Christmas Time Was Here...

We started our Christmas celebrating on Christmas Eve by heading over to Nick's Grandma's house for dinner. We had a great time playing a game, eating good food, catching up with each other, and exchanging gifts. Braelynn, our niece, made out like a bandit but I think that she may have enjoyed the paper and boxes more than her presents. It so fun to see how big she's getting. My favorite part of the night is a tie between Nick and his brother discussing what Barbie's little sister was named and Nick putting together all of Braelynn's new toys including her bike.

On Christmas morning Nick and I woke up and looked through our stockings and opened the few presents we had under the tree. Nick indulged me this year and filled my stocking with tons of silly things including a back massager and three Tim Burton movies...I was wonderfuly spoiled. We started a tradition on our first Christmas that I buy Nick a Christmas book each year. This year I was excited to buy a children's book. We are now the proud owners of How the Grinch Stole Christmas and I think next year I might go for the Polar Express. After we opened everything we headed over to my parent's for breakfast and more gift opening...seriously spoiled. Dad then took us to the movie's followed by challenging us to some Wii bowling. We had a great dinner with most of my family and then headed home to end the night with The Nightmare Before Christmas.

We had a great christmas this year and can't wait for the new year. We hope that you are having an equally great holiday season.

My Tim Burton Christmas

I not so secretly love Tim Burton. Nick would tell you it's because I like strange, weird, or unusual things and that's mostly true. I think it's amazing that someone's mind is that creative no matter how crazy it is. My mom, knowing this, bought Nick a ornament this year of the Corpse Bride and my little sister bought me the coolest mugs EVER of Jack Skellington. The odd thing is that as much as I enjoy the weirdness I didn't actually own any of the movies. However, on Friday my head teacher bought me the Nightmare Before Christmas for Christmas and then I came home to a disappointed husband who informed me that he had also purchased it for my stocking. Luckily, my head teacher kept the receipt so now I can return one and maybe get The Corpse Bride too. Best Christmas ever so far...

Oh, and not having to do with Tim Burton....my husband is awesome and bought me two new pairs of shoes yesterday, which if you've seen my shoes lately you'd know it was long overdue.... I am eternally grateful.

O Christmas Tree

The tradition continued this year, busted knee and all, to take the trip down to Apple Hill and find this year's Christmas tree. My dad started the tradition a couple of years ago and now every year I look forward to the first Saturday in December for breakfast and the tree hunt. The place that we usually go to for breakfast was closed this year so we went down the street a little bit and found Kathee's Cafe which was just as good and I personally think had better service. Nick loved the "Jeet Yet" sign and laughed because it reminded him of the south. Also the picture of Nick below was taken by Jill...not too bad.

After breakfast we headed down to the Christmas tree farm and took some pictures of the families. Unfortunately the crazy man that took our family picture cut out Mom and most of Dad on my camera.

After the pictures we all went our separate ways to find the perfect tree for each household. Nick and I didn't get a tree here but it was still fun to help everyone else find theirs. Below is some of my FAVORITE pictures from the trip.

We had so much fun spending time with the family. It wore Nick out a little but that just meant to that we got to take a nap when we got home. :)

Starting the Holidays...

Nick and I had a great Thanksgiving this year. We started off the day by going to Nick's grandma's house and having lunch with his family. There was delicious meatballs, appetizers, and even cheese fondue. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures mostly because my niece wasn't really feeling the whole picture taking thing. She was great entertainment for us though and is getting so big.

After visiting with the Hudson's we headed off to the Esslinger's for Thanksgiving dinner with my family. Andi went crazy this year coming up with great ideas to keep the kids busy and allow the adults to actually relax a little. Even she got to sit down for a minute while they watched Mickey Mouse on the projector screen...Uncle Brian is so cool. My favorite activity was going on a leaf walk with all the kids after dinner so that the dishes could get done and the kids could make a placemat with their leaves after. Here's a few pictures that I got from Andi of our leaf walk and Nick taking it easy watching football.


The next day Andi invited all the sisters over to her house to make these cool advent calenders that she found on a blog. At first it was overwhelming to have to create 24 cute little squares but once I got started I had way too much fun being crafty. Everyone's calender turned out super cute and fit their personalities. Here's a picture of mine:

I hope that everyone else had a great start to the holiday season and ate just as much as we did.

Part Wolverine

It's been a week since Nick's surgery so it was time for his first post-op appointment and apparently my husband might be part Wolverine. It went so well! The doctor said that he was amazed at how well his knee was healing and how little swelling there was. He can already straighten it which I'm told can take some people a couple of weeks. He also has excellent range of motion (can bend his knee 90 degrees) and was told that he could probably start driving and working out with the stationary bike by next week. My husband is pretty much amazing.

Knee BEFORE the surgery

Some AFTER pictures
(one week after surgery)

Prepping For Surgery

In preparation for Nick's knee surgery tomorrow morning I did the thing that ever wife does before their husband is going to be incapicated for a while: made Chex muddy buddys! He's been wanting them for awhile and I thought that since he wasn't going to have much mobility it would be nice to have something delicious easily at hand...and I don't hate having them readily available for me either.

Also a couple weeks ago Nick went and bought us a bedroom set! He practically picked it out all by himself. I didn't actually see it in person before he purchased it so I was excited to finally see it and be sure that it actually fit into our apartment. Lucky for us it fits, it's beautiful and it came just in time for Nick and Chad to put it together tonight. Chad brought Bri over with him so we played in all the boxes and with the styrofoam while the boys worked hard putting everything together...who needs real toys when you have styrofoam and boxes? Bonus: Now Nick has an awesome new grown up bed to rest in!

Styrofoam Stairs

Working Hard

Almost finished project (the dresser didn't have the hardware yet, but it's still beautiful)

Hopefully everything goes smoothly tomorrow and Nick can start healing and begin working toward the CHP again. Wish us luck!

All Things Halloween...

We started preparing for Halloween on Monday by carving pumpkins with our friends for family home evening. With a pumpkin for everyone it looked like a small pumpkin patch in Erin's kitchen. We had a lot of fun taking out the pumpkin guts and then later Erin cooked up the seeds for everyone to enjoy. The best part of the night though was when we decided to take pictures with our pumpkins and Nick actually put pumpkin guts in his mouth to match his pumpkin. It was gross and awesome. Erin took the picture so if you want to see it check out her blog.

On Friday was the Fall Festival at my work where we all dress up including the kids and just do a lot of different fun activities (making lollipop ghost, frankenstein cards, etc...) Here some silly pictures of me and the awesome ladies I work with.

Unfortunately Friday after work was the end of celebrating for me. I spent most of Halloween in bed with strep throat...so not cool. I'm feeling a little better now but I'm sad that I missed all the cuteness of seeing my nephews and niece dressed up. I did get to see my niece Braelynn on TV that morning on Good Day Sacramento though and that was awesome. I hope everyone else had a great halloween.

Girly Giveaway!

My goood friend Erin is doing her first giveaway on her new blog. She is so talented at so many things including photography and creating some super cute sewing projects. Her first give away is a little girls skirt. If your interested you should check out her site at erinnoeldesigns.blogspot.com. The giveaway ends on halloween!

Abandonment leads to Boredom

Nick went to watch some band stuff today... all day...so he didn't invite me a long. Since my husband is gone and I'm waiting on the laundry you get this:

♥ What are your middle names?
"Elisabeth" and "Wayne"

♥ How long have you been together?
Since November 2007, Married since March 2008

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating?
He asked me to be his girlfriend after one week of knowing each other but we started hanging out the day after we met.

♥ Who asked who out?
I asked Nick out on what was supposed to be a triple date to the Dixon Corn Maze

♥ Who made the first move?
If I remember correctly Nick held my hand in the corn maze that night

♥ Did you go to the same school?
Nope.

♥ Are you from the same home town?
Technically we are both from Sacramento but grew up in different areas

♥ Who is the smartest?
We're both smart in different areas

♥ Who majored in what?
I have my credential in Montessori Preschool Education and Nick majored in Life

♥ Who is the most sensitive?
My feelings definitely get hurt easier

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple?
Chilis or we eat in with pizza

♥ Where is the farthest you two have traveled together as a couple?
Mexico, on a cruise in November last year

♥ Who has the worst temper?
Nick

♥ How many children do you want?
One right now, but eventually three or four

♥ Who does the cooking?
Me, unless Nick is trying to make me eat fish then he has to cook it

♥ Who is more social?
Definitely me

♥ Who is the neat-freak?
Neither but I'm the one who cleans

♥ Who is the most stubborn?
Nick, which still throws me off because I'm crazy stubborn

♥ Who wakes up earlier?
Almost always Nick does

♥ Where was your first date?
Dixon corn maze

♥ Who has the bigger family?
I do. I have five siblings and Nick has one.

♥ Do you get flowers often?
No, because I already have fake flowers in my house all the time.

♥ How do you spend the holidays?
Christmas eve with Nick's family, Christmas with mine.

♥ Who is more jealous?
I don't know that either one of us gets very jealous.

♥ How long did it take to get serious?
This question should actually be written as how quickly did it take to get serious? I was ready to marry Nick after like three weeks of dating.

♥ Who eats more?
I'd say it was equal. There's a lot of snacking going on in this house.

♥ What do you do for a living?
I'm a preschool teacher and Nick works as an outside salesmen for Fastenal.

♥ Who does/did the laundry?
I do both our laundry and Nick does his when he needs something before I'm ready to start the laundry.

♥ Who’s better with the computer?
Hands Down -Nick

♥ Who drives when you are together?
Nick. I don't really like to drive and he loves it so it works out.

♥ What is your song?
We dance to At Last for our first dance but everytime I hear Shadow of the Day by Linkin Park it reminds me of when Nick and I were dating and makes me smile.

New Stuff

I should not be allowed to go with Sam to her hair appointments ever again. Lately I've been trying to grow my hair out. However, yesterday I changed my mind after seeing Sam's new cute hair. Thanks Jaime for cutting my hair with a couple hours notice! Mom was sad to see it so short and just as I expected Nick LOVES it. I really like it too and am excited to have a new cut.

back/side

Nick also got something new...Guitar Hero for the Wii. His brother had bought it but didn't like it as much as he thought he would, so when Nick went over there to wash his car he bought it off of his brother. Thanks guys for disliking your game because my husband loves it!

My Husband

What we've been up to....

Two weekends ago Nick and I were watching tv and saw that the CHP was having an Open House in Stockton so we decided to go and see what it was all about. They had a lot of the different cars that the CHP has used throughout the years and some other cool stuff including a helicopter landing which was our favorite part. After that Nick took me to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs in 3D! I'm now wondering what it would be like to jump around in a jello mold...



This last weekend was my nephew's birthday party at Fog Willow Pumpkin Patch. Since it wasn't until the late afternoon we headed down to Elk Grove early to check out the Giant Pumpkin Harvest Festival in Elk Grove Park. We saw some seriously giant pumpkins! It was a cool little festival. It had a bunch of fenders and fun stuff for kids to do including carnival games. Check out the size of the crazy pumpkins....



At Cale's party we saw some cool farm animals, took a hayride and got to play on a giant haystack as well as a cool play structure. Andi is getting creative and decorated her cupcakes to the theme of the party, they were very cute. Everyone had a great time and all the kids got to take home a perfectly size little pumpkin. We love the pumpkin patch AND we love Cale.

Nick had a birthday... Shout Hooray!

This past week has been Nick's birthday week. I wasn't sure how I was going to pull it off but I decided that I would get him a present everyday for seven days since he has spoiled me these last two birthdays. They ranged from silly little gifts like a diet pepsi to silly awesome ones like the first season of ChiPs. Yesterday was Nick's actual birthday and we celebrated over at the Langstraats house because our apartment doesn't really accommadate more than four people. (Thanks again guys!) We had dinner there, ate the experimental Snickers cake, and then opened presents including his last one from me.

The Cake...It has melted caramel, peanuts and chocolate chips in between two layers of chocolate cake with whipped butter cream frosting and snickers bars on top...it was pretty delicious but I felt like I ate five candy bars in one piece of cake...

Nick blowing out his candles Brianna style

Showing off the beautiful card that Bri made for him.

I knew that Chad and Erin were getting him the BYU hat so I saved the reversable BYU basketball shorts as his last gift.

Birthday weeks are hard work but I had a lot of fun trying to pick things out for him and I think that he had a lot of fun opening up his silly presents everyday.

Labor Day

For Labor Day Nick and I invited ourselves on a trip to Apple Hill with my parents. Everyone else had the same idea so it turned out to be almost the whole family. We went to our regular stop for chocolate caramel apples, hanging by the pond, apple juice and checking out the crafts. After that we stop by another place that had some farm animals that the nephews and niece really enjoyed at least until Jill got licked by a cow. We had a great lunch and then headed home to relax and have dinner with Megan and Bubba. We had an awesome time and I hope you enjoy some of the pictures of our day.

My Birthday Week

For my actually birthday Nick and I went to the River Cats baseball game with some friends of ours. One of our friends had a bunch to tickets and parking passes that needed to be used by that night so we were lucky that he invited to go along for FREE. We didn't win but I did get a chance to fill myself with ridiculous amounts of liquid cheese. It was a lot of fun.

Before the game (Check out our awesome sits. Thanks Sims!)

Nick and Chad (Erin was out of town.)

My friend Michelle's birthday is the day before mine and she had a 80s themed bowling party that weekend. I hadn't been bowling in a long time so it was fun to see how poorly I still played. The food was great, especially the desserts, (rubic cube cupcakes and a cake decorated like a cassette tape) and her one year daughter provided amazing entertainment with her dancing skills.

Michelle and I in our matching yellow.

On Sunday we had dessert with my family and just had a great time celebrating. My mom even made me a gift that had 25 little gifts of 25 things each. (25 dimes, 25 stickers, 25 cotton balls...that type of thing.) I had a great birthday this year!

Ratting out my big sister....

A conversation had with my nephew this afternoon...

Dax: That's a stoplight...

Me: You are correct.

D: Umm Mur green says go.

M: I know, but I have to wait for the cars in front of me to go too. What does red say?

D: Red says stop.... and... yellow says go faster!

M: Who told you yellow means go faster?

D: Just my mom.

M: Oh...you're mom is so busted.

D: No, Mur, you're busted.

Happy Early Birthday To Me!

For an early birthday present Nick planned a mini vacation for the two of us this weekend. I told him I wanted to be surprised but about a day before we left I changed my mind and he told me part of the plan but kept our finally destination a secret still.

First Stop: We went to Blondie's Pizza in Berkeley for lunch. That pizza is so delicious I can't even tell you. The crust is amazing and Nick tells me that the BBQ chicken pizza is just as good as the pepperoni. It's pretty much THE reason to go to Berkeley.

Second Stop: After lunch we went and spent the day in San Francisco. We hung out at Pier 39 where we saw all the crazy people and fulfilled my salt water taffy needs. Nick and I also went to the aquarium were we saw the silliest sting ray and got to touch sting rays and tiger sharks. We finished our time in San Francisco at Ghiradelli square were we had a delicious ice cream sundae. For your viewing pleasue here are some pictures of the day and a video of the silly sting ray.

Third and Final Stop: Our final stop was in Pacifica, which is about a half hour away from San Francisco, were our hotel was. The hotel was apparently not what Nick had expected when he made the reservation online but we laughed about it and made the best of it all. There was a beach right next to us that we hung out on after dinner at L&L Hawaiian BBQ. Nick was cracking me up with his Indiana Jones seaweed whips and singing to his new best pal Gully.

It was such a fun trip and I'm so glad that I have such an amazing husband that was willing to do all of it for me. It was a great way to start celebrating my birthday and now the only problem is how in the world am I going to top this for his birthday next month?

What do you do when your husband is out of town?

I invite cute boys over to my house to spend the night. Nick went out of town on Wednesday to Tahoe for the High Adventure trip with the scouts so I was own left on my for four days. In my never ending quest to be the best aunt ever I decided to invite my oldest nephews, Lucas and Mason, over to my apartment for a sleepover. I love those guys! We had a lot of fun eating McDonalds, swimming in my pool, making our own ice cream creations, building a fort, watching the Ant Bully, playing Wii and hanging out at the playground. I love having the opportunity to spend some special time with them and I can't wait until I have a bigger place so that Dax can come too.

Watching the Ant Bully in the fort.

Wicked Awesome Weekend

This last weekend was a great weekend for Nick and I. On Saturday I had the opportunity to go down to SF to see Wicked with a bunch of the women in my family. I had heard some of the music and knew the basic story line but that was it. It was incredible. I loved everything about it and was excited about how the original story was mixed into this new version. It was a lot of fun to share the experience with most of my sisters, aunts, cousins and grandma.

Even more exciting than Wicked was that Nick passed the Physical test for admission to the CHP academy. We had been pretty stressed about it and were so grateful that not only was it fianlly over but that he had been successful. He had his interview with the panel yesterday and so now it's more of the waiting game to see how he did with that. I don't have any awesome pictures to show from Nick's test, because they frown upon that but here are a few from after Wicked.

Megan and I outside the theatre.

Sam and I with silly Grandma in the background

Some of the crew after the show in front of the Wicked poster

New To Me Car...

My Cavalier is getting pretty janky. This last week after work it overheated, blew a fuse and started spraying coolant all over the place causing stream to seep out of the bottom of my hood. We replaced the fuse and hoped that it would be alright. I barely made it to Auto Zone the next morning before my coolant light went off, not surprisingly since I was there to get coolant. After that it overheated again on my way home...All this is a long way of saying that the decision was made to get me a new car.

Last night after weeks of searching online and some serious loan drama Nick and I headed off to look at a car that we both liked and thought was a great deal. I ended up driving my husband crazy and loving the car! We got a 2001 Toyota Highlander 4x4. I still love it after driving it around all day today and am excited for the little extra love Nick plans to give it. I still feel a little bit like it's a rental car but after we donate the Cavalier I think it will sink in more. It'll be weird to not drive around a Teal Cavalier. :)

This is it!

It doesn't have the money sticker anymore...

The inside

The weekend we've been waiting for...

On Friday Nick and I headed down to the bay area for my graduation. Nick and I have both been looking forward to this weekend for a long time...finally I get my Saturdays back and no more crazy manuals! I was really glad that my parents could come down for the graduation especially since mom has been dying to see me walk across a stage. After the graduation we tried to go to dinner at TGIFridays but as it turns out they are closed for remodeling. After panicing a little because I had no idea where to go we looked across the street and decided that Benihana would be a GREAT solution to our problem. Lucky for us, Dad agreed that we could go...It was such a fun experience and of course Dad made friends with the people sitting next to us who, small world, happened to be members of the church. Thanks to everyone who has supported me these past two years especially my husband, my family and my partner in craziness Miss Jenny.


After dinner Nick and I parted ways with Mom and Dad and headed to Stanford to spend the night in anticipation for the DCI show on Saturday. For those of you who aren't married to Nick DCI stands for Drum Corp International. We stayed at a great hotel. Our room had a king size bed, overlooked a koi pond, and was about a minute away from the show. Unfortunately the show didn't start until 6:30 so we had to think of some things to do to fill up our Saturday. We went and had breakfast at this restaurant called Stacks, looked around the Stanford shopping center, and then treated ourselves to Transformers 2. After the movie we headed to the show a little early in hopes of catching some of the corps practicing around the campus. We ran into some of Nick's old friends and my feet got VERY dirty from all the walking.



After the show we headed home. We finally got home early this morning around one o'clock very tired. I'm officially a fan of the Santa Clara Vanguard (their marching is INCREDIBLE) and the Santa Clara Vanguard Cadets. The cadets show was my favorite though because I knew all of the songs that they played. I was glad that I got to be a part of something that Nick loves so much. We had a great time this weekend and are now taking today to recooperate before we start real life again tomorrow.

Emus, Cupcakes and Dad...

This weekend was packed with fun things to do. On Saturday Nick and I woke up and decided that we were going to use our free passes to the zoo. I KNOW that the Sacramento Zoo has a gazillion birds but everytime I go I'm a little disappointed that it doesn't have other things. We had good time though and saw all that the zoo has to offer. My favorite this time around were the emus because they looked just like Edward and Edwina from the children's books at my school.

After the zoo we headed over to the Esslinger's to celebrate Jill's birthday. Kate made the coolest cupcakes and even though the weather wasn't excatly screaming that it was summertime there were some who decided to go swimming. Jill loved all of her presents especially the baby doll from GG. I was just glad that she still thought that getting books was exciting.

Sunday was Father's Day and after church we went to my parent's house to celebrate. The food was good, the company was good and the cake was cool looking and on top of that I have one of the best Dads in the world. Below is some picture's from Jill's party...enjoy!

Camping!

This past weekend Nick left me to go camping with Chad and the Young Men at Calveras Big Trees. I'm pretty sure that our young men go camping more than any other young men. They always seem to have a great time and judging from the pictures it looks like this trip was not as cold as snow camping but just as much fun.

A Good Reason for a Walk.

This morning was the annual Race for the Cure in Sacramento. My sister Katie started the tradition of walking the 5k three years ago and I was so excited that I got to participate this year since last year I had to be in the bay area at school. This year was especially fun because ALL of the girls were there including Megan, my new sister in law, my mom and Jill, my niece, who was about a month away from being there the first year we walked. We all made it in one piece and even got a cool shirt. It's incredible to me to see everyone who comes out to support this cause and all the survivors in their pink shirts. The walk is such a simple way to show support to those who are affected by breast cancer and I'm excited to keep up this great tradition.

Walking the walk...

All the girls after the race

Go Team Pink Mommas!

Getting Fit with the Wii

What's the best way to get excited about moving around and losing some weight? Spending a lot of money to get a brand new Wii Fit!





Nick and I finally gave in after weeks of both of us talking about how bad we wanted to try it. I'm a little bit nervous that my Wii will tell me I'm fat but super excited that you can hoola hoop...