Christmas 2011

Mike and I took his grandmother, Enid, to her favorite place for Christmas Brunch.  They have the best crab claws and dessert in town!  It has warmed up nicely this week, so we took advantage of walking on the beach to burn off some of the calories afterwards.

Park Hyatt Aviara with Enid

The beach was really crowded with people walking.

Christmas Day SoCal style

Mike took this cool picture of me.  I'm 28 weeks.

13 weeks Pregnant

Mike and I decided we were ready to start a family this year.  Is anyone ever really ready?  The baby is due March 14, 2012.  It's kind of funny to us, because that will be almost exactly a year after we left for our trip to Ireland.  Maybe we'll have a St. Paddy's Day baby!

8 weeks

13 weeks - those legs were just kicking away!

13 weeks - how cute is this little foot?

13 weeks - nice big stretch

Photos will be stored and shared on this website:  https://picasaweb.google.com/blundellorama

A Weekend in Missouri

I'm a little behind on posting.  I started a new job in June, so my schedule is a little different.  I'm on the computer a lot at work, so I don't feel like getting on it at home much.  We haven't traveled anywhere since our trip to Ireland until this past weekend.  I have weekends off now and we have been spending them relaxing and enjoying the San Diego summer.

We decided to make a trip back to Missouri to visit Mike's family this past weekend.  August in Missouri may not have been the best time to visit, because of the heat, but we had a great time.  It was around 100 most of the weekend.  We average about 75 in San Diego, so we were definitely struggling.  We lucked out and had a mostly cloudy day on Saturday and were able to canoe Shoal Creek.  We were hoping for a thunderstorm since we don't get those out here, but only heard a couple cracks of thunder after our canoe trip.  Once we made it back to Mike's parents house, there was no sign of rain clouds.

We did get a picture with our tree that's out at the family land used to run the canoe business.  This was planted by Mike's parents right after our wedding.  It's about 5 years old now and growing nicely.

Grandma Limbocker

May 8, 1930 - Feb 3, 2011

I'm thankful of the time I shared with my Grandma when I was in college and living close by. I visited her as much as I could during those years. I would take her to church, take her to lunch or go shopping with her. We had fun together and she loved to tell me stories of her past. Sometimes we would just sit in her room watching TV together. She loved watching Walker Texas Ranger and Law and Order. I will miss my Grandma very much and I know she is in a better place. I feel very lucky to have some great memories of our time together.

Brian Paul Strohm

Twenty years ago, a tornado changed the lives of me and my family.  My little brother, Brian, was taken from us in that tornado at the young age of 12 years old.  His memory is still very strong and I think about him often.  It really only feels like yesterday that we were playing Nintendo together after school waiting for my dad to get home from work so that we could go outside to play with our friends.

Brian and I were very close and spent a lot of time together having fun or fighting as brothers and sisters do.  We always had our own room, but I would always sneak into his room to fall asleep while talking to each other and playing games.  He was always being goofy and making people laugh.  We always turned to each other when we had problems we didn't want to share with our parents right away.

Some favorite memories of mine:

-One evening at the dinner table he was acting up and my mom's boyfriend told him if he didn't straighten up, he'd dump his bowl of pudding on his head.  Brian didn't believe him, so he kept doing what he was doing.  Jim picked up the bowl and dumped it on his head.  We all were quiet for a minute, then we could stop laughing.  He got the nickname "Pudding Head" for a while.

-The first serious crush my brother had was in junior high.  He came to me one day and asked what he should wear to school the day he decided he was going to talk to her.  I was all about dressing him in slacks and a sweater vest.  My brother did not dress that way normally; he was all about t-shirts and sweatpants.

-We rode our bikes pretty far to the local swimming pool in Overbrook, KS everyday the summer before the tornado.  We had to ride on a dirt road before we got to the paved road into town.  Right before the paved road, we had to go pass a house with a big dog that would chase us.  It was really scary the first couple of times it happened, but then we started working up speed before the house to get away from the dog faster.  Ready, set, go!  And, we would ride so hard and fast until we got pass the dog.

-Brian loved baseball and collected baseball cards.

Please feel free to post your memories.

Mike's Family Reunion

A little late posting, but Mike's family reunion was last month and we flew back for the weekend.  The reunion is held at Mike's family's land outside of Diamond, MO.  We usually try to go canoeing while we are there also.  This year was no exception, but we were almost eaten alive by deer flies this year.  They were so horrible while we were on the river.  Other than that, we had a great weekend seeing family.

Food cooking on the grill.

Zebra Swallowtail Butterfly

This year's guests

Our pine tree that was planted at the land right after we got married.

Joe and Sarah have started an orchard.  The whole family got to choose their tree.

I'm a fig tree.

Mike's a peach tree.

I'm excited to post updates to these trees as well when we go back for visits.  To see more photos of the reunion, go to this online album.

Mike's Grandmother Turns 90

Mike's Grandmother turned 90 on May 1 (although she doesn't want anyone to know that she is 90!), but we celebrated it this past weekend with family that came in from Northern Cali, Missouri, Colorado, and Hawaii.  We spent Fri, Sat and Sun getting together and eating food, having dessert and drinking champagne.  We all had a great time together.

We walked on the beach a lot to work off our food.  Our walk on Sunday was from Torrey Pines Beach to La Jolla Shores Beach and back!  It was a a 9.24 mile walk that took us a little over 3 hours!

Mike's Grandmother, Enid.

Mike's family

Enid at the Four Season's Brunch

The photo above is Mike's aunt, mom and uncle. (for some reason I can't write next to that photo)

Under Scripps Pier in La Jolla

Mike's uncle, cousin and brother.

Springtime in San Diego and Birthdays

Mike's Mom was out here on her annual Spring Break trip. Today is Mike's birthday, yesterday was his Mom's birthday.  We spent the weekend eating, watching March MADNESS!, checking out the wildflowers and the ocean and looking for whales.

Watching the KU game at Boardwalk.  Mike's friend, Skip was visiting from Colorado.

Kathy blowing out her candle.

Mike's turn.

Hiking at Torrey Pines to see the wildflowers.  Normally it's dry and brown, so we like it when it's colorful with flowers.

Looking for whales at Cabrillo in Pt. Loma.

View of downtown from Cabrillo.

Merry Christmas!

We hope everyone had a nice Christmas!!


We spent Christmas in Illinois this year with my dad.  We also spent a lot of time with my best friend, Nicki, and her family.  Our travels went pretty smoothly even though there was an ice storm up there before we left and snow while we were there.  It started snowing on Christmas day!  I was so excited to have a White Christmas.  It's been a long time since I've seen snow on Christmas.  Mike really could care less, although I'm sure he enjoyed the couple of days of snow knowing we would be coming back to San Diego.  


On Saturday, we took my dad and his girlfriend, Deanna, into Chicago to see Blue Man Group and to eat some deep dish pizza at Gino's.  


We only took a couple of photos using our phone while we are in Chicago:

Brittney's Senior Photos

Theresa's sister, Brittney, had her senior photos taken recently by our wedding photographer, Kelley.  Kelley, of course, did a fabulous job!

Happy Thanksgiving

We hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving.  We spent ours in Missouri visiting Mike's family.  We had some delicious turkey and smoked ham with all the fixins....mmmmm!  We also went to the KU-Missouri football game at Arrowhead on Saturday.  It's a bummer KU lost, but it was a fun day spent with family.

Christmas with Theresa's family

We drove up to Lee's Summit to have a late Christmas with my family the Saturday after Christmas. It snowed a little that day, so it made my trip! It was great that all my aunts and uncles were together this year. I hope the tradition continues and more of my cousins are able to be there as well. I have some pictures of the family, but they didn't all turn out so well for some reason.

My mom and her sister, dad, and brothers.

My cousin (Brigitt), me, my sister, my granddad, my cousin (Elisa) and her daughter (Kylie)

Mike and I with my mom.

Christmas with The Blundells

For Christmas, we went back to Missouri to stay with Mike's family in Joplin. With all the travel delays, we lucked out only having an hour delay when leaving on Christmas Eve. It was a nice trip spent with family.

Joe & Sarah

Everyone opening gifts

Mike's dad George

Theresa's Dad Visits

My dad and his girlfriend, Deanna, came out for a visit over Labor Day weekend. We took them around to see a lot of San Diego while they were here. We had a great time hanging out and doing some things that Mike and I hadn't even done in the area yet.

This bull seal is named Boris, according to one of the La Jolla lifeguards. He is only 1/3 of his full grown size. He was posing on a rock for everyone it seemed, although he was really guarding his territory. The lifeguard said the wound on his rear is probably the result of fighting with another seal.

We went on a dinner cruise in the San Diego harbor.

We went wine tasting in Temecula, which was something we hadn't done yet. It was fun, but hot!

We also went to the Del Mar horse races and had a blast. This was also our first time to the races and we live like 5 minutes from the track. Mike and I pretty much broke even on our gambling, although I had the biggest payout in one race.