Birthday BBQ

Being that Josh had to work on my Birthday we decided to have a little Birthday BBQ on Friday night.  We made my favorite meal, Tri-Tip!  My Dad makes it the best but Josh and I are getting pretty good at making it ourselves!  We had a great night of food and laughter.  

One extra fun thing about my Birthday this year was that Jackson was actually in town for the first time in about 4 years.  He used to have a recruiting trip every September but now that he is higher up on the totem pole in his office he no longer has to do that trip.  It was so much fun to have him here!  The other cool thing was that Little Jackson got to meet Big Jackson for the first time!   Baby Jackson got a kick out of Jackson, it was really cute!

Emily now lives in Burbank so her and Aaron were able to come for the BBQ, it's great to have them so close now!!!  

My Birthday

I had a wonderful birthday this year!  This was the huge poster that the Campus Aids put up in my window, it was so cute!  The kids were so sweet.  Russell came up to me right away and said... "I almost fell out of my chairw this morning when I looked at the calendar and say that it was your burfday!"

Josh was so sweet and sent me flowers!  This is what happens when you try to take pictures in a classroom with first graders... you get first graders in your pictures!!

That same little guy actually took this picture of me, he was so impressed with himself for taking the picture that he started jumping and laughing.  It was too cute!  The next day he brought be a gift in a bag and he came in saying "look Mrs. Ambrose... PINK AND PUPPIES!"  It was a pink bag with puppies and he was so proud that he remembered two of my favorite things.  They are so funny!  They get so excited about these things.  

Josh actually had back to school night on my birthday so he came home and had dinner with me but then had to rush back to school.  Wa wa wah!  My wonderful friends couldn't leave me a lone on my birthday evening so they came and got me and surprised me by taking me to Disneyland.  They had me going when they stopped at this German food place and said that was the surprise... I was pretty sure it wasn't true but it was pretty funny!  Having your birthday at Disneyland is fun because you get a Birthday button and you get to talk on the phone to Goofy who wishes you Happy Birthday.   It was exciting to me anyway, because it was my first Disneyland Birthday!  Majide!!

 

It was a fantastic day, I felt so loved!  

Bryan Clay

It's pretty cool to be able to say that the greatest athlete in the world goes to our church!  We go to Baseline Community Church in Claremont which is the same church that Bryan Clay and his wife Sarah go to.  Bryan competes in the Decathlon and won the silver medal in Athens in 2004.  I remember it well because it was the first Summer Josh and I were married.  Bryan also went to APU so we heard a lot about him at the time.  This year he won the gold medal in Beijing.  Winning the Decathlon earns you the title of worlds greatest athlete.  That's a pretty sweet title.  Sunday was the first time since the Olympics that Bryan and Sarah were back at church.  They have been traveling the world doing all sorts of fun and exciting things related to the Olympics.  He has been appearing on Television shows and doing commercials too.  At church we had a big Olympic style BBQ with fun little relays for the kids.  Bryan was nice enough to sign autographs and take a few pictures with us.  The girl in the picture with me is a friend of mine, Christina.  Needles to say everyone at church was feeling pretty proud and excited!

Back to School

So, it's Sunday night and once again I have the Sunday night blues! School is off to a great start, it's just the getting up early part that bums me out! We have been back it school for a week and a half now, and I think it's going to be a great year! I only have 18 students which is a great number. It also makes a huge difference that this is my 3rd time teaching first grade. I finally feel some what relaxed and like I actually know what to expect. It's hard to believe that this is already my 4th year of teaching. Time goes by so fast!!! This group of kids is so cute, they are already cracking me up. One little boy named Russell, sooooo cute, keeps calling me beautiful. As he is leaving each day he says "Bye Beautiful!" Another little guy Ethan is new to are school and he is such a crack up because every thing he says he says with a look of serious concern on his face. He got an answer right the other day and I said "good job" to which he responded "well, my mom says I am genius and and well I am a genius!" He wasn't bragging, he was just explaining things to me. Kids are like sponges and they repeat everything they hear! Ok, well I have to get to bed now but I just wanted to say that I think this is going to be a great year!

Guess who finally got to see Wicked!!

Although our anniversary is in May we usually do our real celebrating in the Summer because we are not bogged down with school. For our 4 year anniversary (which is just really hard to believe, time goes so fast!!) I got Josh tickets to see Wicked! I had the chance to see it last year but due to a school trip Josh couldn't come which was such a bummer. I loved it and knew he would too. He grew up watching the Wizard of Oz with is family over and over again. He knows all the words and even all the sound effects. His brother is the Scarecrow and "so you see", he just had to see it! He loved it and said that he now understands why people always want to see it over and over again!

"Well, we can't all come and go by Bubble!!"
"It's Glinda... with a Guh!"

"And so you see, it couldn't have been easy!"

Dinner with Jackson and Melissa

A few nights ago we had dinner with Jackson and Melissa. We went to one of our favorite Japanese food places. Later we came home and played Scene It and although the boys won as usual we had them really nervous for about half the game because we were WAY ahead!! After that we watched Michael Phelps compete in one of his many races, I think it was the one where he beat the guy by like one one hundredth of a second, we were all screaming and standing up when it happened!! So exciting, and how fun to be watching history happen!

Melissa is so excited that her picture will be on the blog... Jackson is equally thrilled!! Doesn't he look good in his V-neck shirt by the way? ; )

Disneyland

Last weekend we went to Disneyland for the fist time all summer. Hard to believe I know! I guess we have been busy and we also wanted to let the summer rush die down a little you know. Here we are about to go on the brand new Toy Story ride. Its in 3D, as if you couldn't tell. It's really fun because you actually get to shoot things along the way for points and you compete with the person you are riding with to see who can earn the most points. It was a lot of fun but I got the lowest score as always. Wah, wa!

We had an... interesting incounter with Walle???? Yikes!

Keisah and I are getting ready to go on the Tower of Terror, do we look worried?

Here we are flashing our favorite summer symbol, Majide!!!! If you watched How I survived a Japanese game show you will understand, if not you missed out on some great Japanese entertainment this summer! If Joy looks concerned in the back ground of this picture it's because she was!!! We got stopped on Space Mountain. The ride stopped and the lights turned on, it was kind of crazy. She really thought we were going to die!!! We didn't and we got an extra ride out of the deal with out waiting in line. Nothing was broken they just had to stop it because someone took to long getting on and it messed up the order of the cars, not a big deal but Joy will likely never go on the ride with us again. Boo!