Great Weekend

Friday wasn't the best travel day considering we probably got over an inch of rain and had wind gusts up to 30mph, but my parents made it down to our place in time for dinner. After dinner we called Susan using the webcam. It was almost like having her here...but not quite :( Saturday we headed out to Livermore to pickup the "futures" Steve and my dad had purchased at Retzlaff winery last year. We got to taste their 2006 wines, had a yummy lunch, then barrel tasted the 2007 wines. Finally they picked out which wines they wanted in their cases and we headed out to EXPO design center to browse. There is always WAY too much to look at there! We had a good time "dreaming" of what we could do...if we all had a whole lot more money! Then we headed back to Livermore for dinner at Uncle U's. It is a great Chinese restaurant...not your typical Chinese food. I guess you would call it gourmet Chinese. When we got home, we all played some pool...some of us had better games than others...mine would be one of the worst :) Then they had to leave this morning. Coming for a weekend is never long enough, but it was a great weekend!

Miscellaneous Stuff

Well I think I've finally caught up on the blogging. This weekend...after the rain stopped...we tried to do a little yard cleanup due to the mess we had from the 60mph winds we had Friday. We also had some clogged drains that were creating "Lake Tracy" in our backyard. Yesterday we installed a new garbage disposal ...thanks to everyone who gave us Lowe's gift certificates and cash for Christmas :) Our old garbage disposal was a wussy 1/3 hp and kept backing up. It would choke on potato peelings...even if it was from only 1 potato!! So now we have a hefty 1hp disposal that is SOOOOO much quieter than our old one could have ever thought of being and it chews up food with no problem. Here's the new disposal:


Of course it was new toy to Steve so he kept asking me what I had that he could throw down the drain to try it out. He tried a couple of whole manderins that had gone bad and it had no issues at all. He was still asking me this morning what I had he could throw down the disposal...what a big kid! :)

The Week at Home Part 4 - Christmas

Christmas morning we had our traditional breakfast of swedish tea ring, scrambled eggs, and chicken apple sausages. It was delicious! We talked to Susan via the webcam so we could see Leevi's family and my Grandma, uncle, and cousin could see Susan. Everyone thought it was a lot of fun. We also chatted via webcam with my Auntie Deborah and cousin Laura and her daughter (second cousin??) Alexis in Spring, TX. Alexis is a webcam pro and was keeping everyone entertained. After that we opened gifts.

Around 1pm my great aunt and uncle came up from Fortuna to have Christmas dinner with us. We had prime rib, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, breadsticks, grilled veggies, and pumpkin pie. It was so yummy! Steve liked it so much...I kid you not...I think he ate a third of the prime rib himself!! It was a lot of fun to enjoy Christmas with family. It was time for us to leave the day after Christmas. Even though we were there almost a week, it seemed so much shorter. Fortunately my parents will be back down here the end of January. We're looking forward to it! :)

The Week at Home Part 3 - Friends

Saturday night Steve and I went to Tomo's to meet up with Amber, Aimee, Alicia, and Rob. The food was great as always...and the company was even better! It was so great to see all the girls. Since we are all living in different places now, it is a rare occasion when we can all get together. And I'm really glad it all worked out. Tomo's actually closes at 9pm and our reservation was at 8:30pm. We didn't end up leaving the restaurant until sometime around 10:30pm!! I'm surprised they didn't kick us out...but instead they just went ahead started cleaning up and left us to visit. We could have visited for so much longer if we had the chance! I'm so grateful to have such great friends! Hopefully we'll all be able to get together again sooner rather than later! I'd post a picture of us, but I was the only one who forgot a camera...so if any of you want to email me a photo I would love it :)

Sunday morning the Damrons and Peters came over for brunch. It was great to see all of them. It seems silly that I don't see Adrienne more often since we only live 20 minutes away from eachother! We got to see the newest addition to the Peters family for the first time. Mason is an adorable little guy and he was so good! My Steve and Adrienne's Steve started playing Wii and were apparently have a good time since Julie, Angela, Adrienne, Mason and Aldo all left because it was time to feed Mason and Steve stayed behind to play a little more Wii! It's always great to see friends during the holidays. Again...no pictures. I think my mom took some...so Mom you should post some pictures on your blog if you have them!

The Week at Home Part 2 - Trisha's Baby Shower

Saturday the fun began. Carolyn and Stephanie threw Trisha a baby shower at our house in the afternoon. It was great to see all of them! Stephanie and Carolyn prepared all the food. Stephanie made some very cute cupcakes and yummy fondue. A lot Trisha's family and friends came to celebrate.


We played a couple of games...


Then Trisha opened gifts.











It was a lot of fun to celebrate the impeding arrival of little Anthony!

The Week at Home Part 1

We made the trek up to my parents on Thursday 12/20. It was pretty cold and a little foggy on the way up, but all in all it was a good trip. We ended up getting there around 9:30pm. Friday morning the whirlwind week began. After dropping Steve off to get a massage, we picked up my mom's car from the repair shop (see her blog if you don't already know the story), dropped my car off for Steve so he could get home after the massage, went grocery shopping for the week, and then started cleaning house when we got home....I made myself tired just typing all that!