Happy Birthday Gene and Lisa

January 2010 brought the first family gathering of the New Year. We all got together for a surprise Brunch in honor of Jon's grandpa Gene and Lisa's birthday. (Lisa is Jon's cousin Matt's wife. . . whose birthday is actually in February, but it gets celebrated early with family).
It was decided that it was going to be a surprise and that we were going to do Saturday brunch, which was a little different then normal (normal being Sunday afternoon for cake). So this morning included a yummy egg dish (thanks Kelley!), various bread items, fruit and veggies along with the traditional dessert selection. Man! We were stuffed (and on a sugar high!).
We had so much fun hanging out with everyone. Here's some of the highlights:
:: Watching Everett be cured of the hiccups.
:: Seeing Cooper, Logan, and Ethan play with toys that their daddy's played with when they were young. . . I believe there were some Robin Hood toys and TNT toys. So much fun!
:: Watching Gene and Lisa open presents and blow out their candles.
:: Enjoying Wanda (Jon's grandma) not using her new digital camera. . . she loves her 35 mm, what can we say?

We love getting the chance to spend time with kids and now that Ethan is a tad older, it is so much fun to watch him interact with his cousins. It really is entertaining!

I will end this post, with one final Happy Birthday to Gene and Lisa. Happy Birthday!!!!!

A quick tour. . .

We are finally in our home. We are getting settled. . . well as much as we can. There are still boxes in the garage that need to be dealt with, boxes of books that are being left alone until after painting has been done, and pictures to be hung. . . again after our gigantic painting party (to be announced upon the arrival of warmer temperatures). We did get in just before Christmas and I actually just took down my partially decorated Christmas tree last week (gosh darn it. . . I was going to enjoy it as much as I could!). So, in response to so many emails. . . chats. . . and anyone else who had requested. . . here it is. Keep in mind that we ARE going to be painting. . . eventually.

Okay, So, I completely messed up the order of the pictures and well, I am too lazy to go back and fix it. So, enjoy. . . or come visit and see for yourself. :)

GUEST BATHROOM
We love 2 sink bathrooms! That was one thing we really were not willing to sacrifice on. . . but it had to be in the Master Bath. Fortunately, we were able to get a house with both bathrooms having double sinks. Yeah! I don't even mind the blue tile. . . it matches my beachy themed stuff.

BACKYARD

Welcome to tranquility. Okay, maybe not. But, I love our backyard. It is January and we have beautiful green grass (that needs to be mowed!).

Jon's Weber looks like it belongs back here! I am so excited because I am going to plant a garden back there and we already have a baby mandarin tree, naval orange tree, granny smith tree and a mature lemon tree.

The view from the family room. I love the HUGE sliding glass door that looks out here. Our backyard is just begging for Ethan to come and play. He loves it!

FAMILY ROOM

This room has unexpectedly become our favorite place in the whole house. We love the fireplace and are growing to like the built in shelving on each side. It works out great for games, cds, wii stuff, and my scrapbook albums. Once we get rid of the blue carpet (yes, it is blue!) and some furniture . . . it is going to be so nice!

THE KITCHEN

This view is of our kitchen nook area. Jon bought me my dream table from IKEA to go in this cozy space. To the Right, you can see a sneak peak of our front living room and to the Left you can see part of the open wall area leading to the family room.

Facing the other direction. The kitchen (it looks so messy. . . I should have probably cleaned it up prior to snapping this picture. . . oh well!). White tile counter tops and white appliances.

FRONT ROOM/LIVING ROOM

This is our front room/living room. We put our couch here and are planning on putting our white bookcases in here, too. For now, this room seems so bare. . . eventually we will have more furniture. . . baby steps, i keep telling myself.

Formal dining room and Entry Way. I love my formal dining room space! I can't wait to start having dinner parties!

This room is really awkward shaped and so, we are not really sure what we are going to do with it. But, we absolutely love the windows. The sun shines in and they are all new dual pane windows. . . so awesome!

Okay, so I left out the bedrooms and our bathroom. Can't wait to show you once we paint, though.

Lemoore Christmas

Sometimes it's really hard to gather everyone together. So, since my parents were out of state, we celebrated Christmas this past Sunday. We had a lot of fun eating, opening presents, and playing "What's yours like?" (yes, this game is awesome!). My mom cooked up quite a feast. . . she made this Swiss chicken dish that we all loved when we were growing up. I think the love for this meal is getting passed on to another generation of the family, because Ryan and Ethan loved it also. Opening presents was a blast with Zoe and Ethan getting their little movable things (Zoe got a tricycle and Ethan got a quad). A lot of the time was spent with Robert and Dustin building Zoe's tricycle (Zoe wanted it very quickly). Our game of "What's yours like?" brought lots of laughs as we all tried to guess things. It was so nice just to sit around the table and enjoy some good family time. We are all so busy, that it is sometimes hard to get us together. This year, Karissa stayed in Cheyenne . . . we missed her, but know she had a great Christmas!)

New Year's Day Adventure

Friday, we decided that our kitchen needed a table and IKEA was the place to find it. So, we got ourselves ready and headed for a day trip to Sacramento. We got there around 11 and so did the rain (glad we were inside). We refueled on Swedish meatballs (Isn't that why we go?) and walked around dreaming of the endless possibilities we could do in our new home (too bad money doesn't grow on trees!). We found what we were looking for (including this plastic rocking thing that Ethan fell in love with), went to the warehouse and picked it up, payed for it and then (literally) crammed it into our car. We literally packed it full. . . we had almost bought another item, but there was no way it would have fit! In fact, we had to completely take our table top out of it's box to even fit it in the car. Let's just say. . . that alone was an adventure in itself.

After that, we decided to take our very full car, and our very tired bodies to Old Town Sac. We had a travel bug to get rid of, and we knew just the place to plant it. Plus, the rain had stopped and we wanted to enjoy some beautiful post-rain weather before heading back home. We wandered the streets and took Ethan to the Old School house. He loved sitting at the desk and writing with the chalk and slate. We even found a store with the largest collection of Thomas merchandise I had ever seen.

It was a great day and a great way to spend the first day of 2010 as a family on an adventure. I am looking forward to many more as this new year progresses. I am so very thankful that both Jon and Ethan love to adventure around!

Christmas Day

On Christmas day, we celebrated with Jon's whole family (well, most of them) at Jon's parents house. We had the traditional Tamales (delish!), opened presents, and played and chatted with everyone. It was a bit cold (although I can't complain because my sister was experiencing cold, blowing snow in Wyoming), but we still took the time to go out and play. The kids had a blast! Cooper and Logan received a bean bag toss game and Jeff and Dan put it together. It became quite extreme . . . as the "older" kids (aka Jon, Jeff, and Dan) were throwing the bean bags at each other. Logan took some time to wrestle with his grandpa (Rich) and tackle him to the ground. By the time we got home, we were exhausted and just vegged out!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is when we celebrate Christmas with Jon's immediate family. It was such a nice and quiet evening for a great celebration. We went over to Jeff and Kelley's house for some fantastic chicken burritos, taco salad, and some great desserts. We opened presents and watched the boys all enjoy their gifts. Diane and Dan also joined us for the festivities. Ethan got to open one gift from us. . . his Christmas pajamas. You can see him (top, middle) drinking his milk and sporting his PJ's before we headed home to put the little guy to bed. It was a great night! Merry Christmas!

A Small Group Christmas

We just love our small group. It is such a great way for us to get together, study God's word, and fellowship with other couples. This year, we thought it would be fitting to have our own Christmas celebration. A feast of pizza, a gift exchange, a fun game, and dessert filled the night. Neal and Michelle hosted the party at their house (which for some reason, I couldn't find a picture of them, sorry guys), we played this great new game, "What's yours like?" I highly recommend it! Abi and Ethan even exchanged gifts and Chris made some snow, so we could have our own White Christmas. It was a nice relaxing night and hope to do it again next year (well, this year since I am posting this in 2010!).

Weekend escape, part 2

We felt we had amply walked Monterey, so we drove up the coast to Santa Cruz and again were amazed at the weather. . . and lack of crowds (not going during the heat of summer, makes a HUGE difference!). We met up with Jon's cousin Brandon and his wife Sarah for lunch at Pizza My Heart. Jon had never been there, and needed to be introduced. It was so yummy! We enjoyed walking around and spending some time in a greatly stocked kitchen store, Chefworks. After awhile, it was time to part ways and head home. We stopped in Gilroy to do some shopping and then, head back to the valley, we like to call home.

A quick escape!

The weekend prior to Christmas, Jon and I were seeing no moving in sight, we we planned a quick family getaway. It was definitely nice to get away from the rooms of packed items and the frustration of not being able to get into our new house. We got up that morning, watched Cooper's performance and headed to the Bay. It was so incredibly beautiful. We had great weather and hardly any crowds. Everything was decorated for Christmas that it just helped us relax and enjoy some nice family time. We walked from our hotel room down to Fisherman's wharf and then over to Cannery Row. We were able to see at least one sea otter and a couple of Harbor Seals along the way. Jon and I even found one 2 geocaches, but forgot our pen to write our names that we had been there (I cleaned out the diaper bag, where one is usually kept and forgot to put it back!). We had a nice dinner at Bubba Gumps, without a wait (although having a window seat is not as nice when the sun sets. . . all you see is your reflection). On the way back to our hotel, we meandered through the pier at Fisherman's wharf. . . where various maître d’s were fighting to get us to dine at their restaurant and down one of the popular streets of downtown. Then, we relaxed in our hotel room and watched Food Network until we fell asleep. It was a really nice day!

Christmas Around the World

Our Christmas celebration this year included a trip to our nephew Cooper's school, where he and the rest of the kindergarteners put on quite the show! They did such a great job, including singing Feliz Navidad and Oh Christmas Tree (in German!). We are very proud of our nephew(who is in the picture close to the middle Left, but you can't really tell. . . but trust me.. . he's there)! Good Job Cooper! and thanks for letting us come!

Christmas Tree Lane

Christmas this year was an incredibly chaotic time in our household. But, we attempted to keep some of our traditions despite being surrounded by brown boxes and had no Christmas tree up. One of our favorite traditions is the annual walking night of Christmas Tree Lane. We have gone every year since we have been together. Last year, we introduced Ethan to the tradition, but he spent most of it not impressed and slept. This year, a little older & wiser, found it incredibly interesting! We couldn't keep him in the stroller because he wanted to use his feet and walk everywhere. He loved all the houses and pretty lights. He even enjoyed other people's dogs. We only walked to Ashlan this year because we were cold and tired.