emerald city/lovers.

i love musicals. especially wicked. all time favorite. i saw it in london after i graduated high school and have been dying to introduce my spouse to its awesomeness. sooo when i found out it was coming back to SF for a month, i gave him 20 minutes to respond to my text asking if we could go, otherwise i was buying the tickets anyways. that was back in december. 

and then it finally came time to go! i've been counting down for ages, i'm sure levi was ready to just get it over with so i would stop talking about it.

but, we decided why not class it up and go eat delicious wings before we go. we love wings. in utah, we had this delicious wing place that we loved to go to, but alas, they don't have one here. so we decided to try buffalo wild wings, since my brother swears it's way better. i'll admit it was delicious. 2000 calories for 6 wings delicious? no, but still. they were yummy. i had the parmesan garlic wings. {don't judge my food pictures, my husband thinks it makes me asian to take them.} nom nom nom. i could eat some of those right now actually. 

then we took the bart into the city like cool peeps to see my shoooowwwwww {read that in a sing song voice} and it was awesome!! totally worth the ridiculous amount i paid for tickets. go see it. ASAP. do it. we got to cross that one off our bucket list. boooom. 

on actual valentine's day, we went to a party. where i made my precious children dress up in fancy clothes and strut their stuff {in my snazzy bowties, you know you want to buy. $5.00!!  ;)}. it was so much fun. 

aren't these little lovers just the cutest? look at them holding hands. 

why does our baby look like a silly old man still? he's especially working that bow tie. someday he'll have some hair. but all these babes look so cute rocking their valentine's attire. 

 zak basically refused to take any pictures that day because he was too busy sneaking m&m's and donuts, so he gets nothing devoted to him on this blog post. toddlers... 

the hostess with the mostest and our fabulous babes. oh wait, there's zak photobombing. winnerrrrrr. 

levi had to work in the clinic on actual valentine's day, so i celebrated with my two little lovers. 

i took this picture to try and tempt my spouse to come home early, but it didn't work. dang dental school. zak was super stoked for his heart shaped ravioli and pink sauce and bubbly drink. 

we bought zak a box of chocolates for his present. he was super stoked about that. i'm pretty sure he stuffed three of them in his mouth so that i couldn't take them away from him. he was pretty successful until he gagged on all of them and had to spit them all out.

 my big lover finally came home at 9:00 and surprised me with orchids and a cupcake. he knows i love me some fancy cupcakes and flowers. however, i didn't take a picture of my delicious food, so i can't post it on the blog. boo. it was a snickerdoodle one though, surprisingly delicious. 

we had a great valentine's day/days. i love that we can celebrate for more than one day and that zak will somewhat celebrate with me now. ;) 

throw back sunday.

after brainstorming for a while, i couldn't think of a word that started with "s" that meant throwback. thumbs down. ruined my clever blog post for today. oh well. 

so, i'll be honest. i love throwback thursday on instagram. i love going through everyone's pictures and then looking at mine and remembering how awesome i was as a child. i decided to dedicate one special blog post to throw back melissa and levi, and maybe babies, depending on how many hilarious pictures i find, because i know you're all dying to see how much we've matured. 

we'll start with a gem i found from 8th grade. why is this cool? because my friend gina and i thought this waiter was super hot so we took a picture with him. i was cool, like i said. who wouldn't want to take a picture with that sexy brace face? 

then there was EFY when i was 14. i went with my bff melanie, on the right, who stole all the "cute" young, pubescent boys. except for the one behind me, who followed me around all week. we also got into blue eye shadow that week, not sure if you can see it behind my glasses, but it was h-a-w-t. 

aww, look at how cute my little brother was. we went to ski school when i was 14-ish. you know you like my half sweater. it was super attractive i promise. 

oh remember, when my parent's dressed us up to match on cruises. this is another winner picture. haha. btw, i'm totally going to be that mom that makes their kid match at age 16. 

oh? you didn't know i went to music camp every summer? yeah. it was awesome. in case you didn't know, i played the clarinet for like 12 years. went to music camp, was drum major, went to all state, played in college. yeah. 

in case you didn't know, i might be the worst picture taker ever. like literally. case in point, look at my graduation picture. who is that? why does she have six chins? jeez, girl. that joke about you that you wrote that they read, wasn't really that funny. 

to celebrate my awesome-ness, we went to england for a few weeks, and it was fabulous. we saw my all time favorite show -- that we are seeing for valentine's day, so excited! -- 

oh, and then we move on to college. where, i got a little better at taking pictures. not much though. some of my fabulous roommates and i bummed rides and went to park city. love them. 

then there was this one time, we had 80's night. do we even know what 80's entails? obviously blue wigs, and weird jewelry. haha. ohhh i am loving looking at these pictures. love you nicole. 

then there was this one time, when i forced other best-almost roommate amy to take a bus trip to idaho to hang out with a guy i was dating. and then he didn't show up for ever, and we took random pictures to make ourselves look awesome. that was the best trip, when i made her be an awkward third wheel. but at least we're still friends. 

oh, and then we're on to my cool spouse. on our first date. or second. i'm not sure. we went roller skating or something. good thing we remember what we did in the beginning of our romantical life. 

then one time, we took a road trip home to reno with my four roommates and levi. he must have really liked me, because no one puts up with all four of us for 8 hours in a car. 

then, we got engaged, and my bff's and i went to the big ol' SF for my bachelorette party hard. it was fabulous. 

then we partied hard again, the night before we got married, by eating way too many delicious things, riding around in a hummer limo and being fabulous. 

then we got married, and didn't take any pictures together ever. but we did get one going skiing with our bff's that one time. oh, i miss that place. park city is the bomb.com. 

look at how cute all of us were. pre-kids, poor and fabulous. miss all you guys! 

then we made the trip to disneyland and it was SWEET! going there is kind of way better without kids. as fun as it is to see the magic with kids, it's waaaay easier as two married kids than with a kid. 

sexy? yes. we are. 

celebrating our one year anniversary. we went to a dinner theatre. where levi had to dance in front of everyone. 

aren't we the coolest costum-ers? the answer is yes. 

one time, we got a cruise for a wedding present. and we finally went a year later. it was awesome. if only we could go to mexico again. i could use some warm water, and sand.

then because we loved our cat so much, we took christmas tree pictures with her. yes. 

christmas in canada. look at the sweet facial hair. 

love these girls. oh ashley. always about the free food at wedding expo's. 

and then, because most of the rest of our life is blogged, here are our favorites. muah muah muah. 

 well, i thoroughly enjoyed going through these for myself, since i'm pretty sure no one ever looks at this, besides some single dental students who wish they were as cool as us. ;)

events.

sometimes i feel like we do absolutely nothing during the week, so i've been trying to do more fun things. 

 how could you not want to cook with these cute little helpers? they're such buds. we made some delicious valentine cookies for mom's friends last week. complete with pink-ness and m&m's. 

the weather warmed up {finally} and we went to the park for a while. this was baby's first time in the swing. needless to say, i think he liked it. i just want to squish that face. 

they were happy, i swear. but they were loving swinging together. ;)

we had our very first successful board meeting for the mother's club with elena and i as president. if you weren't swayed to join one by my last post, you should be by this blurry picture, because we are that awesome. ;) {bet you can't tell which one is me}

grandma kim came into town for a few days so we went to curioddessy and spent lots of time looking at science stuff. like this bike that makes music when you pedal it faster. when mom pedals it faster. like she's in spin class. 

 last night, the husband and i got to escape and go to stake conference for church by ourselves. it was great. probably the first time i've gotten things out of church before. well, maybe not before, but the first in a really long time. i refreshed a lot, and spent a lot of time on mormon.org today stalking people who could be me. haha it's pretty fun. 

then we went to red robin to celebrate. well, or to hang out more, since our kids were already in bed. woot woot. 

 so of course, we ate onion rings and mud pie. because we're secretly fatties. or openly fatties. i'm sure our waiter thought we were sweeeet. 

and i love this picture. greysen and i like to party while dad takes a nap. cuz we're cool like that. 

mother's club say what?

i'll be honest. after we moved here last year, i had a difficult time adjusting. levi being gone, having no friends, nothing to do, and not knowing where to go was kind of a downer. my mom visited a few weeks after levi started school and immediately signed me up for the mother's clubs in the area. i sat there, somewhat disgusted, and thought to myself that i would never go to something as tacky sounding as a mother's club. however, few weeks later with no friends and only my child to talk to, i decided that maybe i should go to the new member welcome for the san bruno mother's club. best. decision. ever. 

for those of you who don't know what a mother's club is, it is exactly what it says, a club for mothers. or fathers. a place for us to vent about our children not potty training/eating/sleeping etc, or hang out when our husband's are gone until late. or a place for us to go party all by ourselves with our mom friends. or switch off babysitting. i'm not sure about all mother's club, but ours has a walking club, book club, movie club, in a pinch {taking meals to those who had a baby/got sick etc}, crafting club, playgroups, classifieds and so much more. it also has a board {president, vice president, secretary, treasurer etc}. of which i am now president for the year with my fabulous friend elena. wahbam. 

i don't think i can say enough good things about joining it. i have met so many amazing people, in totally different stages of their lives, but we all have something in common-- crazy children. i love how different everyone is; it gives me and zak the ability to meet people different than those.... in the utah bubble. no offense, still love you guys. san francisco provides such a great opportunity for us to meet those who have spent their whole life here, and know all the secret spots to go to. 

{sorry for the crappy phone pics, but some of my favorite ladies at our board member appreciation lunch} 

how cute are our thank you bags with my delicious caramel corn? i love them. 

one of my fears is moving to canada and not having a network like this to immerse myself in, when like moving here, i know no one {besides levi's family, of course}. i'm hoping that by that time, i'll be an expert in mother's clubb-ing, and if necessary, i can start one up there too.

so, in conclusion. if you live here, join our cool club. if you don't live here, google one by you. or make one. because it's great.