Casino which is a performing arts center. It was named The Casino because the definition for Casino is "A social gathering place." There was a large theater and also a large ballroom that we got to see. If anybody had pictures from this day, feel free to send them my way, I don't have any :(

My parents stayed in San Clemente for a couple more days to spend more time with Elise's family before heading home. We had a wonderful time with them and are so glad they could come! Unfortunately we didn't get many pictures with them, but we made many memories!

San Diego Scene 6

San Diego County Fair
We went to the San Diego County Fair at the Del Mar Fairgrounds with our friends Gabe and Leslie Smith and Caitlin Penrod. It was fun! We walked around and saw everything then we picked a couple of rides to go on, and finally, we tried some fried food which the fair is famous for! We got a sampler plate to share that had deep fried Zucchini, onion, chicken and a twinky. The twinky was kind of gross, the rest of it, we'd had before and knew we'd like it. It was a lot of "deep fried"ness and we couldn't finish it all!
Ammon had fun taking pictures of all the deep fried food booths. Take a look at it all!



Mormon Night at the Padre's
That night we went to Mormon Night at the Padre's with Gabe and Leslie. We went to a BYU Alumni Tailgate Party before the game. It was kind of a lame Tailgate Party, but hey, we got a free hot dog ;) Before the game, they mentioned The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints multiple times and they had one of the General Authorities come out on the field. Petco Park is in downtown, near the airport, so we watched planes that were really low and close to the stadium! The picture Ammon got of one of the planes was one of the farter away planes.

Husband's Day

We for a couple of weeks we had been planning a Saturday at the beach including friends (Gabe and Leslie and 2 year old Brooklynn) and food. Friday night Ammon came home from work with a list of things we were going to do at the beach. And I think we accomplished them all.

Saturday morning I gave Ammon an early Husband's Day (Father's Day) present...a Boogie Board! Then we headed off to the beach! Our friends who came with us also had a boogie board, so have 2 at the beach was perfect! We'd take turns going out and riding the waves! (Check!) We found that if we go out pretty far, one of us gets on our board, wait for the perfect wave, then give them a big push, then they can ride the wave all the way in. It was such a blast! We also brought kite-making materials to the beach and made kites! (Check!) Complete with wooden dowels, string, white trash bags and markers! We forgot to bring tails, so we tied some smarties candy that we had brought to string and made that our tail. They didn't fly super well, but we had fun making them at least! We also made sculptures in the sand! (Check!) We had sea turtles, star fish, and faces; Brooklynn had a fun time smashing them for us when we were all done! Our epic fail of the day was not enough sun screen. It'll take a few days for us to really feel better. We're still sleeping with ice packs :(

On Sunday we had English Muffin sandwiches for breakfast, went to church, relaxed (I think we just watched movies and frequently put on aloe lotion) and had Parmesan Chicken for dinner! We finished Husband's Day with some Howie's Root Beer (Ammon's favorite brand of root beer) and ice cream cake!

I think this weekend was a success!

California Travels

Coastal Drive

On Friday we began our drive up the coast towards San Francisco. We made many stops and detours on our trip to see things! Our first stop was at the Newport Beach Temple (the pink temple). We just drove around it, then continued on our way. Next was the LA Temple, where we stopped and went into the Visitor's Center. It was a very cool Visitor's Center because it was interactive. There were screens where you could choose to watch segments about the Church, the LA Temple, there were ipad's with kid activities on them, just a ton of really fun things to do! We continued our drive through Malibu - just because everyone's heard of Malibu - and stopped for lunch there. Then we headed north to Santa Barbara. We loved this cute town! We stopped and walked the beach and learned that the ocean water up north isn't as warm as it is in good ol' San Diego! We drove through down town, which seemed to be a hoppin place in the middle of the afternoon on a Friday! Oh, the reason we wanted to stop in Santa Barbara is because that is where the TV show Psych is filmed. We didn't see anything in particular from the show - although we did see a Santa Barbara Police Station, and it is NOT the one from the TV show :( but still had an enjoyable time there! We continued north along the coast, which was so beautiful. We went past a famous castle called the Hearst Castle which is now a museum. The castle is up on the hill, so we couldn't see it very well, but the area is beautiful! There were so many jaw dropping beautiful ocean views, we had to keep stopping! When you're looking at our pictures of today's drive, notice our "Utah" pictures :) We drove through Big Sur National Park, which continued to have beautiful views, or so Ammon told me. This point in the road got so curvy I just had to keep my eyes ahead of us. I'm used to mountain driving, but this was so much worse! Tighter curves, and more of them! I went and looked at the google map of the road after getting back, and there's no way that map can be right. Either that, or we somehow got onto the wrong road for a while! We finished our drive for the day in Monterey, where a friend of ours lives. So we spent the evening hanging out with Ellen! It was so much fun to see her again! We hadn't seen her for about 2 years!

San Francisco

Saturday was a fun day as we finished our drive to San Francisco and spent the day there! When we first got into the Bay part, our first mistake was we ended up on one of those stereotypical San Fran roads where you have to stop 10 feet behind the car in front of you because you're scared when they start to go, they'll roll back into you! The hill was CRAZY! (see pictures below!) The first place we went to was The Cable Car Museum. We weren't sure what to expect, but were SO glad that we went! It was awesome seeing how the cable cars work, learning about them, and actually seeing the cables moving, knowing they were being used at that exact moment! Next we went to China Town and walked around the shops and scoped out restaurants for lunch. Mmmm Mmmm, it was yummy! After China Town, we went for a drive on another steep hill, this time on purpose! There is a famous block that people go to to take pictures. They have made the road into switchbacks, I suppose to give people a longer time looking at the view since steepness of the road doesn't seem to be an issue in San Fran. We walked around that neighborhood for a while, then continued our day to the Golden Gate Bridge. It happened to be the 75th Anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge, so there was a big festival going on the next day so the roads were crazy busy. So we didn't drive on it, but we got some fun pictures! We even got to watch some wind surfers and kite surfers (who knows what the real name of these sports are, but that's what we called them!). Next we walked through an art garden. The art was the pillars and structures that we walked around in (see pictures). Our last destination in San Fran for the day was Fisherman's Wharf. Granted, we went to a lot of places there! We enjoyed just walking the streets, we bought some sour dough bread (it was okay, not the best we've ever had) at a factory where you could watch how it was made, went to Pier 39, watched spray paint artists, and Ammon claims I MADE him go to Ghirardelli Square (since he doesn't like chocolate - wink wink - it was torture for him to HAVE to be there ;) We BOTH enjoyed it! We even bought a bag of their chocolates and liked them a lot!

We headed over the Bay Bridge to walk around the Oakland Temple, and were lucky enough to get there right in time for the sunset! We went to a Jack In The Box to get dinner on our way to our hotel, but the lights in the lobby were kind of low, so we weren't sure if it was open. It was only 8:00ish on a Saturday night, so we were surprised! But they were open, so we went in and ordered our food. While waiting to get our food (which we were planning on eating at the restaurant), we mentioned that because the lights were so dim and the sign by the road wasn't lit up, we weren't sure if they were open or not. The worker then told us that she's guessing the lights were that way was because a week ago their store got robbed, and just a couple days ago, a man got mugged in their parking lot. We then asked for our food to go. I liked the idea of eating in our hotel rather than the restaurant at that point!

Yosemite

On Sunday we woke up and started our drive to Yosemite. We had planned a stop at a Super Walmart that was along the way to pick up some produce for while we were camping. I took for granted having a local Super Walmart's in Utah; San Diego doesn't like "super" stores for some reason (It was a HUGE deal that we got a Super Target down the road from where we live), but around here, they're the best quality food for the money. Anyways, when we got to our campground, we set up our tent and cleaned out the car a little, then headed to Yosemite! Our campground was very nice, but ended up being farther away from Yosemite than we had thought. It was okay, just meant we had to plan extra time for driving. We drove most of the way to Glacier Point, then found out there was an hour and a half wait to get into the parking lot, so we decided we'd go back on Tuesday, when the crowds had died down some. But it was still a beautiful drive! We stopped at a lookout point on our way down, it was called Inspiration Lookout. We walked up a path for a little ways, but dusk was quickly approaching and we wanted to get down before it got too dark. We decided to end the day with a sight seeing drive through Yosemite Valley. That was a mistake! It felt like EVERYONE was trying to get out of Yosemite to drive home, and so we got stuck in traffic! The first line of cars we saw were all trying to turn left (towards the exit), so we thought we'd be smarter than them and go straight. Unfortunately, just around the next corner, traffic was at a complete stop in both lanes of traffic. We talked about how maybe the traffic was because a bear was walking near the road. But when we finally got out of the mess, we decided it was just traffic causing the delays. We got back to our camp site late, so we ate dinner (luckily it didn't require a fire!) and then went to bed.




We slept in on Monday, it was a vacation, what can you expect?! Ate a yummy omelet and pancake breakfast, then drove to Yosemite. We spent the day in the Tuolumne Valley area. We had planned to do a couple of hikes that day, but the roads to get to the trail heads were all still closed. Which meant that to do a particular hike, you first had to hike the road to the trail head...haha. So by the time we did one hike, it was just late enough, that we decided not to do a second hike. We hiked to May Lake. It was a beautiful hike, full of plants, trees, and large rocks (like in Moab). The lake itself was gorgeous too! We hiked around the lake a bit, ate some snacks, talked with a few other hikers (including some Russian's that Ammon talked too), and simply enjoyed nature! After our hike we finished our lunches at Tenaya Lake then continued to drive up the road a ways. When we got back to our camp site, Ammon got a fire going, and I prepared the food to be cooked! We also had smore's to roast. We played some card games, then headed off to bed!




Tuesday began (after sleeping in again, of course) with us driving (again) to Glacer Point. There are so many huge trees in Yosemite, that we decided to stop and take a picture with one. We got to drive right up, no delays, it was wonderful! When we got there, the Glacier Point outlook was actually closed off, the police said they were investigating, that a man either jumped or fell off of Glacier Point the night before. Apparently the Glacier Point outlook had been closed all morning, but then they opened it up about 5 minutes later. It was beautiful seeing everything from so high! Next we went down to Yosemite Valley again, thank goodness there wasn't any traffic this time! And we hiked Vernal Falls. It reminded us of Timpanogos Caves hike, where it is hard because it's so steep. But again, we had a wonderful time! The last .2-.3 miles was all stairs, and I finally understood who would use the stair climbers at the gym! After hiking to the top of Vernal Falls, we went to Yosemite Falls, which we found out is the tallest waterfall in the United States. We had planned to hike to the lower fall, but then found out that our choices were a 30 minute round-trip leisurely walk to the bottom of the falls, or a 6-8 hour hike to the top of the upper falls. Unfortunately, we had to choose the bottom of the falls because we still had so much we wanted to see on our last day in Yosemite. Last, we went to Bridalveil Falls and again just went to the base of the falls. Then we said goodbye to Yosemite and went back to our campground.



Wednesday was a long day in the car as we drove home. As we were approaching our exit on the freeway, Ammon said, "It's nice to be home. This feels like home, doesn't it?" and I replied, "Ya, it really does feel like home." We sure do love San Diego! We're grateful for the opportunity we have to live in California and see all of the beauty here!