Thursday, December 31, 2009

Final pictures

365 days.
365 pictures.
Only a couple of cheats. ;)


Here are the final pictures of December:


Mandy, enjoying her bachelorette party cupcake.




One of the notes I leave in the OSF's clothes, for him to find as a surprise. Sadly, he didn't find this one before he washed the shirt it was hiding in.



The loot had to be brought home in boxes. :) "Santa" was very good to us this year.



The day after Christmas at the T's house. Just a nice, quiet morning.



Christmas day, mid-present opening.



Late night Christmas candlelight service.



Sarah's headshot.



Playing with self-portraits.



Co-workers at our Christmas bowling extravaganza.





Fluffy socks from Jen.



Roommate Christmas presents.



Last week of school: Brittany's workshop on factories in the Industrial age was a hit. Here our kids at the "coloring table" crack up as a new "manager," willing to work for just ten cents an hour, is appointed head of our paper snowman factory.





And as they say in showbiz, that's a wrap!







Wednesday, December 30, 2009

For Mrs. T.: the first recipe



For Christmas, Chris' parents got me a special cookbook, so they can make sure I keep their son well fed. ;)


While we were up at their house over the weekend, Chris, Bethany (who also got one), and I pored over the recipes to choose our first few to try out. We chose three: a fish meal, a steak meal, and a pad thai (I'm not sure how to spell that?) meal. As soon as we got home, we made a list for all three dishes and headed to Vons to collect the necessary ingredients.


And on Monday we made our first feast: Ahi tuna skewers with vegetable rice. I don't have the book with me to follow the steps here, but here's the bundle of pictures from that night.




Oh, and a special drink to make making dinner more fun: the Kamikaze!





























I'm Ba-ack!






Well, my Christmas rocked this year. How about the rest of yours?


For the first time in a loooooooong time, I had a real family Christmas. The OSF took me along over the weekend to celebrate with his family, and I had a marvelous time! Here's a list of just a few of the amazing factors of the weekend:




*Watching movies all day: Up, Paper Heart, and Julie and Julia (which was great!)
*Yummy crab and shrimp dinner
*Yummy lamb dinner
*Yummy cheesecake with cookies n' cream ice cream
*Yummy food all the time!
*Diamond earrings from the OSF!
*Awesome gifts from the rest of the family- including cookbooks, recipe books, and a handmade apron!
*Sleeping in waaaaay late
*11p.m. Christmas Eve service with an... interesting choir (Those of you who were there know what I'm talking about. ;)
*Repeatedly telling the story of how Chris and I met
*Wearing Christmas socks all day- not just because they're fun, but because they were necessary!


That's what I came up with off the top of my head. It was seriously a rad Christmas. Thanks to the T family for letting me share their holiday time!


Now that we're back in ol' San Diego, it's been all about running errands, getting groceries, and of course cooking up meals out of the new cookbook. (Monday's dinner: Ahi-ahi kabobs with rice, broccoli, carrots,and bell peppers, yum!) We're gearing up for a non-stop rest of the break what with Mandy's bachelorette party, Chris' golf day, New Year's Eve party, and Mandy's wedding the next day. 


I've been thinking about my goals for the year too, especially now that I have my very own 3hree 6ixty 5ive book to use this year, courtesy of that cute Italian boy. Last year the words I focused on were Fun and Freedom, and I'll have to write sometime about how I feel I fulfilled those goal-words over 2009. This year I think I'm looking at Health and Faith. And maybe a third word, but I'm not set on it yet. More to come on that later. 


I'm re-vamping the blog for the new year, too. I've already got the template ready to go, so look for a new and improved set up at the end of the week.


I had my parents over tonight while I tried to solve their computer printer woes. For whatever reason, no printer will install to their computer and it's driving everyone crazy. But mostly me since they think I should be able to solve all computer problems. So, since this printer problem has been known to cause strife and tension, I made them come to my house, where I could control things. Hee. I fed my dad Dennison's chili and set my mom up on Wii Tennis, and everyone left the house a happy camper- despite the still non-working printer. 

Saturday, December 26, 2009

December Staycation: Day Four!


Disneyland day! With the Trementozzi siblings! Because Sarah has a pass now! Woot!





Oh, snap. Those are fighting faces right there.


I'm sad to report that the OSF did beat me again, fairly and squarely, for the second time now. Though not by much, he has to admit.













We played around in Innoventions for the first time in awhile. They have this new exhibit about the house of the future. Basically it's freaking rad. Bedroom walls are made of panels that you can change like desktop backgrounds, so you can remodel your room at any time. You can control the lights, temperature, and even the theme of the room.

There was also a mirror that converted you into video:


















Crazy technology.

This is me, outside the Toy Story ride. Which Chris also won, and I came... not as close to.












Space Mountain = best picture idea in awhile: Sarah and I strangle Chris while he pulls the "Captain Holz." (See Day Two for inspiration.) Seriously, we had people commenting on our pose out at the TV sets where they show the pictures.

















This is what I did while Chris and Sarah rode the roller coaster.














We also rode the Tower, Chris' favorite, and I even kept my eyes open! Well, for most of it. I saw the view. And the plummeting cage we were in. I can't handle going up though.

Disneyland is beautiful during Christmas time of course. 


























We were all zonked after the Haunted Mansion, and ended up leaving just before the fireworks to drop Sarah off in Lake Forest, and then head home ourselves. And thus ended the four-day December Staycation of the OSF's.

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

December Staycation: Day Three



Hello, blogger people! Allow me to show you around the Getty Villa, which is the location of our third staycation day.




Here's something cool about the Villa: You're not allowed to bring your own umbrellas, because they supply them for you. At every single door, there are bins of umbrellas. When you go inside one of the buildings, you simply drop off the one you were using, and when you exit, you pick up a new one. So instead of seeing all kinds of ugly umbrellas and slipping all over puddled and muddy museum floors, you just see pretty matching khaki umbrellas and you're feet say in one place on the floor.




The above picture is the view from the main entryway, through the main hall, through the middle courtyard (where the statues are), and out the other door, where you can just kind of make out a fountain, which is flanked on both sides with these statues:




The best part was watching him try to hold this pose.




And here we have another of the Chris', except this one is actually Kris. With a K. He's the only individual of the group. 







Here, Ryan and I re-enact our infamous TGO/buddies pose from a similar time at a fountain in February.




This is Kris' wife, Becky. Becky, as you can see, has beautiful curly hair that I'm jealous of. 




This is my hair curly. I know you feel my pain.




The umbrellas are a bit blown out here, but they're realky a pretty tan color, kind of like the rolled up standing umbrellas in the background. 




We went on a guided tour, complete with little headsets, and learned all about Getty himself, and why he collected things, and how he got so many things he had to build a separate building to house them for all the people to come and see. And that's how we got here today.








Irony is using your camera phone to take pictures when you have a beautiful Rebel camera hanging around your neck.




This is one of the outside gardens. At either ends of the pool are naked statues. After exploring the entirety of the Villa museum, it seems naked people statues were very popular in Greek culture. 



While we were standing under this awning thing, taking cutesy couple pictures, this photographer guy came up and posed us "better" for the pictures Kris was taking. Thanks, random photographer guy.




We also got some cutesy pictures on the steps outside the main entrance.




Umbrellas make for good props.



So our day at the Getty was rainy, non-slippery, and full of naked statues. While I'm not a huge museum fan overall, it definitely was an interesting place to spend a few hours. I think a non-rainy day would have been more fun to explore the grounds though. Next time, I suppose.


After the Getty, Chris, Ryan, and I went back to Sarah's apartment to settle in for the evening. We stopped for Peruvian food, which was good, but pricey, then made it back to her place right when the rain was really getting crazy. The rest of the day was spent watching TV, making Pioneer Woman's pear crisp dessert (in which we had get to get creative, substituting crushed pecans with bran cereal-- Chris' idea), and stringing some new jewelry (me). It was a nice cozy night, just resting up for our final day of Staycation... Disneyland!

December Staycation: Day Two



We saw crazy seahorses on day two.





Disclaimer: This is not my picture. But I saw this seahorse at the Birch Aquarium. But I didn't take my camera with me that day-- it was too rainy.


Kind of regretting it now, because there were some crazy seahorses there.


And Chris found out that seahorses are the only known animals where the guy gets to carry the babies. (He was also a bit alarmed, I think, from a video of the birth process. Ah, science.)


This is the seahorse species whose sign read something to the effect of: "It is still unknown how the egg is fertilized in the male." To which Chris then asked, "What, do the seahorses keep going behind a rock or something?" Then he laughed, like, 'how ridiculous are these scientists, anyway?' And so I had to follow up with an awkward birds and the bees of the sea sort of conversation on his behalf. Yay, science.


After running some errands (CVS, Joann's, and Justin and Jen's house) we headed down to Chula Vista for Chris' friend's church play. I think I've mentioned before that Chris' best friends are all named Chris; this is the other Chris who lives down here with us, the one who just had a beautiful baby that I took pictures of


Anyway, so this particular Chris, Chris Holz, happened to be the Captain/store owner in the Christmas play. And let's just say, he was very amusing in his role. 





(Check in for Day 4, when Chris gets his Space Mountain picture pose inspiration from Captain Chris Holz!)