Mission Call

A couple weeks ago my brother got him mission call. He is serving and LDS mission for 2 years in Charlotte, North Carolina! We are all very excited for him. He leaves 2-20-13 to the MTC and will be there for 2 weeks, to prepare.

Corbin and his girlfriend Blake.

Right before he opened his papers.

We had a lot of friends and family over. Skyped with Grandma. Corbin reading where he is going.

This picture is kind of funny. This is right after he read off where he was going. He was a little let down that he wasn't going out of the country. Later on he got more excited. 

Corbin will be a great missionary. We will miss you.

Christmas time

We are so excited for Christmas here in the Mckinney house. We got everything set up and ready the day after Thanksgiving. I love Christmas time. I'm starting to get antsy though with wanting everyone to open their presents! I was able to take a couple pictures of our house since we've decorated.

We thought it would be fun to put up lights in our kitchen. I love it.

Our tree now is exploding with gifts for family and friends! 

This year Cj helped my dad with the Christmas lights. My dad loves decorating. Cj is terrified of heights, so I thought it would be interesting. He was able to keep his cool, and didn't fall off the roof.

Corbin and Cj hanging out.

Just getting off the roof was the hard part for him. :)

I got my hair colored a couple weeks ago, and it is a lot darker than I had wanted it to be. At the salon I was fine with it. Then I got home and kept looking in the mirror and almost started crying b/c I didn't feel like I was blonde anymore. I know, drama queen. I still am blonde, it just has a lot of dark highlights. Cj of course absolutely loves it. He has always wanted me to go brunette.

Twins, right?! Totally. Hmmm Brad Pitt. Enough said.

My dad had his birthday last Saturday. Next year he'll be the big 50! One more year dad. Yes Cj had to photo bomb this picture. We had a nice dinner at my parents house, and cake and ice cream. All of us (minus Sunny), pitched in to buy my dad a new TV for his birthday and Christmas gift. He loves it.

Monday Cj had his work Christmas party. They usually just have it at the college. It is a big even normally, Nuskin is great to their employee's during Christmas. I got off work early so we would be there on time. We pull up to the parking lot and I ask Cj "Did you grab the tickets?" He looks at me and was like "Umm no, weren't you supposed to?" Yeah we forgot our tickets. So we drove back home and grabbed them. By the time we got to the college, they were getting ready to start the Christmas performance. They usually just hire someone to entertain us for 2 hours. So we walked up and went to give them our tickets and they were like "Oh just come on in." We were so mad! The performance was boring. But everyone who works for Nuskin got a cute little Apple TV. I am in love with it. We have it hooked up in our room and now we're able to watch Netflix and I can stream my pictures on the TV as a screen saver. Also I can listen to my iTunes through the TV. It's a fun little thing, and it was free. 

It's been cold and snowy here the last couple of days, so we have been trying to stay warm.

Last night we had fun babysitting little baby Jonas. He is so sweet, and is mostly always happy. Unless he is hungry or tired. Isn't that how we all are? I also discovered how not baby friendly our house is. He crawls and pulls himself up to everything. I had to put the fragile things up high. It was so funny Cj was playing Xbox and Jonas kept going up to it and trying to push the lit button. The power button. I wasn't stopping him b/c I was tired of him playing that game too. Hehe

We can't wait for Christmas! And my birthday is this Saturday so we are planning a night in SLC. I am very excited to do that. And maybe do some birthday shopping. :)

I'm back!

A while back we had some work time off. I was invited to go to Timpanogos cave's with the Clayton family. I had never been so I was a little nervous about the hike up to the caves. If 3 little kids could do it, I could do it, right? It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought. The only thing that sucked was it was pouring rain the whole time we hiked. I felt so bad for Melissa, she packed all the kids rain coats, except her's. But she was still a champ about it. The kids did great on the way up! The cave was amazing! I wasn't so sure about our tour guide. You could just tell she hated kids.. Anyways here's some fun pictures of our trip.

Jonas and I inside of the cave. He absolutely loved the caves! He just looked at everything around him and didn't make a peep.

Cj and I have recently have been trying to go out on more dates together. You get caught up in your work week, and then he hangs out with his friends usually on the weekends and watches basketball. We have been trying to go out every Thursday night when I get off work. I absolutely love having these little dates. 

At Gandofo's.

Eating before going to the Utah Jazz game.

Sushi Thursday's. We go to this sushi restaurant that every Tuesday and Thursday is half off every roll. Yum!

Cj still runs religiously. This was one morning before his run. Haha

Cora turned 3! She had a puppy party that I was invited to to help with all the puppy children. It was such a cute party. Except when all the kids started howling like dogs.

Cj's brother Brian was in and out of Utah. He has been having several interviews for school (He'll be a doctor in May!). We were to spend some time with him. His girlfriend Cat even came to visit us too. Loved having them visit. It was weird to actually have a girl to hang out with, while the guys did their thing. I loved it.

We took Bri up to Bridal Veil Falls. The falls were closed due to possible avalanches. So we just drove to Nun's park and took some pictures. Sometimes it can be SO hard to get Cj to take a picture with me.

We were getting in the car getting ready to leave when I looked and saw that ledge. I was like "Guys! We should take jumping pictures!." So I made the boys go up. This was the picture right before they jumped. I don't know why they're holding hands.

This next picture cracks me up! After taking the picture we all laughed for about 15 minutes. Cj has some mad hops. I have no idea how he got so high into the air. I love it! 

Then, of course Cj and I needed to take a jumping picture. I was terrified to jump and I wanted to look cute. It really is hard to look cute while jumping. Well, I guess not for Cj. Once again he's high up in the air.

I finally got him to take a nice picture with me.

I'm sorry for my lack of posting. For some odd reason every time I tried to add pictures, it said I needed to upgrade and pay a fee. I never got it figured out, but now it's letting me post pictures? Random. Anyways, I'm back and will try to get you updated.

White chicken chili

The last couple of weeks I have been in a cooking spree. I'm on Pinterest all the time, and all the recipes looks so good! Let me just tell you, Pinterest has NOT let me down. Every single recipe I have made off of Pinterest has been amazing. Last night I made White Chicken Chili that Cj and I both really enjoyed. I wanted to share it for others to try. It's a simple chili and it's delicious. My picture doesn't look very appetizing. But put cheese, sour cream and tortilla chips on top and you are set!

Click here to get the recipie!!!

whew

Life since our Cali vacation has been pretty normal. Cj did get promoted at Nuskin! Instead of a techie on the phones all the time, he is now a a "range rover". He helps people who are on the phones and have any questions. It's less time on the phones, so he loves it. And he got a little bit of a raise so that's always nice.
My mom and I and went on a little mother daughter day date. We both got our hair done, and grabbed a burrito for lunch. It was so fun to be with her and just hang out. She is one of my best friends!

Mom and Corbin. Isn't he getting so grown up?? :( 

My little family. May, Rocky, Corbin and Mom. Rocky just got fixed that day that's why he's wearing a cone. 

Corbin and I. I love my little, bit brother.

Last month I convinced Cj to go on the moonlight lift at Sundance. I had to seriously convince him, b/c he is terrified of heights. We had so much fun! We drove up to Sundance one Friday night. We got some hot chocolate and rode the lift. You have to pay, of course. But you just ride the lift when it's a full moon and you cuddle next to your lover and drink hot chocolate. It was SO much fun. It was romantic. Cj got scared at times, like when the lift would stop randomly. Or if he looked down and couldn't see his feet. But overall he did pretty good. I highly recommend it!

One night Cj, Jamie and I went to Red Robin for dinner. We got home and I went to go change into some comfy clothes. While I was walking to our bedroom this spider caught my eye. I was screaming, freaking out, and it just stared at me. It was so nasty! I was running around yelling and I felt like spiders were all over me. Cj tried to kill it, and it ran up the wall. So of course I started screaming more, and that made Cj upset. So Jamie had to come in with his shoe and kill it. We were a little nervous to sleep in our room. You know once you find a spider there are a whole lot more. But we survived. Since then I have found 3 spiders in our house. Mind you we do live in a basement apartment. But none of them have been as big as the one shown above.

I had Cj come with me to go and see Frankenweeine. I love Tim Burton, so we had to of course see it in 3-D! It was so cute, and I absolutely loved it in 3-D, Cj wasn't sure what to think of it.

One of my good friends had a little baby girl, they named her Knightley. So of course I had to go and visit her. I love babies. She pretty much slept the whole time I held her, but that's pretty much what babies do. It's kinda nice when they sleep b/c you can look at all of their features. I loved visiting them and holding her. Thanks Makel and Landrey for letting us meet your little bundle of joy.

Cj had work convention. This outfit was mandatory. Haha he looked so cute with his belt, I loved it. Convention this year wasn't as busy as Cj thought it would be.
Wow, a lot has been going on these last couple of months! I need to do another post on our life recently.

Last stop.

Our last stop for our vacation was Shingle Springs. It's always fun to finish up our trip relaxing at Karinne and Mike's. Unfortunately I didn't take a lot of pictures. We had a BBQ and had everyone come down to Karinne's from Yuba City so we could see them. It was great to see Chris, Charlie and even my grandma Virginia came. We had a ton of fun laying by the pool, playing water basketball and playing with the two boys. 

Here is little Caleb eating some avocado. We were skyping with aunt Jen b/c her and Dan weren't able to make it. This was Caleb's face when he saw Jen and Dan on the computer haha so cute!

Swimming time. Cj obviously was freezing, and looks slightly special. I swear he's normal. For the most part. ;)

We had a great time with the family. We even took Andrew down the hill and fed the goats and chickens. It is his FAVORITE to throw rotten tomatoes at the animals. He has a great aim. We are already planning our next California trip next August for our 3 year anniversary! :)

San Fran 2012!!

We arrived in SF around 6 o'clock at night. Once we got to Jen's of course we had to go and hang out on her roof. Jen has the coolest house. She lives 1 block from Haight street, the location is perfect. 

The next day Cj and I walked down Haight street to do some shopping. I found 2 new cute dresses at Buffalo exchange. After all of our shopping we had to stop and get some burrito's. These burrito's were huge. As you can see below it was as big as my face. Haha

We love shopping down Haight. They have so many different stores. At the end they have an album store, Amoeba's music. They sell all sorts of music, CD's, albums, poster, you name it! Cj absolutely loves to go there! 

Here is Jen's awesome home, baker blue! We love SF!

Jen took us to this bar that was super funky. It reminded me of Beetlejuice, so I liked it. :)

Later that night we went and waited for Dan to get off work at Gitane. While we were waiting, patiently. Jen took some photo's of Cj and I.

Cj trying to be romantic and kissing me in the alley way. But it just looks like he's trying to attack me. I love him.

The next day was our Alcatraz tour. It was so much fun to go down to the wharf and take the tour. It is a couple bus rides down to where we needed to be so we left early.

This is one of the dresses I got at Buffalo Exchange, only $12.

We took a boat to Alcatraz. When you get there you go through all of the rules ect. Then you are able to walk around on your own. Once you get to the prison they have you put on headphones and listen to all the Alcatraz stories. They had A LOT of people there who weren't from the united states. Cj and I were wanting to take pictures together, but everyone we asked to take our picture didn't speak English or knew what we were saying. The cool thing about the tour is with the headphones you move at your own pace. You can stop at certain area's and pause the audio and walk around. Being inside there was kinda spooky. It was FREEZING in there. I probably should have worn leggings b/c it was really windy outside. I did a Marilyn Monroe a couple times with my dress and gave everyone a little show. :/

The city doesn't seem too far from the prison. There were some places that you could look through holes in the wall just to look at the city. Walking through the prison was kind of eerie. Nobody said anything to one another. They had pictures up of some of the popular prisoners. It was weird to look at the pictures and then go the their cell. They told a really crazy story. One of the was the inmates would go crazy on New Year's Eve b/c they could hear all the sounds of the people and parties reflecting off the water. They would hear music and people having fun. I think that enough would be torture. 

                                          

One night we were able to go and visit Dan at the restaurant he works at Gitane. He is training to be a bartender. So he showed us some of his tricks. ;) The drinks turned out yummy.

Alie and Whitney drove up from Yuba City to come and chill with us for a couple hours. Then Brian Cj's brother also drove down from Sacramento. It was his 30th birthday and he wanted to come have dinner with us too!

While we were walking back to our car there was a beautiful rainbow. We miss San Fran already!