A blast from the past!

Marie, I'm sure you remember Brett?(!!)
He and his wife Jeanette and their 2 kiddo's Kaia (6 years old) and Blake (3 years old) came up from California to visit. Brett gave us a call and we all got together at our house for dinner. a couple of days later they treated us to dinner and then have been able to stay with us for a few days! Their kids are adorable and we've had a great time enjoying their company! James and Brett have had us laughing so hard telling stories of the olden days! It's been great for James and Brett to be able to reconnect! We are hoping to visit them in California!

This is Brett and his little boy Blake when we went to Hunan Garden:

Brett and Jeanette's darling daughter Kaia:

Brett and James playing Guitar Hero:


Brett's oldest daughter Mallory (who is now 21!) and his youngest daughter Kaia:

We were surprisingly kid-free for New Year's Eve so we went with Brett and Jeanette and another old friend Madgen and her husband, and went out to dinner and then back to Madgen's to watch the ball drop!
Brett and Jeanette:

James and I:

James and Brett and their celebratory bottle of Martinelli's grape/cranberry Sparkling Cider!

Aunt Janel's birthday dinner.

Aunt Janel's birthday is December 29th. This year we all went to The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner and had so much fun! When James, Troy and JJ all get together, it's crazy, always filled with lots of laughter!
James and I

Troy and JJ:


Troy and Whitney:

Mikey:

Lora and Whitney:

Lora and I:

Aunt Janel getting her cake:

Happy Birthday Auntie, we love you!

Christmas 2008!

We had a nice quiet (and a tad bit lonely) Christmas at home this year. We visited Timothy on Christmas Eve and took him his presents, and then went to finish up our last minute shopping. Mikey left cookies and milk and an adorable letter for Santa, and we managed to all get to bed at a decent hour. (Thanks to the snow storm, I was housebound and able to 90% of the wrapping before Christmas eve. That's definitely a first for us!) Christmas morning we opened presents and then relaxed the whole day. Greg and Shannon did stop by for a visit, but that was the extent of our day. We had lots of yummy food and so many things to be thankful for!

Mikey's letter to Santa


Timothy trying on his new leather jacket:

JJ Christmas morning:


Mikey:


Whitney:


And The Aftermath!

Snow pictures!

This was taken on 12-19-08

This is the same tree taken this morning.

This is one of our trees out front.
Again, on 12-19

And the same tree, this morning!

Here's some random pictures of our yard.

PNW Snow 2008!

So we were pounded with snow last night. (Not pounded by most of this country's standards by any means, but defanately pounded by ours, haha!) Whitney had to work grave yard at the Latte stand last night so when she got off work this morning she called me in hysterics about how the hell was she supposed to get home, because all of the roads were totally iced over. I told her to just go very slow and no matter what, don't slam on her breaks. She calls about an hour later, she's about a half a mile from home, at the fire station and she can't go any further. Cars are just stopped everywhere because, you know, we're not used to all of this ice and snow! So James agrees to go get her from the fire station on the quad. Between our house and the fire station is a pretty large hill, and there's no way we'll get up or down it with out chains, even in the Blazer because 4 wheel drive does just about as well on ice as bald tires.
We all know what a girly girl Whitney is! She hates the quad, she hates snow, she hates getting wet. So I just had to video her and James coming up the driveway, and James had to throw in his own little flair, ofcourse, just for Whitney's sake, hehe!


Here's a few other pictures I took this morning of our beautiful landscape!
Grammy and Papa, do you wish you were here? WE SURE DO!

Christmas lights, our Christmas Tree and an update on JJ's broken thumb.

James totally outdid himself this year with the outdoor lights on our house. He worked for 3 days straight and after 3 separate trips to Walmart, he finally got it perfect! He did a wonderful job! Unfortunately, I just realized that the lights around the living room windows weren't on for this picture, so I'll have to take more pictures.




Our Tree!




I took JJ back to the Orthopedic Specialist on Monday to have his thumb rechecked. JJ had his heart set on getting that cast off and being done with it. Well, I tried to warn him that it might not happen that way, that they might xray it and see that it hadn't healed 100% yet and put him in another cast. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened. It's healing nicely, but it's just not 100& yet, and with a kid as active as JJ is, it's better to be safe than sorry. So he has another 3 weeks to go. Poor kid was in tears!


And last but not least, here is Miss Whitney, taking a picture off JJ, taking a picture of her, haha!

JJ's latest Boo-Boo!

I got a call today from Mikey and JJ's school. They have JJ in the nurses office and they think he may have broken his thumb. He was playing football and, as he says, was going for the interception and jammed his thumb into the ground. He said it was bent way back and he couldn't move it so he pulled on it and heard a loud "Crunch!" and then it started hurting really bad. So I took him in to Urgent Care, and sure enough, it's broke! They splinted it and gave me the number of an Orthopedic Specialist and told me to call right away since it was already Thursday and they probably wouldn't be able to fit him in to the schedule for a few days. So I called, and luckily they told me that if I could have him there in 15 minutes, they could squeeze him in. So off we ran and got there just in time. The Orthopedic Specialist agreed that it was infact broken and they were able to cast him right then and there. Thank God, it isn't a really bad break, meaning he won't need surgery or pins etc. and the break isn't near his growth plates so he shouldn't have any further problems once it heals. On the way home he told me, "At least I got the interception!!"
Can somebody please get us a plastic bubble for this child? ASAP!

Great Wolf Lodge part 2

Like father like son!



JJ singing in the Gr8 Space teen center:


The aftermath of Mikey's chocolate dipped waffle cone:


Mikey and Mama on a waterslide:


Mikey in the hot tub:


Mommy and Daddy and the Great Wolf Lodge!


Interesting sights and The Great Wold:
The Lobby:


On top of one of the structures in the water park, there is a 1000 gallon bucket of water. It dumps all 1000 gallons about every ten minutes or so and if you are with in about 50 feet, you will get soaked!


One of the smaller slides:

A really cute area for the really little kiddo's:


This was outside of our balcony. It's the "Howling Tornado" from the outside. (The read and yellow.) We couldn't believe that Mikey loved this ride and went on it over and over again!


The wave pool area:


The ridiculously large amounts of stairs we had to climb to get to the top of the waterslides:


Another picture of the smaller slides:


JJ, Nanette, Abby and me:


Nanette, Abby and Me: