Our very good friends bought The Gummy Bear it's very first outfit! Isn't it so appropriate...

I want to introduce to you a good friend of ours... She's the one rockin the Minnie Mouse shirt right in the middle and her name is Nina Villarin. This good friend of many years has embarked on a new journey in her life.  A 4th grade teacher by day in the city of Chino Hills, CA and a youth leader by night, Nina has for longer than we can remember, has been praying about this "thing" in her heart.  This "thing" that somehow got in there was as scary and real as anything she could ever think of but it never went away. So what's this "thing"?!...this "thing" in her heart was a calling to go out and be a Missionary and spread the good news of the Gospel to people in other countries.  How cool is that?! With wanting to be a missionary, especially one out of the country, it is not as easy as you think.  There were so many things to consider (the Bible talks about this as "counting the cost")...I mean why go right?!  A good job, lots of friends and family!  Why would she want to leave all that awesomeness behind?! After years and years of praying, and more praying...God really opened the flood gates and she got accepted to YWAM (Youth on a Mission).  And believe it or not, despite all that awesomeness  we just mentioned, she still followed her calling. For the next six months, Nina will be out in the Mission field serving her first love, God.  We were sad to see her go, but she will be learning a lot and experiencing something greater than anything we can imagine. Nina, we were sad to see you go but glad to know that is what you wanted. If you are still scheduled to come back in December, little John or  little Lauren will be waiting and will be fighting you for floor space.. hehe :) If you want to see what's happening in Nina's life, check out her blog and drop her a little love comment.  Oh and if you totally *heart* what Nina's doing she still needs to raise funds for the time she'll be away...remember she's not getting paid for this! =)  So if you want to some way get in contact with her, shoot me an email at john@johnlauren.com and we'll hook you up. Oh and before I forget, if you missed yesterday's post about our Q&A see below!

 Happy Anniversary... Happy Father's Day Almost... June was a busy month for me, but with all this we get to go on vacations, which we love! And I am a little bit late in posting the whole happy birthday post, but I must. For our first wedding anniversary, I always dreamed of going to Japan and eating all the great sushi and seeing all the wonderful sites, but with the babe, there would be no eating of any kind of sushi, so, no trip to Japan, just a trip to good ol' Las Vegas! We did so much walking and that was good for us, but we were so tired. For his Father's Day Almost, we just had a nice family dinner at my parents house and his parents joined along. But for his birthday, we went to San Diego! Not only did we go to San Diego, but we had a lot planned out which made it even better.  We arrived Friday night and ate at Old Town Mexican Cafe in Old Town San Diego. This place is always busy, consistent in how their food tastes, and has the best homemade tortillas ever! Every chance we get, we try to come to this restaurant. If you ever make it down to San Diego, it is a must that you pass  by and even order some tortillas to go! It was getting late, and with the babe, I was so tired we headed straight to the hotel. We stayed at The Bristol Hotel located in Downtown San Diego.

It was a modern boutique style hotel. Our room was so cute, and the bed was so comfortable. We ended the night watching The Boleyn Girl because I read all the books and hadn't watched the movie yet, which by the way, go and read the books, it was so much better. The next day was our funfilled day of fun for John's birthday. Whenever we go on vacations, he has everything planned out with where we are going and what we would be doing . No t is left uncrossed, really! This time, he wanted me to plan everything, talk about pressure! We had breakfast at The Daisy Cafe located in our hotel.

 

Really cute with great kitchen furniture. Had the typical breakfast and we were ready for our days adventure.  Our adventure was not a physically challenging adventure, more like a eating taste testing adventure. More on that later. We first went to Coronado Beach.

We both had never been there, and you have to go! The houses are all so cute and so different, not like our track home! We got so many home ideas that we would like to do to ours. It was really a beautiful little place to be. It made me want to ride my bike, but I'm scared I'll fall and hurt the baby.... John thinks I'm so weird! Next on the list was our Red Velvet Cupcake Taste Test Event. I tried so hard to research so many different places in San Diego to pick one up, but I couldn't find too many places. Cupcakes Squared Inc we tried at the Borrego Springs Wedding. Cute squared organic cupackes so they weren't red, but a way healthier dessert. Since we tried those, we thought, let's put that on the list, but try other we haven't tried. First stop, Influx Cafe. It was the cutest coffee shop I had ever seen. It was like the minimalist feel, good conversations around the room, and cupcakes waiting to be bought.

They had consistant texture, great color, yummy frosting, and topped it off with a strawberry on top. Super cute and homemade.

Next stop, The Daily Scoop. They are known for their homemade ice cream and has these huge cupcakes. They were so huge, we just shared one. These had a more traditional look to them, but were still super yummy.

The last stop was this cafe called Rebecca's Coffee House. I loved the look of this coffee house. It was huge with vintage furniture everywhere. It reminded me of the furniture my mom and dad had at our old house in Montclair, Ca. The smell of all the sandwiches were so yummy! They occasionally have cupcakes there, but we must have gone on an off day, they didn't have any! I was really sad, but ok cause I was actually getting really full from all the food. So, from the two we tried from that day, and the other one from that awesome wedding in the dessert... our favorite was.....

Great service, great cupcakes, great environment. The owner was really nice and took time out of his day to chat with us.  The overall environment was great and I hope they stay in business for a very long time. i plan on coming here every time we stop in to San Diego. The next place was a surprise for Jp. He works really hard and always asks me to massage his back or his knee that had the surgery. I'm not very good and Jp is so good to me, I wanted to suprise him by scheduling a massage at Bella Tosca Spa and Salon. He loved it way more than I had ever imagined! He totally played the part. He wore the flip-flops they provided, wore the robe, took a shower! I wish we had gone there earlier so he could enjoy the spa and sauna, but he didn't. He said he had a great deep tissue massage. Me being prego, I didn't want a massage cause I didn't want to lay on my stomach for that long. I thought I would just be uncomfortable, so I just read magazines and waited for him to finish his experience. I'm glad he had a great time. we definitely need to go back so I can give it a whirl. Last on the list was a BBQ spot I wanted John to try. Part of Top Gun was filmed here and had that old bar feel, but... no air conditioning! It was really hot, but we did it for the experience. Kansas City BBQ is the tiny building right behind the Palm Trees.

This pretty much ended our trip to San Diego, it was a pretty late lunch so we just headed back home. But alright, for those of you who were wondering how big I am now, it's really a fake shot cause John was telling me stick out my belly, but here you go! Totally fake, but I would like the new addition to get used to modeling hehe! But, this is how I look like after a full day of eating! It's crazy

 Happy Birthday husband, I hope you had a lot of fun with us...

A few weeks ago we hit a major milestone in both our lives. We saw our baby for the first time and it was amazing =) *almost getting teary eyed even as I write that* When we first found out that Lauren was, as she says it "pregos!", we were floored with so many mixed emotions...from the "woooaahhh.....holy $***!!! (please excuse my french)" emotion, to the "wow, God has blessed truly blessed us" super thankful emotion. We weren't really planning on having kids till perhaps a year or two from now so you can just imagine the looks on our faces when we saw that + sign on the pee stick! hahahah But apparently, God has other plans for us which we're definitely looking forward to. The docs have this little toy looking wheel that actually tells them when the baby will be due. So for everyone that was asking for the due date...there it is, we're having a Christmas baby! (poor kid hahaha)!) Oh yeah and it's actually Dec 20th according to what they tell us; not Dec 22nd like the green arrow says. So we walk into this dark room/office with this big machine in the corner, armed with my 40D and 24-70mm lens...(Sorry hun, hope you don't mind showing your belly to....the world hahah) It's so funny because every time I walk into the docs office, I feel like I get these super strange looks because I have this huge camera hanging over my shoulder. So as Lauren was lying down getting ready, the ultrasound nurse says..."boy, that's a serious camera you got there". hahha Here's a shot of Lauren getting ready to see our baby for the first time... Drum roll please................................................ Our first look at him or her was the regular 2D black and white deal...(that's him/her right in the middle of the monitor) Another unreal thing about this the ultrasound machine is that it's able to capture how fast the heartbeat is of the baby... And not only that, we actually could hear and even see the hearbeat. Yup...175bpm or beats per minute. So we got to see the baby in 2D, see how fast his/her heartbeat is and even hear it! Then she drops the 3D bomb on us and we were like "wwhhhaaaa!!!" =) That's him or her right there, the size of a gummy bear...so amazing! The mouse pointer that you see is pointing to the baby's head...and if you follow the shape of the body all the way down as it makes a "check mark" shape...that's the feet. And somewhere in between there, we could actually see the heartbeat beating. I couldn't help but think..."I'm looking at God creation in the making and that right there is my son or daughter..." *sigh* If you see Lauren, make sure you ask her to show you her imitation of our gummy bear baby...it's hilarious! =) So we left the docs office so in awe and excited at the same time. After weeks of just "knowing" you're pregnant to actually seeing and hearing it was nothing short of amazing. It shows us how good, awesome, powerful and loving our Lord and Savior is to us...and with all of it, we truly give Him the glory. "Thank You Lord, for such an amazing blessing"

Ok so there a million other things that we've thrown in the back burner in terms of posts but tonight we thought we'd start by sharing with you the product of all the lighting techniques we've been learning...

 

So what do you guys think?!! More on the shot later. First...OUR CHECKLIST!! YUP! YOU READ IT CORRECTLY...God's blessing us with a child!! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT??!!! This was totally unexpected and we're excited and nervous all at the same time! For all the moms and dads that follow our blog...ANY TIPS??!! Ok so later this week..."How We Set Up This Shot"...