"Napoleon goes over plans for world domination"

Alternate title: Chris pours over plans for wedding domination, 2010.

Tuesday was an emotional roller coaster.

It really was. First my car broke down again. Chris had to come rescue me at the school's Old Town office. I started crying when he came to get me. I hate that my car just randomly dies on me. It makes me nervous to drive, and that's a sucky thing to be nervous about. I hate that Chris had to take time out of his work day to come get me, even though I know he didn't mind.

(I also hate the bill for fixing my car, which my wonderful pre-husband took care of without batting an eye. I love my pre-husband.)

Then there was family stuff that Chris and I talked about on the ride over to Goodyear. And I cried again.

Then we got the bill, and I told myself I would not cry.

Then on the way home, Chris said, "This'll cheer you up." And he pulled out our brand new, just printed, beautiful, wonderful guest book from the backseat of his car.

It was really beautiful and wonderful. Chris designed it, and while I at first gave him a hard time for all the extra work he was putting into it, I'm so glad he went with the inspiration. It looks amazing, and I know everyone's going to love answering the prompts we picked for the pages.

Then we got back to Chris' and made dinner together and talked about more family stuff and I was getting all emotional again, until Chris came downstairs and instructed me to close my eyes, that he had a surprise. I did. When I opened them, he was holding his phone in front of my face, with this picture on it.

And seriously, how can you be sad when you see this cutie in her flower girl dress? This is the first time we're even seeing it in real life, and it looks awesome, if we do say so ourselves.

After that was a great chat with Sarah. Let me tell you something: Sarah and Chris video chatting is the best thing ever. I generally try to catch it on my own webcam, sneakily facing my laptop screen toward Chris and his computer because he just gets so darn funny and animated when he's talking with Sarah.


In fact... I just went back through some of my funnier videos of "Chris Chats with Sarah," and I decided maybe I'd whip up this little piece for the general amusement of our viewers at home.

Mmmmm... that makes me feel better.

53: No wedding plans, but some kickin' guacomole dip

During my pre-marriage period, I'm trying to build up a repetoire of go-to dishes I can make for my beloved husband when he comes home from a hard day at work. (Thus far my repertoire is very limited, but I'm trying to kick it up a notch, since I now have two very cute kitchen aprons, as well as a slew of kitchen supplies on their way in the form of wedding presents.)

On Sunday we went grocery shopping for the week, and I had my list of ingredients for four specific meals I wanted to try out. One was a chili recipe that called for a side of guacomole dip, that I planned to make for Thursday's dinner. Well, Thursday came around, and we found ourselves making dinner around 9pm (thank goodness for time stamps on my pictures, or I'd never know when I made dinner!). A little late, obviously. So Chris ended up making the chili himself, while I concentrated on the guacomole dip.

The chili was dubna* (Ryan/Chris slang for 'Decent... but not amazing.' Yes, they know the u and b are backwards.) But the guacomole dip was heaven**.


*Not Chris' fault: the recipe wasn't anything spectacular, and he makes a mean white bean chicken chili to prove his skillz.
** Again, not my fault: I was just following directions, and Chris was the one who instructed me to squeeze the heck out of some limes to throw into it. And to throw in some garlic salt. He knows so much more about cooking than I do!

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!

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.

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!)

December Staycation: Day One

Let me tell you a little something about the OSF: He is a list-maker.

He loves him some lists. 

Also schedules.

And so, when presented with four whole days to fill for our staycation, he took out a single sheet of lined paper and made a schedule of our weekend.

Everything from addresses to exact times to notes about what to do while at each place. 

I like that OSF. :)

Well, as you'll no doubt read on his blog, the Mexican lunch we had was not up to par. However, the place had excellent light, and I got this great picture...

... which he and Sarah feel is his, "I'm about to go out and kill someone" look. But I think it's cute. Any outside comments? Is this serial killer or hot guy headshot?

This is an Indian.

We roamed around for awhile, ducking into the little stores of little knick knacks (and Beanie Babies!) until five o'clock began to creep up on us. As anyone who's ever visited Julian knows, the town closes at five. As in, you can't even pump gas past five. 

Famous Julian Pie was on our list, so we ducked into the Famous Julian Pie place for a slice. I had the cherry apple with a scoop of vanilla that was really good. Chris got some cider that he loved, but he wasn't so much

of the pie.