Ugly Sweater Party

I heard about this concept last year and in my research it seems really popular. The basic is you hold an ugly Christmas sweater party and everyone comes wearing those christmas sweaters...you know the ones...you only find them on the population that is over 40 or school teachers (no offense, I know many people who own these) but it's all in good fun and it turned out really successful because almost everyone participated! Here are some pictures from the party:



Brad and I found some awesome Christmas vests (above) and Jill crafted Brian's out of ribbons and stars (below) Don't you love how both of us showed up with side pony tails? AND they were on opposite sides, so together we would make one complete pigtail.


Jason and Katie brought some amazing homemade chicken wings, both spicy and BBQ! YUM!


Savannah and Ruben came and spent the weekend with us, but they forgot to pack some Christmas sweaters, so...this is what happens when you forget a Christmas sweater, I create one for you with all my craftiness!


Shane and Mandi, they're so cute and photogenic! Shane's sweater was super itchy and I love how Mandi's has fringe! Amazing!


We had a contest for "Ugliest" sweater (left) "So Ugly It's Cool" sweater (right) and "Most 3-D" sweater (middle) and these are the ornaments I made as part of the prize for the winners


Shane won "ugliest" and Mandi won "so ugly it's cool" and their other prizes were an 80's Christmas CD and a pomegranate infuser


Brian won "most 3-D" and some amazing chocolate truffles


The night was super fun, we had a lot of good food and played Cranium (boys vs. girls-girls won!) and then we played Catch Phrase (boys won) then Battle of the Sexes. We all had a lot of fun. Here's a group shot:


These are just some of the sugar cookies I made for the party, I was kind of proud of how they turned out, they tasted good and looked cute!

Private Concert

For anyone who doesn't know...Brad is a HUGE fan of Dave Matthew's Band, he's seen them perform on multiple occassions, possibly in the double digits. So...when he found out that we could see them here in SLO we jumped at the chance. The Fremont Theater (super awesome!) had DMB in 3D.


I think 3D concerts are the next big thing...


I love 3D glasses!



Well, the movie started at 5:15pm and Brad gets off work at 5, so we rushed to the theater hoping we would still be able to find a good seat...well, low and behold, the theater was empty, we had the whole theater to ourselves so it was basically like DMB was singing just for us. How incredible is that?

Playing Catch-Up

So November was a fun month and now December is almost over so I figured I would try to play a little bit of catch up so people can be informed of the happenings. The weekend before Thanksgiving some of the women of my mom's family had a get-together in Tahoe, so much fun! So here are a few pictures of our cousin Gwen's house and the lovely sights we explored:


Here are cousin Gwen and Deanna


Lake Tahoe


Pretty sights in Gwen's backyard



For the actual Thanksgiving holiday we were in NYC, which was a blast, and to make it better we got to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade! Here are a few highlights:


The balloons were amazing, so big, it was unbelievable! I loved spongebob and abby cadabby!


And then there was Horton...I was hoping there would be little "katies" running around, but sadly there wasn't


The only bad thing about the parade is that if you're not standing at the end, where the news cameras are, then you don't get to see anyone perform...but it was still fun to see some of the celebrities, like Mitchel Musso from Hannah Montana!


Here's the four of us that got up super early to get front row spots at the parade!


Thanksgiving dinner:


The family above and then Justin with Reagan below


The Friday after Thanksgiving we did a whirlwind sightseeing tour, we went to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island


Then we went to see the Rockette's Christmas Spectacular


And finally, we got to see Santa at Macy's and get our picture taken with him!


Then Saturday we visited Central Park before we had to catch our plane home


Thanksgiving was wonderful and hopefully we'll be able to go back and visit Scott and Ashley more while they're living there!

Happy Holidays

Merry Christmas to Everyone! This year we're saving on postage and just emailing our annual Christmas letter and posting it on this blog. Hope you all had an enjoyable 2009 and that 2010 will be even better!

Cake = Happiness

Even though I'm strapped for time these days, it makes me so happy to be able to make a cake for someone because I can take my mind completely off of school for a while. That probably isn't a good thing, because I have so much to do, but it's so nice, I just need a break to do something fun every now and then. So today was a baby shower for my old boss at Colby Jack Cafe & Bakery and I got to make her cake. It was so fun and she loved it so much! Everyone at the party loved it! It was lemon cake with lemon cream filling and a light lemon icing and marshmallow fondant. Here's a close-up of the cupcakes


Here's my cake and the cupcakes on the gift table.


Here's me and Natalie, my old boss, she was thrilled when she saw this cake.


I don't know why but I love making these pregnant cakes! They are my favorite and if I could choose to only make one type of cake the rest of my life it would be these, not sure why, but they're so much fun!
Here are a couple from the past:




The green one was for my neighbor's daughter Stacy (February 2009), and the purple polka dot one was for my best friend Hayley (November 2008). The design has slowly started to improve...

Who Knew?

So it's been a very crazy couple of weeks. Just non-stop assignments and meetings and more assignments and drama drama DRAMA! But this next week should be pretty good. I'm hoping to actually accomplish something other than the bare minimum in class, I'd like to actually get some assignments finished then be able to get ahead with some other assignments...we'll see if that happens. So part of my extra crazy week involved the fact that we had a community meeting in Arroyo Grande tonight and no matter how hard we tried our class just could not convince our professor how we should conduct this meeting. It turned out much better than I ever would have thought, however, it was not very useful for us since we did not receive much/any feedback from the community. So, maybe someday our professor will actually listen to our ideas and we might actually gain some insight from the community and we might actually get to use the skills we've learned in other classes. Okay bitterness vented, I'm done. More on topic, I taught my first college level course today. What a thrill! Who knew I would be teaching college courses someday...well, I certainly didn't! And I know a lot of other people probably feel the same way, especially my family. I usually hate talking in front of people, but it was so much fun to teach today! It's mainly because of the topic, I'm teaching a computer software to undergrads for the next week and a half. It's a nice break from the usual life I lead. For the first time in my life I actually would consider being a teacher (I absolutely never would have EVER thought I would want or even consider being a teacher). I think it must be because the students are college students, not children or high schoolers. But to become a professor would require a PhD, and I know Brad doesn't want me doing any more school. Oh well, I guess I will stick to my two weeks of teaching. Maybe I can be a community college teacher, do they need PhDs? More options to look into in case the economy continues to suck for planners. But for now I will just go to bed and try to sleep through the annoying chirping coming from one of 4 smoke detectors...which have all been disconnected from batteries and the wall...yet they're still chirping. I have since put one in my car, one back on the ceiling and two are laying on the counter. Hopefully out place doesn't burn down tonight.

November Already!

So October just FLEW by! I can't believe it's already November. I have been going crazy with school and I hardly have time to talk to anyone anymore, but only a few more weeks then I get a break to NYC for a few days for Thanksgiving, then two weeks after that and I get 3 weeks of Christmas break, during which time I hope to get a large portion of my thesis finished.

I thought since I haven't posted in a while I would post our Halloween pictures. Brad's work had a halloween party on Friday and I was invited to come, I was basically Brad's prop for his costume. I made both of our costumes, we dressed as Popeye and Olive Oyl. We ended up winning the "Best Overall" category for the costume contest. So I won a new apron, super cute, it's green and has a spider that says "bite me" I love it!





Then last night we had a few friends over for games and snacks. So there are a couple pictures of decorations I made and the food. I didn't take any pictures during our game playing, but it was fun!

Happy Anniversary!

I can't believe it's been 4 years already! It has gone by so fast, and it's just going to continue flying by. It's been a wonderful 4 years, a few bumps along the way but I'm glad to have had Brad by my side! I love you babe! I'm so grateful to have you as my husband, you are truly the best and you understand my wants and needs so well! I hope I do the same for you!

Only 3 nights at home this month so far...

September is turning out to be quite the traveling month! I have only spent 3 night in my own bed so far this month and tonight will be my 4th, which I am so grateful because I have missed my bed!

September 1st Brad and I traveled down to L.A. for a conference for Brad's work. We stopped in Buellton on the way and had some split pea soup at world famous Andersen's.


Of course I can never pass up the cut-out!



After dinner we finished the drive to L.A. and stayed at the Wilshire Grand, which is the first hotel I've stayed at where you cannot park your own car, nor can you take your own bags to your room, and they give you mouthwash with the other usual bathroom liquids like shampoo, conditioner, and lotion.



We spent Tuesday night in L.A. then we walked forever from our hotel to the Chapel of Our Lady Peace where Brad's conference was being held. After Brad got to his conference I ventured out on my own. I rode the metro line up to Hollywood and walked the entire walk of fame, including the side streets, man did my feet hurt! I learned that Hollywood is not fun 1) at 9 in the morning (nothing's open and super sketchy people are out roaming), and 2)when you are alone, because no one is there to marvel with you about the things you see, and you're in none of the pictures!

Here is one of the Chapel of Our Lady Peace, and a spiritual one of a hand reaching down to touch another structure...odd things happen in spiritual places.





Here are a couple from my adventure in Hollywood









After Hollywood I rode the Metro around a little. It said it would go to Long Beach and I had nothing better to do so I just sat and rode it for a while. Then I started noticing the neighborhoods getting sketchier and sketchier, and I was the only white person on the train, so I found a safe stop to turn around at and rode back into downtown L.A. where I just sat and read my book for a couple hours until Brad was finished, then we rode back to our hotel, picked up the car and headed to Vegas for the night. The place we stayed was recently remodeled and the bathrooms looked really nice...but looks can be deceiving...behold the shower:



My yummy continental breakfast!