Thursday, February 26, 2009

V-Day Weekend

We had the charge of Samantha over V-Day weekend while her mom and dad traveled to Vegas for their 20th anniversary vacation. Thursday she had a dance and got all gussied up for the event and we got to be the ones taking her photo and telling her to be careful as she went out the door.






















Friday night we went to Mikuni’s for dinner. I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of that place. Now it’s growing on Samantha too and she was all excited to go! After dinner I got a new cell phone and actually signed up for a plan that was a little more with the times and actually includes texting! Way to get with the 21st century!

Saturday I took Samantha to the scrapbook store and she felt my pain. She kept picking stuff up and then looking at the price and saying “This is bad. We need to get out of here!” Of course, she spent all her money (plus some!) but she was really excited and enjoyed her time.

We went bowling in the afternoon and it was quite an adventure. Turns out that bowling in real life is nothing like the Wii!
















































In the evening we watched Isabella too so that her mommy and daddy could have a nice Valentine’s day together too. She was sooooo adorable and had us all cracking up with her antics. She would bounce up and down and just LAUGH. And then when we laughed with her, she would do it again and Laugh even more.

And of course, I can’t have Isabella over without taking pictures of her!



































Sunday we all went to brunch with Papa and got to enjoy watching him tease Samantha in true Grandpa fashion.















And leave it to Jonathan to challenge Samantha to walk backwards the entire grocery store trip... and leave it to Samantha to pull it off!

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Family Get Together

We missed Maddy’s 6th birthday while we were down South, so Connie ended up throwing a family dinner the weekend after and we all got together to celebrate.

All the kids wanted to play with the baby as usual...


















I love this photo of my dad down on the ground and playing with Isabella. I hope she gets to enjoy many more years of this.


















And Uncle Jon-Fin too...






















Yay Presents!

















I can’t believe Little Miss Madison is already 6. It seems like just yesterday that we were up here looking at houses and considering moving here and little Maddy was still in diapers and afraid f the loud fireworks on the 4th of July. This picture totally sums up what her personality has grown into.















She is such a cutie!

Friday, February 20, 2009

Bad Bad Blogger....

I’ve been such a bad blogger lately. Shame shame!

There’s a lot to catch up on, but I’m going to try and separate them into different posts so that it’s not too overwhelming.

So I’ll start with our trip to Orange County a few weeks ago. Isabella was being baptized and we were asked to be the godparents. We made a weekend of it and went down on Friday and were able to stop and visit with Liza and the kids for a couple of hours. I must say, I was totally jealous of their back yard! They have a zip line and Andrew showed how totally fearless he is by demonstrating it over and over again.
















Even Bailey was excited by going on it (with Mommy’s help of course).















We left their house with the intention of going straight down to Huntington Pier and grubbing on some Smokin’ Mo’s ribs. They have a very unique BBQ sauce that they bottle and sell, but since we ran out of our stock several months ago, we went there with the intention of buying tons of it. Unfortunately, they only had four bottles, but we snatched all of those up. Another unfortunate incident is that we have already used a whole bottle of it since we got back! Anyway, the meal was yummy and I got to catch to catch up with the owner (who is my friend Ben's dad) and hear how Ben is doing.












































On Saturday we spent some time with my mom in the morning and then met some friends and family in the evening. We went to dinner with Angel, Rebekah, and Billy and afterward Angel went with us to Pineapple Hill to meet up with Steve, and Cherie and Mike. It was good to see them again and FINALLY get to meet Mike. They had an 80's night theme so there were a lot of people dressed in 80's garb (including our awesome server!)
































On Sunday was Isabella’s baptism. She looked adorable and had the whole church laughing with her when she got walked down the aisle. Here are a few highlights from the day:












































Three of my sisters...















And all of us together...





























And the little cutie!
































































Of course, it was also Superbowl Sunday, so we had to partake in the festivities at Joe and Lisa’s.











































After all these years of camping together, Joe and Lisa are like our family, so it was great to see them again and just hang out. Joe had just broken his ankle the day before, so he was a little crippled!






















We headed home on Monday. Back to the daily grind of work, school, and whatever else is going on. It was a fun weekend, but I was glad to be home and see my Sadie too.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

We're still alive!...

It's been a while since I posted, but sadly, it's because I have had yet another hard drive failure! My computer died four weeks ago and had to be shipped to HP for repair. It's back and now I am trying to load all those little settings I already had set up and all my software and yadda yadda yadda!

Word of advice. Back up EVERYTHING, including your iTunes! You would think I would have learned that lesson when we got this system, but I don't think I updated my library since we switched last May! Hopefully I still have the back up on the USB drive, but I am not sure... I'll have to check that one out when we switch the drive back over. But, knock on wood, I backed up my photos a few days before it failed! I would have lost most of 2008 photos if I hadn't done that. So I am glad it was not worse than it could have been.

We just got back from a quick trip to Orange County. I will have some photos to post once I get all my junk loaded on this CPU again! We are now officially god parents to our niece Isabella. We came back to an official offer letter for Jonathan's new job, and the timing couldn't have been better. He starts that job on the 23rd and is really excited.

We also came back to a note passing on a phone number for an old friend of both of ours from So Cal. I have known Jason since elementary school and Jonathan and he were hooligans together through most of their youth. It's funny how Jason knew Jonathan and I knew Jason for several years before I ever met Jonathan! Last night Jonathan reconnected with him and we found out he moved up here with his family and they live about 20 minutes from us! So we are excited to reconnect with them and can't wait to see them again.

So I am back to loading things on my CPU and will update with photos soon!