May - June 2013

May and June have been a very busy and exciting two months!  The beginning of May found us traveling up the coast to visit our friends in Salinas, CA.  It was Emilee's 2nd trip up there, and besides the occasional tired fussing in the car, she was a pretty good sport.

We went wine tasting, except for my friend Kristen and I, since we are both pregnant (about 3 weeks apart!).  We enjoyed food and cheese tasting instead. We spent the majority of the trip hanging out in Carmel finding places to taste food and wine.  Emilee really enjoyed the cheese tasting as well!

On our way back, we took Hwy 1 down the coast with our friends to enjoy the scenery.  On our way down, we made stops in Big Sur, saw the elephant seals in San Simeon, and took a tour at Hearst Castle.  It was a fun trip, one of many more to come in the future I'm sure. :-)

We went out to dinner at the Lazy Dog Cafe for Mother's Day, with my parents, Camille & Brendan, and grandparents.  The food was wonderful, as was the company. 

June found us spending Father's Day weekend visiting my grandparents in Silent Valley, Banning.  It was a peaceful and wonderful visit.  It was also nice having no phones to distract us (there's no cell service there).  We took Emi to the baby pool in her baby floaty, which she just loved!  And we spent quality time visiting with my grandparents - overall such a relaxing and wonderful Father's Day weekend!

Yesterday, my mom, sister and I took Emi to the beach for her first official beach day!  We drove down to Seal Beach where we browsed the seashell shop, then set up a fun spot on the sand to soak up the sun and play in the water.  Emilee was an absolute water baby! She loved walking on the wet sand, and even when a small wave knocked her on her butt in the water, she loved it! I think we have ourselves a little beach bum. 

This weekend we had our trip to Iowa scheduled, but ended up making a few changes.  Matthew went for the both of us, as flying pregnant with a 15 month old would have been rough, I wouldn't have been able to do much once there, and we decided we needed to save money for the next baby coming.  Flying with kids can be expensive - not to mention all the luggage.  We still have yet to take Emi on a plane, but I'm sure it won't be too long knowing how we travel.

As for the kids, Emilee is 15 months old today.  She's now walking everywhere, she can shake her head "yes" and "no", and is just blossoming into a little toddler!  Yesterday she mimicked using the phone for the first time.  She's a little late with her talking, but she babbles all the time and says "mama", "dada" and "yaya".  I'm excited for her to have a language growth-spurt in the near future hopefully.  Talking with your children has to be one of the most exciting milestones! 

Our 2nd little one will be 18 weeks along next Tuesday.  I can feel the tiny kicks and am starting to finally look pregnant.  It's becoming very real and very exciting! Only 5 more months to go!

Anyway, that is all for now.  Looking forward to this summer! Hope everyone stays cool. :-)

January - April 2013

Life has been moving at a quick and steady pace for the Ott family!

January found Mom and Dad celebrating their 28th wedding anniversary, and Emilee learning how to stand up with support.

February we went to Big Bear for super bowl weekend, and Emilee got to experience snow for the very first time! She looked like a little marshmallow puff in her snow suit.

Emi also celebrated her first Valentine's Day by going to get frozen yogurt with mommy.

March found us busy preparing for Emilee's 1st birthday party, and even more thrilling, we found ourselves expecting a new baby - due this Thanksgiving!  

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to take many pictures of Em's birthday, but I did get the whole party on video. It was so wonderful to have all of our friends and family from out of state visit, and just to see how many wonderful people came to help celebrate Em's big day! We are so blessed!

We also celebrated our first Easter in our new home, complete with an overabundance of food!  It was a very relaxing day with family.

April has been a wonderful month as well! We celebrated Mom's birthday with a lobster/steak dinner at our house, and then Grandma, Mama and I went to a tea parlor the next morning. 

Camille and Brendan got engaged, and we couldn't be happier to soon be adding such a wonderful guy to our family!  Camille also celebrated her 24th birthday and college graduation today at the Old Spaghetti Factory.

Overall, life is good!  We are planning a few trips in the near future, as we won't have as much time (or funds) once our newest addition comes into the world. :-)  Some of our destinations include Monterey (CA), Colorado, Iowa and Redding (CA).  We are looking forward to so many wonderful things!

(Here is a short video of Emilee's 1st year of life, including a little bit of the pregnancy.)

Annual Cabin Trip #3

If you have ever seen the movie, The Bucket List, you might have found it to be a sad story. On the other hand, it has a very good point... you only live once, so why not have a list of things to accomplish before kicking the bucket?

Four of our close friends from college (Tony, Kristen, Amanda & Michael) started such a Bucket List with Matt and me. One of the items, was to have an annual cabin snow trip. Our first trip was in 2009. We spent two nights in Big Bear, along with another couple. 2010, we found ourselves flying to a family friend's cabin in Tahoe, located at the Northstar Resort, for the Superbowl weekend. Needless to say, it was an amazing trip, and the six of us decided to make Tahoe our main cabin trip location!

This past weekend was our 3rd annual trip, and it was by far, the most spoiling cabin vacation yet! Kristen and Tony found round-trip plane tickets to Tahoe that were only $275 for two people! Tony's brother lent us a free parking pass at LAX (which would have been $60 for 3 nights). Amanda was able to get a coupon for a free weekend stay at Northstar, as well as free ski lift tickets!

The perks were endless on this trip. Aside from our cabin and lift tickets being free, there was a snowboard demo happening that weekend, so the boys got free board rentals! The girls and I also managed to get free snowmobile rides, and gondola tickets to ride up to the ski resort. It was all too good to be true, and we were certain something was going to go wrong with all the good luck... well, we missed a free 30 minute concert by James Blunt. haha. Ridiculous!!!

The cabin itself was absolutely amazing. It was a 2-story, 2 bedroom, 1 bath, cabin condo, with a spectacular view! The weather was gorgeous, and the snow was great. Our first night there we stocked up on groceries, and unpacked in the cabin.



(the ski resort makes the best Bloody Mary's!).


The second day (Saturday), the boys woke up early to hit the slopes. The girls and I relaxed in the cabin for a while before hitching a gondola ride up to the ski resort. We got a table inside, overlooking the slopes, where we were able to watch for the guys, and enjoy some hot drinks.

After a full day, the six of us decided to have a progressive dinner of sorts. Our first stop was at Oliver's for wine, fondue and cheese. Stop #2 was TC's Pub for a beer, hot wings and mozzarella sticks, and our final destination was The Chocolate Bar for dessert fondue, truffles, and chocolate martini's. We ended the night lounging by one of the resort fire pits, before heading back to the cabin to watch a movie in our PJ's.



Amanda, Kristen and me on the gondola

Beautiful pink sunset over Oliver's

The third day (Sunday), the boys were up early on the mountain again. The girls and I checked out a few of the surrounding areas, and were able to take a gondola straight up to the top of the mountain!

By 2pm we headed back and got food ready for the Superbowl. After the game (which we were all happy the Packers won!), we headed down to the resort village to have smores and hot coco by one of the fire pits. We wrapped up the night having steaks and watching a movie back at the cabin.

Our final day (Monday), the boys hit the slopes one last time while the girls and I browsed the village. We all met up later for gelato - despite how cold it was - and then headed to the airport for our flight home.

Overall, it was the best cabin trip yet! While I usually love getting a day of snowboarding in, it was incredibly relaxing to hang with the girls and let the boys use the free lift tickets. Definitely my favorite Bucket List item so far! We all see this trip continuing, even something we can enjoy with kids later!

Summer Flies By!

Summer always seems to fly by! And August was no exception, it was definitely an exciting and busy month for us.

We started the month going to the Harvest Crusade held at the Angel Stadium. Neither of us had ever been, and we wanted to experience it together. It was really a neat experience!

The following day was my Godson's 2nd birthday party. I can't believe the little guy is already 2! The theme of the birthday was a summer favorite - Pool Party! Besides the pool of course, there was a giant water slide I got the guts to go on - and so I got to enjoy being a kid myself for a bit. :-) Big props to Sarah, Bonnie, and the rest of the family for throwing a wonderful birthday party for Logan!

The following weekend, Matt and I joined my parents, Camille and friends on a boating trip to Catalina! We went to celebrate Lauren's 21st birthday and my 24th. We managed to squeeze 7 people on my parent's boat. (below is a picture taken from the other side of the island)

We had the boat moored at the Isthmus, so we walked from one side of the island to the other, and other than hanging out on land, we lounged on the boat.

Overall, it was a great trip! Very relaxing, and a wonderful mini-vacation.

The Monday we got home, Matt had to leave for a bachelor party (he's a groomsman in our friends' wedding), and so for my actual birthday, I had a relaxing family dinner at my parent's house. :-)

The weekend after that (I'm telling you, it's been non-stop! haha), we had a double date with our friends Steph and PJ, followed by an outdoor movie picnic the next night with Tony and Kristen. We had a blast that weekend. It's hard to beat good friends and good food. :-)

Finally, this last weekend in August, I got to celebrate Katie's Bachelorette party and Bridal Shower!

I have a funny feeling that this fall is going to fly by as well... 3 weddings, holidays, Matt's and my 1st Anniversary... looking forward to it all!!

Vegas Trip

So Matt and I recently went to Vegas with a few friends, and needless to say... we had a great time!

We carpooled Friday evening with Joe, Kevyn and Michael - 5 people and their luggage in one car is always fun! haha. I do love when we carpool to Vegas though - it makes the ride so much more enjoyable.  When you have 4 hours to kill, it's nice having friends to mingle with.

Once we got there, it was a nice 100 degrees outside at 8:30pm.  We made our way over to our hotel, The Palazzo.  We've never stayed there before, but Amanda was able to get a really great discount - and so we got to stay in a suite! (below is Matt standing in the lounge area of our suite)

Now let me tell you about this suite - it was amazing! King-size bed, remote control black-out curtains, two flat screen TV's, fridge, two sinks in the bathroom with granite counter tops, and even the shower had three shower-heads! It was vacationing in luxury! (or sleeping in luxury, since that's really all we did in the suite)

Our first night there, we freshened up and went down to the casino area and found a dueling piano lounge.  It was really fun - and we had great seating.  But like all things in Vegas, they freely took our money, and didn't quite give us what we wanted in return (like playing our song requests!) - but overall, it was a fun first night. :-)

 The next day I managed to wake up at 8:30am (with the help of my friends calling me), and went down to the pool with Amanda, Kristen, Tony and Michael.  I let Matt stay and sleep - but he joined us later around noon.  The pool was really nice! It was on the 3rd floor, and had a great little restaurant where you could get breakfast.  We spent the majority of our time there lounging in the shade and reading magazines.  We finally got in the water though once the temperature got too unbearable in the shade.

We spent the rest of the day walking through the new City Center (Aria), and then met up with Joe, Kevyn and Michael at the Paris Buffet.

While I love Paris usually, I was really unimpressed with their food this time.  The prime rib was so salty it almost crunched in my mouth as I chewed it... at least they couldn't mess up the shrimp cocktail. :-) After that, Matt and I went back to our suite and napped for a couple hours - oh  my gosh, I forgot how good naps feel!!!

After everyone was full and rested, we got ready to begin our night! We started the night with Blackjack and Roulette.  Matt and I had a pretty good system worked out - he would lose our money, and I would win it back. :-) I don't play Blackjack... Roulette is my game!

We decided to try and find a Fat Tuesday next (our favorite daiquiri bar - they have amazing slushy drinks!).  We ventured from the Palazzo to Caesar's Palace, but were 30 minutes late - they were already closed. I found it funny how we all were surprised that it was closed at 12:30am! haha. Vegas spoils you with its all-night hours... but I guess not all things are open all night after all.

We settled for this other place called "Numb"... but their drinks were nowhere near as good. After that, we started splitting off going our separate ways.  Joe, Kevyn, Michael, Matt and I ended up getting into a dance club for free... but when we got in, the place was small, packed, smokey, and was an older age-group with quite a few interesting characters.  We didn't stay longer than 5 minutes before we left, and Matt and I went back to our hotel to sleep.

Sunday - Joe, Kevyn, Michael, Matt and I packed up and headed out.  We stopped at this REALLY amazing omelet place for breakfast first. I love hole-in-the-wall places like that. :-) Plus it was nice since it was off the strip, so the prices were decent and it wasn't crowded. We then started our 4 hour drive home.

Overall, it was a great weekend. It was wonderful seeing all our friends!

Our Travels!

Matt and I both share a passion for traveling, and going places. However, I never realized how much we constantly go until I had co-workers tell me a couple weeks ago, "You sure travel a lot!". Granted that Matt and I are young, both working, no kids yet, and can easily pick-up-and-go... I guess it just seems natural to take those breaks.

I went on a lot of family vacations growing up... camping trips, snow trips, river trips, beach trips, boating, Colorado, San Francisco, Palm Springs, etc. I can't remember a time in my life where I wasn't going somewhere at least once every month or so... and it didn't have to be far either. I guess I adopted this lifestyle since I've become an adult. Last year was the most extravagant for me yet! January 2009 I flew to Buffalo, NY to visit one of my best friends. It was my first flight by myself! I got to go into Canada and see Niagra Falls too! Throughout the rest of 2009, there were a couple cabin trips, Monterey trips, San Diego trips, and best of all... Matt's and my Honeymoon to Jamaica!

I love that Matt and I have these times to escape everything! This weekend we are spending 4 days in Monterey to visit a couple close friends. We've been looking forward to it for over a month now! Life's too short not to enjoy and experience the places around us!

Anyway, I'll try to post pictures when we get back! Hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend!