The Holidays are for Spending Time with Those You Love!

So far, I have had an awesome Christmas time. These are some of my favorite things about this holiday season:

1. Hanging out with my friend (and FABULOUS hairdresser!) Liz, and her daughters Taylor and Trinity. Liz made me a wonderful lunch of corn dogs, mac & cheese, and green beans! Wahoo!

Trinity holding their dog.
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2. Making homemade candy with my family on Christmas Day.

After Christmas dinner, Jeremy & Valerie wanted to show us easy ways to make candy. We had such a blast, but our little tummies were sure full at the end!

In this pic, Amanda and Jeremy are dipping pretzels in the chocolate. Yummy!



Valerie as we're making more candy!!

Mom admiring all of our hard work.

Sam was hard at work watching football. I'll bet he was missing our big screen TV

Look at all of our candy!! We made chocolate covered pretzels, dipped Oreos, chocolate dipped Nutter Butters, Oreo balls, Avalanche bark (recipe from the Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory), and fudge. We're still eating our candy....almost a week later! :)

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3. Visiting Mike & Jen and my nephews Gaige, Hayden, and Logan.

We visited them the day after Christmas and we had a good time. Jen made some delicious vegeterian lasagna, funeral potatoes, and lots of yummy desserts! I LOVE holidays because of all the yummy food!

Here we have Hayden, Gaige, me, and Amanda. I think the boys are getting anxious to open their Christmas gifts.

Mike helping Logan open his gifts. I think Logan was more excited about the wrapping paper than the gift! Jen is in the background picking something up.

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4. Going to the LA temple.

On Saturday, my family and I went and did a session at the LA temple. It's SUCH a big and pretty temple! It was awesome to have 4 out of 5 of my siblings (along with their spouses) in the session. Then we went to Knott's Berry Farm and ate the Famous Chicken Dinner there! Yummy!!

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5. Visiting Simi Valley

On Monday, December 29th, we went to visit the Ronald Reagan Library.

On our way to Simi Valley, we stopped at this place in Pearblossom called Charlie Brown's. They had the BEST shakes and their BBQ smelled SO good! So we had to stop and partake of the yummy shakes. This is Emily and I at Charlie Brown's.

Unfortunately, Sam had to work on Monday. I still wanted to take a pic of Sam and I (we're going to PhotoShop him in later). Isn't he so cute!?!?

Us as we're waiting for our shakes. Aren't we a happy family?!

The Reagan Library had the most BEAUTIFUL Christmas trees. These trees represented all the countries that Ronald Reagan visited in his administration and they were decorated according to that country. They were gorgeous! This tree is from France (how ironic that I took a pic of one from France! Only 3 more months!).

More Christmas trees

At the museum, they also had Air Force One. It was pretty cool to walk through and see how he traveled. Sam now needs to buy me one for all of our upcoming trips! Hahaha!

There was also a section of the Berlin Wall, since Reagan was so influential in helping to take it down.

The views from the library was just astounding! Sam can build me a house there anytime he wants! :)

After the library, we went to Red's BBQ and we ate some FABULOUS ribs and steak. Then the steakhouse gave us some ice cream in a martini glass. But look at how MASSIVE the glass is! Kyle and Amanda ate all of their ice cream in one gulp! j/k!

Well, I think that I'll post the rest of this later. This is getting to be a really long post! :)!

To be continued . . .

Yes....it's true!

I am a woman who frequently eats her words. I said that I wasn't going to "give in" to the hype of Twilight. But everyone made such a fuss about it, I wanted to see what it was all about. So on Thursday, I was stuck at Sam's office the whole day (see the below post) and I decided to buy "Twilight" and read it. I have to admit, that it was pretty good. Ok, it was really good. In fact, I read it in 24 hours. Now Sam and I are going to see the movie in about an hour. I am anxious to read the other 3 books!!! Do you guys think that Bella will become a vampire?! I'm not quite sure! Ok, so everyone can now harass me because I'm now hooked on Twilight (cursed girls at Sam's work for talking me into it! :) )!

What a Weird Week This has Been!

This has been the WEIRDEST week that I've had in a LONG time! On Monday, I went to my classroom and after being there for only an hour it started to SNOW! It was snowing REALLY hard for a good 3 hours. Now this is my 5th year teaching at my school, and I have NEVER seen it snow there! The kids had a good time. All of us teachers opened up our doors and the kids ran out on the grass and they had a good time playing in the snow. Because it was snowing so hard, they sent all the kids home early on Monday (which meant that I also got to go home early! Wahoo!). It was pretty funny because right before we were going home, one of my students said, "Mrs. ****, the snow isn't very much fun anymore." I chuckled and thought, "How right you are!!" I ended up getting home at 1:15PM! It was awesome! Sam also had a snow day because he couldn't get down the mountain pass to go to work. BTW- this is a picture from one of the schools in my district.

Tuesday, I went to work and I only had 11 kids because there was still snow on the ground. Parents were calling and complaining because their kids' feet got wet from the snow yesterday. DUH! What did you want me to do....carry your kid everywhere!?! Geesh! It was a pretty good, but hectic day.

On Wednesday, I had scheduled to take the day off because Sam was having a very large mole removed off of his back. We woke up Wednesday morning to find that it was snowing and sticking. Sam decided that we could make it down the mountain pass. So I packed an overnight bag (just in case) and we headed on our way (I was VERY reluctant about it). It was a VERY scary drive! The deeper we got into the mountain pass, the harder it was snowing. The visibility was very low and we kept seeing cars slide off the road (it reminded me of my Idaho days *Shiver*). I didn't quite understand why they weren't plowing the freeway! We LUCKILY made it down safely (we were only going about 5-10 mph). I dropped Sam off at work and then I went shopping! :)

At about lunch time, my Dad called me and told me that they already had 6 inches of snow at their house and that the mountain pass as closed. Sam and I then went to his doctor's appointment. I thought they were just going to scrap off the skin. No, they took out the entire skin chunk, all the way to the fatty layer. It looked pretty gross! The mole was so large that he now has a 4 inch area of stiches on his back.

It was about 3PM by the time he was finished at the doctor's office. We had heard that the mountain pass was still closed and it was continuing to snow. We decided just to go ahead and get a hotel room for the night. So Sam called one of his buddies, whose company owns a whole bunch of hotels, and he got us a hotel room which was really close to Sam's work. Sam and I decided to go do some shopping and go out to eat before we checked into our hotel.

Well, we went to check in at about 7PM and the receptionist had LOST our reservations!! The hotel was completely booked! We tried a few more hotels, and they were ALL booked! I was pretty frustrated. I guess we could almost relate to Mary and Joseph's ordeal, with not having any room in the inn. Luckily, Sam's buddy called us back and he had gotten us another hotel room, not too far away from the other hotel, and it was a Marriott! :).

We had a GREAT night's sleep at the Marriott. On Thursday, I dropped Sam off at work, (luckily, I didn't have to go to work because my school had a snow day! I wouldn't have been able to get to work anyway....not with the mountain pass closed) and then I went shopping.

Sam and I went to lunch at the Cheesecake Factory (holy cow....their cheesecakes are AMAZING!!), and then we bought me the book "Twilight" to read while Sam finished up at work.

We left Sam's work early to head up the mountain pass (they had opened it earlier on Thursday). When we got home, the roads were just attrocious. They were all slushy, and we knew that the slush was going to freeze overnight. Southern California is SO not meant for the snow. When we got to our house, we noticed that our carport had about a foot of snow on it, and it was bowing in the middle. We knew that we had to scrap all that snow off in order to save our carport. So Sam spent 5 hours Thursday night scraping off half of the snow.

On Friday, (I had yet another snow day because of the icy roads) Sam finished scraping off the rest of the snow. It took him another 3 hours to do it! Sam spent the day working from home and I spent the day reading my new book.

Which leads me to this morning. It snowed 3 days ago, and we still have a good 3-4 inches of snow on the ground. I'm glad this whole snow episode is over (I HATE THE SNOW!). Hopefully, we can have a nice, relaxing, mild winter! HAha! We'll see!

(Oliver didn't really like the snow very much. We are two peas in a pod!)

Cooking Fun!

On Sunday, Sam and I decided to make gingerbread men/women. Ok, I must confess that they're not 100% homemade. Last week, I saw the prepackaged gingerbread (where you just add eggs and water) at the grocery store and I decided that would be a fun activity for us to do,



I had to make sure that my gingerbread women had hair....and we also made gingerbread hearts, trees, and angels.

Then on Monday (Sam and I were both home because of a SNOW DAY!!) we decorated our cookies. Mine are the nice and neat ones and Sam's are the more abstract ones! :) (How come his gingerbread woman looks so angry?!)

I love Sam's little stick figure gingerbread man. My gingerbread man is on the top left. That's how Sam looked after I told him how much money I spent at Christmas (I'm just kidding! :) ).

Sam's interpretation on the bottom left is "I just wanted to get rid of the extra frosting." What a cute hubbie!! And the best part. . . is that the cookies all tasted so yummy!! :)

Our NBA Experience

Last night, Sam's company gave us 2 tickets to see the LA Clippers play the Houston Rockets at the Staples Center (in Los Angeles). Sam and I were a little hesitant about going because neither of us are basketball or Clippers fans, but we figured we'd go anyway because neither of us had ever been to an NBA game before. We had SUCH a blast!



We had AMAZING seats because our seats were on the 5th row (we realized later that our tickets were worth $175 each and we went for free)!! We were so close that I could've thrown my gum at the players. I never realized how HUGELY tall those basketball players are! It was pretty awesome to see the guys in person who you usually only see on TV.



The game time actually flew right by. It's MUCH more exciting being there than watching it on TV.



I didn't realize that the tall Chinese basketball player played for the Rockets, seen on the right in #11 (I thought he played for the Lakers....shows how out of touch I am with basketball). He was so tall, he didn't have to jump at all to get the ball in the basket. He just sort of gently lifted the ball into the basket. He is one TALL man!



More shots from our amazing seats.



As we were driving to the game, Sam came up with a deal that anytime someone hits a slam dunk, we'll kiss. I thought we'd be smooching the whole night. There were only about 5-6 slam dunks, but we were able to steal in a few smooches during the game.



My cute hubbie! Nice glasses (he looks so sophisticated in his glasses!)



Me as we're enjoying the half time show after the 2nd quarter.



Ok, so I'm trying to enjoy my butter soaked, cinnamon coated pretzel, when the Clippers' anorexic cheerleaders come out to "give us some spirit". Hello?! Could they not see that I was trying to enjoy some trashy foods! At least let me enjoy my junk food before I see them cheer in their size 0 bodies. Geesh!



After the game was over, we noticed that all of the trees had these awesome icicle lights on them. I can't quite describe them, but they looked pretty cool.

Since we were really close to the LA temple, we decided to drive by the LA temple and take a peek at the Christmas lights. It was about 11PM when we got to the temple. The Christmas lights were on, but we weren't able to get inside of the temple grounds. It was still nice to look at though.


So Sam and I had an AMAZING time at the game. We'd jump at the chance to do it again! :)

New Christmas Lights

So Sam and I found this house where the lights and music are SOO cool! The most awesome part is the crappy Euro music at the end. Enjoy! :)

When I Grow Up . . .

When I grow up I want. . .

A perfectly decorated home (doesn't this just make you want a cup of hot chocolate?!

A perfectly decorated Christmas tree (our poor Christmas tree right now has NO ornaments on the bottom 2 feet of it. Our lovely kitten has managed to destroy the look of our tree. Outside cat. . . hopefully soon! )

My own Food Network chef (her Thanksgiving Cheesy Baked Mashed Potato Recipe looks to DIE for!!)

Our own English Summerhome

A Hawaiian Winter house (This is actually Oprah's house...regardless of who's lived there, I'd still take it!)

A children's library right in my own home (I probably have enough books to do it!)

To become a weather girl. When I was a little girl, I really wanted to be a weather girl. It'd be so awesome to announce the weather! Then I realized that I had to take science classes, and I quickly abandoned that idea. Notice that this weather girl is one from the UK. Obsessed with England? Perhaps!

To be able to see my husband again . . . (His finals are this week and so I'll actually get to see him for 3 weeks! I don't quite know what to do with all this time with Sam! :)!)

One day all of these things will come true . . . Sam has quite a lot of work ahead of him! Hahaha! j/k! A girl can always dream!!