Birthdays & Stuff

No one really wants to read all about birthdays, so here are a few pictures. Supposedly, a picture is worth a thousand words, and ours are worth at least 723. Enjoy

Monica & Major Tom's b-day cake. Their favorite: Lemonade pie.

Shawn & Monica @ the AZ Science Center - Chronicles of Narnia Exhibit.

Shawn, Monica & Lincoln @ Red Robin....yum, endless steak fries!!! Always Fries!

John and Monica cheesing it up for the camera.

Lincoln begging for ice cream

Monica's Hollywood boyfriend Indiana Jones came to wish her happy birthday. Oh Harrison!

Major Tom's huge cake!

A little bit of everything. . .

It's only been a month and a half since we last updated the ol' blog but we've done quite a lot of stuff in that time. So, here's a sprinkling of what's gone down:

Monica quit her job at the University of Phoenix. . .not really much else to say about it. She's been trying to adjust to being home a lot. She has suddenly become highly involved with cooking evening meals. . .I know! Honestly, as much as she gripes about not liking to cook, she's pretty dang good at it! We've had shrimp kabobs, enchiladas, and real home made hamburgers (as in, she mixed up a bunch of spices and mixed in the ground beef and made patties and cooked them on the grill homemade!) Oh, and she even learned how to scramble an egg (for Lincoln) and we are all super pround of her for that one since the smell of eggs usually sends her running screaming and crying. She's had a good time hanging out at the pool more often and running on the treadmill more.

Shawn went to Hawaii for work, Monica went to Jealous ville. Shawn's job is starting to work with some high schools on Oahu so, unfortunately, he has to go there and shmooze and get things all set up. What a crappy job he has! :) He was able to work and also play a lot while he was there. Monica's sister Emily lives there and she was his tour guide and event planner during the week he was there. She even introduced him to eating raw seafood. Here are a few pics from his trip:

We decided that since Monica was unemployed and Shawn had just been to Hawaii, why not just extend the vacation and drive to Utah! We decided we wanted to Shawn's parents to spend some QT with Lincoln. . .and us too. We stayed 4 days and celebrated Chantal's birthday with KFC in the Canyon. We do miss the mountains and the cooler temps up there (We still like the hot sun in AZ though so no "I told you so's!"). It was a fun trip. We got to just relax, hike, and eat so much good food. We gained a few extra pounds but man was that totally worth it!

So, we're back home now. Monica is looking for a part time job and Shawn is getting ready for a busy fall traveling around between AZ, CA, and bummer . . . Hawaii. The exciting thing is that Monica will be joining him on one of his Hawaii trips in October for a whole week. That's right folks, we are FINALLY taking a vacation where we are not visiting friends or family, and Lincoln gets to stay and play with Grandma and Grandpa Bullen. Yay for Shawn and Monica!

So there, the blog is updated! Ye Haw!