It's the day after Christmas and all of Southern California basked in the glory of its amazing weather. Jake and I indulged ourselves into the fine sport of golf and had a fun nine holes at the Newport Beach Golf Course; an Executive Par 3 course a couple of miles from our apartment. 

Each year Jenn channels more and more of her mom and decorates more and more of our apartment. It really began last year when she decorated each room with a tree, now not only does each room have a tree but each area that could potentially hold a decoration is now covered. And I hate to admit it, but I kind of love it.

It all began ten years ago today.

On November 3, 2003 a beautiful winter afternoon I finally summoned the courage to ask Jenn out. This wasn't the first time I'd asked her. Two months prior I was turned down, being told that she wasn't ready. My heart was broken but not enough to stop me from trying again. Our friendship grew, I fell even harder for her, and on that day I finally mustered enough courage to ask her again. 

Every year since the year after we started dating, I took part of the Carpenter tradition of painting pumpkins. I remember back in 2004 when I did my first pumpkin painting and unlike the Carpenter family I have zero artistic skill, so needless to say I was both nervous and intimidated knowing that they were all super artistic. 

Needless to say ten years later we are keeping the tradition alive. Jenn and I had our whole Sunday planned out. We woke up at a reasonable time and headed to Strawberry Farms in Irvine to go pick up our pumpkin. Having never gone there we were amazed with how gigantic the place was. I mean truly enormous. We spent quite a bit of time searching for the "perfect pumpkin" and managed to stumble on three great ones. 

At 27 years old and living in Southern California my entire life I have no excuse for never making the short journey (distance wise) to both Beverly Hills and the Griffith Observatory. Better then late then never. 

Jenn and I love Orange County so its not very often we journey out of our nest, but last Saturday (8/17) we decided it was time. We went first down to Beverly Hills and managed to get there without much traffic. Our iPhone's got us lost (nothing new there) but we managed to get there and even got free valet parking right on Rodeo Dr.   

Today is my birthday. I'm 27 years old and I'm in a reflective mood. A few weeks ago (7/17) I woke up in the middle of the night feeling dreadful. I knew right away given my chills that I had a fever. I went back to sleep hoping that would be the cure, but woke up with a 102 fever.