top five friday.

#1 - surprise visits from our family! in the entire year we've been married, we haven't had a single visitor. i don't blame them really because we haven't exactly lived where anyone would want to come visit. zach's brother, derek, was in l.a. last week though {shooting a commercial with kym johnson and mark ballas from dancing with the stars. i know. awesome right?} and made a quick trip to santa maria on sunday. we took him to the private beach on base and played in the tide pools.

or at least what used to be tide pools. this was taken right after a big wave came in and engulfed derek and the rock he was standing on. good times. it was so fun seeing him and i can't wait to host more of our family in just a couple months!

#2 - my husband's cooking. i sure got lucky in the fact that zachary loves to cook and is actually really good at it. he can whip something up with no recipe whatsoever and it tastes like restaurant quality food. here's a big thank you to my father-in-law, val, for teaching him how to be such a good chef! 

#3 - the bachelor. i know, i know. i'm pathetic for being one of those girls that gets sucked into 'reality' tv shows, because let's be honest. we all know the majority of it is staged and the only reason they have girls like courtney robertson is purely for the drama, but so what. i like watching it. and this episode was particularly intriguing because it was filmed in my home state. holla! i honestly felt pretty proud watching it because holy. crap. utah is beautiful. i think that was the only good thing about this episode though. as much as i love the show, i'm getting kind of frustrated with ben because #1. he should not have given rachel a rose. it looked to me like they had no connection whatsoever and he shouldn't be giving out roses just to be nice and #2. he seems more and more shallow as time goes on. even if he doesn't see how much of a brat courtney is to the other girls, she still acts like she's 15. even when she's around him. if that doesn't turn him off, i don't know what does. not to mention she manipulates him like crazy! even my woman ellen agrees:

{for how much i talk about ellen, i think i'm going to just have a 'favorites from ellen' round-up every week. we'll do it on...oh i don't know...tuesdays? ok, tuesdays. yes, that just happened. tune in next week.}

#4 - this painting from pottery barn:

very pretty? yes. worth $103.20? heck to the no. i found a tutorial on pinterest for it though and thought i'd give it a go. now i know it looks pretty much nothing like the original except that there are lines and circles on both of them, but i was happy with how it turned out and it looks great hanging in our living room!

#5 - california weather. it's been a steady 70-75 degrees for the past few days and i am absolutely loving it! i'm not looking forward to the cold january we will have in cheyenne next year, so i am soaking up and enjoy the sun as much as i can right now. {which isn't very often considering i work 8 hours a day}

what are you loving this week?

-the wife

p.s. don't forget to vote for our picture, so we can win a two night stay in park city! it's the one where we're about to kiss under my veil. we are in third place right now and the person in first place has 33 votes more than us. your vote makes a difference, i promise! thank you mucho.