Elle is for last post!

This is probably the last post I'll make on this blog. Brad and I are sitting in the hospital waiting for baby girl to make her grand entrance. We have been here for over 12 hours and hope she comes soon.

No worries, I am not leaving the blogging world entirely. From now on I will be blogging from Theguynns.blogspot.com. Don't bother clicking that link as I reserved that blog address years ago and have yet to add any sort of format or content.

Well I keep drifting off and I need to focus all my energies to this baby coming out! Thanks for reading and I hope to see you commenting on the other website ( I promise I'll be a better blogger!).

Xoxo

Lauren

T is for This weekend

This weekend marked a monumental turning point in our marriage. No it was not an anniversary of any kind, and no we are definitely not having kids. But, the secret is out.

As most of you know, Brad was a bachelor living in NYC prior to us getting married. As most bachelors and city folk do, Brad took everything to the dry cleaners. So naturally when we got married the trend continued (except that he used to take ALL his laundry to the dry cleaners). Now I grew up in a home where I got paid 10 cents (I think I got a raise to 25 cents at one point in time) for each item I ironed from my parents. Yes you Dept of Child Services, I was forced into manual labor and I did call you several times but to no avail! Having had a lifetime of ironing, I decided to let Brad remain thinking that there was no other way to clean button ups and "work clothes" but that they can only be dry cleaned.

Alas, this weekend the truth came out.

Brad: "I have these no-iron shirts, I wonder if we {obviously it should just say you right here} can just wash them and then hang them up after the dryer?"

Lauren: "Hmmmm... {thinking - crap he's figuring things out} I suppose that can work, but just because it says they are no iron doesn't mean you wont have to iron them at all"

Brad: "Oh well, we have an iron so we can just wash them and iron them if we need to."

Lauren: "Our iron is broken."

Brad: "Oh, well maybe we should get a new one."

Lauren: "Good irons are awfully expensive."

Brad: "Oh well we will try it and see how it goes."

Well, it worked {obviously} and we will no longer be frequenting the dry cleaners. :(

I guess I can be grateful for 13 months of being iron-free.

Love,

Lauren

F is for Fifty

This is my fiftieth post! Very exciting, eh? So I decided not to do this blogging everyday thing. It's too much work. And I feel guilty if I don't do it. And it's just another thing for me to fail at (more on that later).

On a much happier note, they're here!!!!!!!! My wedding pictures finally came today! Most of you probably don't care, but I'm ecstatic. It may have taken me 9 months to decide on which ones I wanted, only to decide to buy all the negatives. But once that decision was made I wanted them right away and the past few weeks of anticipation for their arrival has been irritating! Here's one of my faves.

B is for Brad's Birthday

Brad was born at 7:11 am 27 years ago. We have had a blast today celebrating his birthday. I promise I will update tomorrow with all the fun we had, but I'll leave you with this little gem.

Happy birthday - I love you Edward Bradley Guynn!

XOXO

F is for Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July!!!

Hope everyone has a great holiday!

N is for Newport Beach

Tracy, Nate & Steve (Brad's BFF's from college) came to visit for the weekend and we have had so much fun!

Today Brad, Nate, Tracy and I went to a pancake breakfast at the church and then headed straight out to the beach. We spent most of the day at Balboa Peninsula. Brad had a blast having Nate around to play frisbee with, build a sand castle (more like a glorified man hole), body surfing and boogie boarding. Tracy and I had a good time soaking up the sun and laughing at the boys.

We came home and showered/changed and Steve met us to go to Laguna Beach for dinner. We went to this really great sushi joint called Mosun and then walked around LB for a little bit.

Tracy, Nate & Brad got ROASTED! Neither of these boys had tan lines before (well Brad had a little tan line)...

The evening was finished with root beer floats and a game of Settlers and Things! Fun Fun Fun!

B is for Brynn

My old BFF Brynn (also known as Bren) came into town on late Thursday night til early Tuesday morning and boy did we have a fabulous time!

Brynn's self-portrait

On my balcony

Peace


Beach day

Awkwardly splashed by the waves

Brynn getting her grove back

Dinner with Brad, Brynn, Whit and Sawyer

Whit and Soyjoy

Brynn, Whit & I

Beach Day 2 - Brad digs a massive man hole

Brynn & I lay out

And a trip to Newport Beach where Arrested Development was filmed would not be complete without going to Balboa Island for a frozen banana!

Sorry for the uber amount of pictures. We just had a really good time! Love you Bren! Come again soon!!!!

FYI - We are open to visitors - call if you want to come!!

J is for July

I've decided that this July I will try to do a post a day. Just to get reacquainted with the blogging world. What am I doing right now? Probably what every teeny bopper has done this week, watched the twilight videos in anticipation of watching the 3rd. Actually I'm not anticipating it. My good friend wanted to go see the 3rd one Friday night and I figured I'd see it sometime. I don't think I've even seen the second one. That sets me apart from the teeny boppers.

Well this counts for July 1st. New post tomorrow about Brynn coming to town!

M is for May

It's May! I love May, specifically the end of May. Most likely because it's my birthday, which also means the beginning of summer and then the holiday season - Halloween, Thanksgiving and CHRISTMAS!

For my birthday, we went to a little "viet-thai" hole in the wall in CDM. I ordered the Pad Thai and it was delicious. For dessert we trekked to the other side of the back bay to get my favorite cupcakes - Susiecakes. I got two - red velvet and vanilla. I really wanted coconut, but they were all out. I would have taken pictures, but they didn't stay around long enough... so here's one from the internet.

Since we moved to California and live right off the back bay, we've been talking about getting me a road bike. Brad loves cycling and wants me to love it to - and I want to love it! So for my birthday I got this sweet baby and I couldn't be more excited!

She's a beauty. I got fitted last night and we have our first ride scheduled for 3 pm today. Still haven't figured out her name yet and definitely open to suggestions. Speaking of inanimate objects that I seem to name, I realized yesterday that I have reached an all time low and really need to make some friends out here. This occurred to me while in route to another birthday present (my mom bought me a sewing machine which came with lessons on how to use it). I was thinking about how I was going to blog about it, and this thought crossed my mind: "I'll blog about me and Camry driving to Irvine for sewing lessons." Crazy, yes. Crazy 1 because I'm taking sewing lessons. I know - weird. Crazy 2 because Camry is my car. Apparently I feel this need to talk about Camry as a special friend. We do have a lot of bonding time though.

This leads into my next special request. **If you live in or near Orange County, please, be my friend! I'm also open to hook-ups, blind friendships, etc. - friend suggestions if you do not live here but have friends that do.**

Here is my new sewing machine. Simple, but it gets the job done. I finally learned how to use it thanks to the class yesterday. Now the only problem is I forgot the reasons why I wanted it in the first place... Anyone have something cool, but easy because I'm still a beginner, to do? Brad's mom also sent me a cute basket with a WHOLE bunch of tools and pins that will be helpful once I get this whole sewing thing figured out!

Well, that's my birthday update!

***SIDE NOTE*** I started writing this post this morning. It is now 7PM - the 3 PM ride went according to plan. We rode about 15 miles and my behind and neck and back hurt worse than they have in a long time. We have another ride planned for 9 AM.

Oh, and we live on top of a very steep hill that I now loathe. A lot. The only thing that got me home was at the bottom I decided if I could make it to the top without stopping that it qualified me to go to Cafe Rio for dinner. Pathetic, but alas the motivation I needed. And Cafe Rio was delicious.

AND I know Mere is wondering, "Lauren, did you fall?" Well, Mere, this is a tricky question. You see, our complex is very large, and as I was turning in, so were other cars. So I made it the whole 15 miles with no problems (my shoes are clip-ins, but no worries I'm a natural) until some idiot %&$* decides its OK to cut me off to turn left. Luckily I noticed he would be a jerk like that and got my foot out of my clip-on so I didn't completely wipe out, but didn't grab a hold of my bike well enough and the edge of my seat got a rip from the side of the guard shack that the jerk cornered me against. My poor baby not-yet-named-bike.

Sorry this post is so long.

Love Lauren

C is for California

Yep, that's right. We moved to California. Here are some pictures.

Brad's first day of work in Newport Beach. Yes, that is a zip-up tie.

PIMCO building at Fashion Island.

View from the balcony of our apartment (that is the back bay just beyond the tennis courts).

Sunset from the balcony at our apartment.

Ad and Michon came to visit.

Celebrating AD's birthday at Duke's.

AD really wanted a picture with these balloons. Apparently she's always wanted one.

Brad and I on Balboa Island after a day at the beach.

V is for Valentine's Day

Brad and I had nothing special planned for Valentine's Day, until in the middle of church he turned to me and asked me if I wanted to go on a mini trip since he had the next day off. We decided to rent a car and drove a scenic route (also conveniently the fastest way) from NYC to Newport, Rhode Island. We had a ton of fun and actually took some pictures (we haven't touched our cameras previously since our honeymoon).

We spent hours exploring the cute little town of Newport. This tavern has been around since colonial times.

Courthouse - old movie creepy looking!

There was no room at the inn. Literally, I wanted to stay in an inn or b&b, but they were all full!

We stayed at The Newport, which turned out to be a very convenient location and right on the harbor with beautiful views. They also had a swimming pool that we didn't find out about until we were already there and didn't think to pack swimsuits in the winter!

Super cute Christmas store that I really, really wanted to be open but it wasn't.

We ate here to celebrate Valentine's Day -- it was delicious!

Different views of the world - same place but this is Brad's shot and the one below is mine.

The Breakers - Vanderbilt summer home - most beautiful, exquisite place I've seen in America.

There were so many beautiful views and we went light house hunting. We were only there for about 24 hours but did so many things!

PS - per request, a NY blog post will come soon. Also in the works is a post of Bee's wedding in the Virgin Islands!