Well Merry Christmas to everyone! It's all over! Have you taken down the tree yet? I only hope you all had as great a Christmas as I did!!!! We started off the weekend by going out Friday night to the Disney Concert Hall in Downtown LA to see the Blind Boys of Alabama. That was a lot of fun but the seats are terribly uncomfortable there! Very surprising, but wow! is it pretty to look at the inside of the hall!

During the day Friday and Saturday we pretty much cooked and cleaned to get ready for Christmas Eve. We were hosting 10 people and Jamie had a 13 pound Prime Rib he was sweating over. Everything turned out wonderful (except the weather! It was about 80 all day!) My mom went and got us a fire pit and we sat around that most of the night after dinner. It was wonderful! The firepit is probably one of the best things we have purchased!

Jamie's parents got in to Burbank airport at and to our house by 9:30 PM that night, just in time for Marie to join my mom, Jan and I going to church. They are staying at our house and even though Marie is horribly allergic to the cat, we are keeping her drugged up and she seems to be doing just fine.

Christmas day was the traditional blintzes breakfast at grandmas and then on to the Pratts for another Prime Rib dinner! YUMMY!

We finished off the weekend by staying in all day Monday playing Scrabble, Monopoly and Poker! I couldn't have asked for a better weekend!!!!!

So here are the pictures Christmas 2005

Enjoy and have a Happy New Year!!!!

Our work Christmas party was on Friday night. We actually had a good time! We boogied away on the dance floor in the Stadium Club at Dodger Stadium.

Here is our pretty Christmas Tree! Our very first married tree!!! It is a little squashed into the corner but it looks nice anyway. I am very excited about Christmas and the tree makes it perfect!

The in-laws are coming!!! The in-laws are coming!!!!

YAY! Jamie's parents have booked their flights and they are coming for Christmas! Our first married Christmas.... I'm looking forward to it soooo much! We are hosting Christmas Eve dinner for the very first time as well. In the past my grandparents and aunt Shirley have traded off each year, so this is a big deal. We're shakin' up the traditions!

We were robbed!!!!!

The other evening, about 8PM, Jamie and I were minding our own business and watching TV. We heard a ruckous outside and looke dout the front window to find two HUGE raccoons messing with the big jar of cat food. One was holding onto the bottom and the other was trying to twist off the lid (smart little buggers~!) We banged on the window nad scared them off. 5 minutes later they were at it again. This time they weren't going to wait for us! They knocked over the jar and were rolling it across the porch ( we were in hysterics laughing, it looked like a circus act!) Jamie went outside and scared them enough to where they were half way down the steps by the garage and he grabbed the food and brought it in the house. Well did they give up? Of course not! They came back sniffing around. One of them put his front paws up on the chair and was looking at the little table out there. He then swiped the little jar of cat treats (I forgot they were out there) and ran off with it!!! We were robbed!!!!! Jamie refused to go undert the house after the treats... I wonder why?

Well Happy Post- Thanksgiving to everyone! We had a nice relaxing weekend. I was a bit sick but nothing too bad, mainly tired and sneezy. It was a good excuse to take a nap after the turkey!!

Friday we put up our Christmas lights. That was a lot of fun since it was all new. We were also able to do my mom's house in 30 minutes then did grandmas and stayed for leftover turkey.

The best part of the weekend was last night though! We had family over for dinner and we lit the pot belly stove for the first time!!



I also did a little bit of decorating on the inside....



So almost ready for Christmas, all the cards are addressed and ready to go, most of the shopping is done and all are wrapped. Just need to start planning the Christmas Eve menu!

Grandma sent me this picture of my birthday cake from last weekend. Wasn't it pretty? My mom and grandma picked little pink roses and other flowers from her yard and decorated it themselves :)

Great weekend!!! Gen and I met up for our annual birthday spa day. We went to Burke-Williams and had the Savannah's Surrender massage..... oh heavenly! We met up with Nancy in Santa Monica, I bought one Christmas gift (about half way done now!) and had some lunch. It was just such a relaxing day!

Well I ordered our Christmas cards today, started some wrapping last night and am just plain old getting in the mood! It will be nice to be home for the whole season although I will miss seeing London all dressed up for Christmas!

I had the best birthday weekend ever! I went shopping Friday night with my mom and grandma and had a leisurely day with my wonderful husband on Saturday (he even went out at 6 am to buy breakfast fixin's!) He took me to Smitty's in Pasadena for dinner, which I HIGHLY recommend, yummy corn bread!! On Sunday we were leisurely again (think that's what made the weekend so wonderful!), then had dinner with the family on Sunday night. The big treat was my mom's vegetable beef soup and she also had Renee (the woman who made our wedding cake) make my birthday cake!!! Can't imagine a better birthday!

Well tomorrow is another big one, the big 33. 33 isn't that bad I guess. The horror of turning 30 has worn off and 35 is still 2 years away. I'm not very stressed about it this year. Being home to celebrate helps alot too!!! Last year Jamie took me out to dinner for my birthday but it was on my home leave, sometime in October. Not quite the same! Well it should be a lovely weekend, nothing but dinner tomorrow and sunday so the rest is unplanned. I can lay around and watch my new Little House on the Prairie box set if I want to (Season 9 wow!) or I can go for a hike or just anything!!!!

WOW! Pigs are flying! My grandma and grandpa have gotten themselves cell phones! First grandpa gets his very first credit card of his life a couple months ago and now this.... What's next? A Ferrari?

YAY! Tom and Jamie worked ALL DAY (and I mean all day) hanging these doors. Next time you see them you must admire them! Our house is so old and crooked that they had to keep adjusting, shaving and rehanging the doors just to get them up and so that they could open and close. Sounds easy but when the left side of the ceiling is lower then the right and the floor slopes even more and the wall slopes an evewn different way.. well they finally stopped trying to use the level. Anyways the doors are flush now and that is what I wanted!!! Jamie and I are going to try ripping down the wood panelling and hang new drywall ourselves in the next couple of weeks... wish us luck!!


While the boys were working on the doors, my mom came over and helped me work on the wall paper. We finished the hallway room and the kitchen (Barbara came over to help too! Remember Barbara? She's the one that started it all with the wallpaper!) WOW, that wallpaper was disgusting...

I started on the dining room, here is the before pic.

Here is a great example of be careful when undoing something on a house. There might be a good reason someone did it. When I removed the wallpaper I found nasty, bubbled paint underneath... I think I will copy my friend Katherine and throw up some bead board to cover it up....

As you can see, they got alot more done! YAY!!!! There are closet walls now! The doors are scheduled to go up next weekend. Both Jamie and I got to use the saw and nail gun, being a homeowner is so much fun! Well, except for the spending money part....
The other exciting thing this weekend was my grandma buying a new van to replace her old one which she had for 16 years (WOW!!!) She's only been talking about a new for about 5 years now! So this is well deserved. It's got so many bells and whistles, the best being the navigation system and the rear view camera. Very cool.

Here is one of our new visitors....




And our guard cat that scared him away... she's keeping watch for more...

So we got alot done this weekend! (We meaning Jamie and Tom) The next big project on the house is to remove the wood panelling from the hallway room, hang drywall and then paint it all a pretty color. Well the doors to the laundry closet were hung on the outside and not flush so I wanted to fix that. Well my perfectionist uncle (God bless him) took that request and ran with it. We didn't just remove the doors... he removed the whole thing!!!!
There were also some holes in the wall about 2-3 feet wide that he and Jamie cut out and replaced with new drywall so that animals can't get into our house! They also redid the plumbing fixtures for the washing machine and, oh yeah... built a new wall! Jamie has never used a nail gun before so he had a great time! This project that was supposed to be one weekend will probably go into 3. Keep your eyes out for more pics! Cousin Jeff came by to visit and saw this beautiful sunset least night....

There was sunshine in my bedroom this morning!!! WOW! That is a new thing. THey started working on the Eucalyptus trees in the back yesterday and WOW! I cna't think of a better word. Just WOW! The poor tree looks so bare but it looks so healthy. They said it will take about 6 months for the foliage to grow back in but the trees definitely needed this. They are cutting off everything that is bending since the branches are supposed to go up and removing the fourth, smallest tree in the corner. It will be a new start for the trees and our backyard! I can't wait to put some new plants back there, maybe even some grass. I don't think the squirrels are happy though :(

Here is a before (well it is the trees next to it that are getting done today)


and here is the after:


here is what they look like together:


and just for the fun of it, another shot of my pretty plumeria plant!!

WOW! Last night sucked! We woke up at about 2:45 to the sound of our backyard going through a tornado!! OK, I exaggerate a little bit but WOW! So most of you have heard me whine about our Eucalyptus trees and how we need to get them trimmed by about 30 feet because we were warned that strong winds could knock down some of the branches and cause damage…. Well we thought about that A LOT last night! On the news it said that the LA mountains were getting winds up to 75 mph. I can definitely believe that! At about 3:15 we heard this massive crash that sounded like a tree fell into our living room. Jamie jumped up to check it out and found that the windows on the side had burst open (they were locked) and knocked down 2 racks of cd’s. That was the crash we heard. I think I might have fallen asleep around 4 but it was a fitful sleep so I am ready for bed now. When we got up we realized that the little windows in the kitchen and bathroom were open so both rooms were covered in dirt. I get to go home and clean that up. No need to ask what we’ll be doing this weekend.

What a fantastic weekend!! The weather was absolutely perfect. On Sunday Jamie and I went to Descanso Gardens, the picture is from there. We also just hung around the house and played with our sprinker system. Some of them go on automatically at 4 am so we had no idea where they watered. We manually turned them on one by one and adjusted some and turned off some and got a bit wet. It was alot of fun and VERY empowering. I was very intimidated by the sprinkler system. You would be too if you saw the control panel (there are 2 of them!!) So anyways, it's nice to know how it all works.

On Saturday we had a guy come and clean the pot belly in the living room. Also empowering as I had him show me how it worked! YAY, no worries about burning the house down now!

We had a small group of people over in the evening for UNO night and I again got to pull out my beautiful china (I don't think Jamie minds me calling it my china....) I love any excuse to use that now!!!! It was a really great evening, even though I lost at UNO... I don't like losing, but surrounded by friends... well, let's just say I can think of much worse ways to spend my time :)

This is Gen and her friend Alisha, they stopped by on Saturday on their way to a wedding reception. They just looked so dressed up! I said Gen was more dressed up than she was for my wedding!!!!

It was a good weekend. I got to hang out with my cousin Renee as we celebrated her birthday. We saw the movie "An Unfinished Life" I actually recommend it, even though JLo is in it. She was quite good though. It's just a nice relaxing storytime movie. No shootouts or wild sex scenes (sorry to disappoint some of you!)

Sunday was lovely too, we hung out with grandma and grandpa and then had Charles and his girlfriend over for dinner. The weather is just so wonderful right now! I hope it never ends.....

I have my new MP3 player and it is soooooo cute and soooo pink!!! (I know the picture is red....don't worry your eyes aren't bad.) Thankfully I was smart before I went to England. I had to convert my cd's to MP3's to get them on my old player. I then burned the mp3's onto recordable cd's. So this time around I can just load from those cd's instead of having to reburn everything (which took about 3 weeks before) So I got about 70% of it done last night and will be able to finish the rest tonight. YAY! Silver lining right.

My mom and I have started peeling wallpaper from the Kitchen and Hallway Room. I want to get the hallway room done especially because then we can rip out the wood panelling and get new drywall up. I think it will look sooooooo much better! It is a lot of fun to do stuff to the house. It is easy to feel like you accomplish something quickly since there are so many opportunities of things to do!!!

Have a great weekend, all is well :)

We had such a wonderful weekend!! We went to Cambria this weekend since it was a 3-day weekend and had a great time. One of the highlights was seeing elephant seals up close. My friend Carolyn had given us directions to a secret beach where you could walk right up on the sand and be at their level. We didn’t get too close though but it was really fascinating to watch them.

We also did some wine tasting and had a pretty traffic free drive home. Now here I am at work….

So yesterday I ordered a new MP3 player. The good news (helps me feel a little better about it...) is it is PINK!!!! So if the idiot that stole it tries to steal this one, they better not be a guy or they will look really stupid. Hmmm... right about now the batteries have died on my MP3 player... I bet they feel stupid stealing it now... they unplugged it from the power cord on my desk.... they better like Bette Midler too since I have all of her albums on there and they dont have the cable or program to hook it up to a computer to change the music on it. Stupid idiots. I hate people that steal. It's just plain wrong. I won't even get into the trashy animals in New Orleans that are turning that place into more of a hell than it already was.
Hmmm... happy thoughts.... hmmm... new player will be PINK! YAY!!!

OH I AM SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW!!! I always lock up my MP3 player in a drawer before I go home. I just realized that I forgot to last night and now it is gone. Stolen from my desk. In the last couple of months people have had this happen. I should have know better BUT people shouldn't steal stuff!!! I am so mad!!!!!!!

We had a GREAT weekend! Ashley and Brittany came over on Saturday morning for a day of shopping, movie (TERRIBLE... 40 year old virgin.. just terrible) and some lunch. We then went home to my wonderful husband who BBQ'd us some hamburgers. We made Mint n chip ice cream (yummy) and chocolate chip cookies (Tollhouse of course!) To top it off a fun game of Phase 10 (Ash and Brit are hooked!)

On Sunday, we woke up at 7 am and picked up my mom and went up Big Tujunga Canyon for a 2 hour 15 min hike. It was a great hike with streams and even a waterfall at the end. I only wish I had my camera :( We were home by 10. It's such a good feeling to wake up early and do something like that. You feel like you have accomplished something before most people have eaten breakfast! We also beat the heat, most importantly!

Ash, Brit and I then went and saw The Skeleton Key. I do recommend it! I was surprised at how much I liked it. THe ending was very good which is hard to do in a thriller.

Then home for more Phase 10, dinner at Joselito's with my mom and grandparents and home for even more Phase 10!!!!

A great weekend all in all! Thanks to Ashley and Brittany!!!

PS - The only bad part was during the shopping... I felt like an old mom.... worrying about Brittany getting a skirt too short, or the girls getting a t-shirt with soemthing written on it and me not knowing what it was!!!! Tragedy!!! I guess the big thing right now is to wear band t-shirts, even retro ones are cool. Two different stores had Depeche Mode - People are People t-shirts!!! You know you are getting old when things you still have are now cool again (20 years later... :( again it was all so tragic and sad.....

Here is a pic I took over the weekend. Jamie is in competition with the eucalyptus trees. He is trying to keep them trimmed back (unfortunately he can only get about 20 feet high with all his different contraptions) and keep the leaves off the ground. I think the tree is winning. No, correct that, I know the trees are winning. That's the biggest problem, there are 4 of them and they are about 3 times taller than they should be. We checked into cutting them down to size (they could eb dangerous to our roof come some strong winds) but the bid was $3500, needless to say we didn't jump on getting that done. Instead Jamie bought a bow saw for his birthday and keeps hacking away one big branch at a time. A good thing will be all the great smelling eucalyptus wood in the pot belly stove this winter! On Saturday he had cut down a big branch and wanted to climb on the roof to get some that were hanging over our bedroom. That was fine but the real pain was going to be cutting the branches up for the bins so we went out and bought him a chainsaw. Don't worry I made him promise to NEVER use it while on a ladder! I know he wants to start climbing the trees and cutting away!

So my good friend Julia is going to do the 3Day Breast cancer walk. If you have any interest in supporting her, please click onDonation for Julia Thank you! I know she will appreciate it!

Here is a pretty pic:


That's from our backyard! Isn't it pretty! We thought we just had 2 sticks in the ground and then these big leaves started sprouting and then the plumerias! WOW! and pink too! I knew this house was meant for us!

Orange cat is doing well. She has forgotten the surgery and seems to come to me instead of Jamie... I was gone in Denver over the last couple days and he said he didn't really see her... well I got home at 10:15 last night and within 5 minutes she was sitting at the front door crying. I had to go pet her a bit and give her some more food... wow she can eat!!! When we first started feeding her, you could feel her spine when you pet her, now she's all filled out and very healthy looking. She seems happy too :)

Jamie’s little brother Dave got married this weekend!!! The wedding was in Whidbey Island, Washington. The setting and weather were almost as beautiful as his bride Kristie! Fun was had by all and it was just a great weekend. Here are some pics for those of you interested. Dave and Kristie's Wedding

BTW, for those of you that have been hearing about our newly adopted Orange Cat, I attached a couple of pics… I included Nicki too so she wouldn’t feel left out.

So I brought home Orange Cat last night. I figured she would bolt out of the cage and disappear. Boy was I ever wrong. I opened the cage and she ran to my legs and just started rubbing and purring and begging for attention. I think the poor thing thinks I rescued it from the mean old vet or something!! Well I had to leave but when I got home later she was still sitting on the porch waiting for me to get home. I pet her a bit and went into the house, she tried ot follow me! She sat outside the door and just cried and cried. I finally went back out and pet her for a good 30 minutes or so and then she finally calmed down and let me go in the house. About an hour later she started up again. She has taken to sitting on the rails outside the front door so that she can watch me on the couch. Silly cat. As far as I know she sat there all night. She was there when we went to bed... Nicki won't come out into the living room though.. she is not impressed.

We'll see how tonight goes with the cat... I'll try to take some pics...

Today I will be picking up our little Orange Cat. I accept that it is now ours. It started hanging out at our house before we moved in. We tried very hard not to feed it but about a week ago it just looked so sad and little and sweet that we had to give it some food. Now it won't leave our house. Nicki is very mad and won't go outside anymore. We tried not to get attached by not naming it and just calling it orange cat (that hasn't worked out too well though... getting a little attached.) Jamie decided we should get it fixed for fear of hundreds of little orange cats running around that we would have to feed so we took it in. Today I will be picking her up and since we will be forking out $200 I can consider her part of the family. She will be the part of the family that has to live outside though :( Hopefully she doesn't become $200 coyote food.

YAY!!! I passed my SCUBA final and I am now completely certified! Jamie went with me on Sunday to Laguna Beach and sat underwater and watched me remove my mask and put it back on, very exciting. We then swam around a bit and were done!

Saturday we had our big garage sale and made more than $300, pretty darn good. The best part though was that a bunch of neighbors stopped by to introduce themselves. It was nice to get to meet so many of them. One of them, Jan, lives a couple houses up and walks every morning at 6. Jamie and I joined her this morning and it was really nice. The temperature was perfect and the sun was up a bit, it was just so pretty out. We're gonna do it again tomorrow.

Since I had not passed my SCUBA class last weekend, I went to the pool last night where the instructor had another class (he had said it would be ok) Carolyn couldn't go as she was sick. I basically played around in the water, swimming back and forth and working on my boyancy... trying to remain neutral. Neutral is where you can just hover above the bottom and not float up. I got pretty good at that and then he had me work on the dreaded mask. The mask is what really screwed me up last time. We are tested on being able to take it off under water and put it back on and then blow the water out of it with your nose (this is all in case it gets kicked off your face or something.) Well on Saturday, I found out later that my mask was too tight so I had a lot of trouble getting it on. He said I had the technique right but got panicky when it wouldn't go on.... So we did it over and over last night (after I loosened it up of course) I really got the hang of it and had no problem. I did so well that he had me take it off and have him swim me around the pool and then put it on. I definitely would not have been able to do that before. Last thing he did was have me take off the mask, remove the regulator (the thing in my mouth that allows me to breathe) pull off my hood, put the regulator back in and replace the mask. I did it perfectly!!! That isn't something he normally has people do so I felt really good about the whole thing by the time I went home and he said I will definitly ace the test this time. We are going to the beach on Sunday for my last test and Jamie will be coming too!!! How exciting!!!

Tomorrow is going to be a great day too! We are having out big garage sale! YAY!!!!! I can finally get all this crap out of my garage and get ti organized. I am very excited... although not excited about the 7am start time... which means waking up at 6...

Anyway, have a good weekend!

TODAY IS MY 5 YEAR ANNIVERSARY WITH NESTLE!!! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO ME!!!!

Where's my cake?

My friend Carolyn and I are currently taking SCUBA lessons. We had a dive on Saturday in Catalina. On the boat we started talking to this guy that had this huge underwater camera! It was really cool to see. We asked if he could email us some pics and he did..

Catalina Diving

In case you don't have time to look at them, this one is my favorite....

YAY!!! I got our Tivo to work. We just bought one on this special deal wher eyou get it free if you sign up for a year. Well we don't have a regular land line phone at home (we have the VOIP) so we had to setup the TIVO at my moms since it needs a phone to dial into.... well long story but it took me 2 days to get it all figured out and I finally did! I also hooked it up to our internet so that I can log on from ANYWHERE and tell it online to record a show. Bring on the TV addiction!!!

Carolyn and I are taking SCUBA classes right now. Tonight is the last pool class and then we go on a boat to Catalina and do a dive on a reef. It has been a hard class but we are both looking forward to Catalina. Then we will be certified PADI divers!!! Woo-hoo!!!

I know, I know.... it's been a while. You know how sometimes you just get sick of hearing yourself talk? Well that is kind of what writing a blog is like.... talking to yourself. Anyways! I am back! The house is finally starting to feel like home and Jamie and I feel like a real married couple!

Here are some pics of the house before....

Before Pics of House

and some from the BBQ we had a couple weeks after moving in:

After Pics and BBQ

and finally some from this past weekend:
Grandma's BDay BBQ

We had a BBQ for my grandma's 80th birthday, uncle Tom's 50th birthday and Grandma and Grandpa's 63rd wedding anniversary! It went great! My uncle Mike, cousin Johnathan, cousin Sarah, her boyfriend Jake and their son Tavian all came from Utah for the party!

YAY!!! Jamie comes home today. I am really looking forward to it (obviously!) Strange to be married and never see your spouse!!!

We are moving his apartment tomorrow and all my stuff still in Nestle storage on Monday. Then we will be all done!

Well it was a big weekend!! My mom got to work on the bedrooms while I played hostess to all the people that kept stopping by! It was great showing everyone around and it seems everyone really likes the house. They usually stop in the kitchen and go "so.... are you... um... keeping... uh this wallpaper?" I kept telling everyone no but I didn't knwo when we would be changing it. My mom's cousin Barbara just ran with it and started pulling the paper down! She has about 1/3 of it off of the kitchen. Even with the scraps on the wall, it still looks better!

The blue room is now a light green and the purple room is in the first stage of brown. Thanks to my mom for most of the paint rolling, Nancy for helping last night and doing most of the trim in the purple room, to Barbara for peeling the wallpaper and to Tom for pulling out the hideous wall heater!

Here are the before pics of the house:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=13xs0t9z.bccv07n7&x=0&y=jqjcgd

Well it's completely official!! I did the walk through on the house yesterday with my mom and Carolyn and everything looks good. Good news too that we don't have to wait the +3 days that were in the contracts, we get the house keys tomorrow! Mom and I are going to TSP the bedroom walls on Saturday and maybe even primer them, we should then be able to get them all painted on Sunday. Another goal is to get the kitchen done too, new shelp liners and all that stuff. Oh it's so exciting!!!!!

I was on an escalator at the Glendale Galleria the other day and I had a strange urge to kick thew person in front of me and scream at them to move over and let me pass or to start walking or something! Anything! Just don't stand there!!!! Then I realized I wasn't in England where escalater courtesy is the norm. I miss English escalaters. They are wide enough for two people and EVERYONE knows they are supposed to stand on the right and walk on the left. Here the escalators are skinny and fit 1.5 people and everyone just stands anywhere on them and no one walks up an escalator... Hmmmm wonder why we have obesity issues here, maybe if we started an escalator revolution......

Hope you all had a great 3 day weekend!!! I got the kitchen packed with the help of my mom. A good thing about never cooking is that you can pack up the whole kitchen, plan not to use anything for at least 2 weeks and not miss it at all! I then took my mom and uncle to The Great Greek restaraunt in Studio City and they loved it! I did too as it tastes just like our meals in Greece and I can remember them so clearly!

My mom and I are doing the final walk through on the house tomorrow, it's all so exciting!!! We picked out the carpet and paint for the 2 bedrooms, I've ordered the cable and internet installation and signed up for Voice Over IP service (this is instead of a phone) It's all coming together.... now if only Jamie were here!

I am very tired today. I stayed up late watching Season 3 of "24" I gotta tell you that watching "24" on DVD is the way to do it. the 4th episode left me so anxious for more that instead of going to bed, I popped in the next disk and watched the 5th one.... luckily that one ended without so much of a cliffhanger and I was able to go to bed. I can't imagine having to wait a whole week to see the next one!!! Ih yes I can... let me think back to season one.... torture, that's what I would call it... torture!

Well Star Wars was amazing!!! It made up for the Phantom and Clones. I completely enjoyed almost every minute. I say almost because the wanna-be love scenes were terrible but all Star Wars fans accept that the love scenes will be bad so it doesn't really matter. Katherine loved it too! We lucked out on the line. I got to the theatre about 2 hours early to get in line and saw several different lines outside for the movies different times. I couldn't find our showing so I had to ask at the front and YAY ours was inside. We didn't have to sit in the sun for 2 hours. Another bonus was that they didn't show commercials. They went straight to the previews. I don't know why but it sure was nice. All the questions were answered, all the fight scenes were exciting, the visuals never looked cartoony. If you haven't seen Phantom or Clones, you are ok to see this, it stands alone. I want to rewatch the original Star Wars now!!!!

YAY!!!! It's finally here! Star Wars day!!!! I am leaving work at 2pm to go get our place in line. How very exciting!!!! May the Force Be with You!

I'm up to about 125 photos that I am printing from my time overseas and I still have 10 albums left to look at... I have already looked at over 50 albums though... considering I took over 2000+ pictures...

Three weeks from today we get the house!! Woo-hoo!!! Only 3 more days til Star Wars!! Woo-hoo! Only 4 more days til Fiesta Friday Lunch at King Taco!!! Oh all the fun! Stop me!

Here we are at the pool at the new Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas. We had a great time for mothers day. Here are the pics:   Wynn in Vegas
The drive was good but it took 1 hour and 45 minutes to move 1 block on the strip to get into the hotel's valet parking! When we left yesterday, they told us it would be 45 minutes to get the car... well I worked my magic and got it in 5 but still!!! They sure have a few kinks to work out. The room was beautiful and luxurious and the casino was very nice. All the dealers were friendly and had a personality and seemed to want to be there. For those of you that have played in Vegas lately, you know how rare that is! All in all it was a great trip, we all missed Jamie though :(

Off a bit early today to pack for a work trip to Palm Springs for the week. Jamie also leaves tomorrow.. :( Hopefully he will be back in time to help with the move!
Looking forward to the weekend.. Vegas Baby Vegas!!! Grandma got 2 free nights at the new Wynn casino so she, my mom and I are going for Mother's Day. Woo-hoo!!! I'll be sure to post pics as I am sure you are all curious about the Wynn. See ya!

WOW! I am sitting here laughing to myself a bit, browsing through pics deciding what to get printed. I am coming to realize that the best pictures are of the people. I kind of figured that would be the case. I look at the scenery pics and there are some beautiful ones that bring back great memories and they are the best ones to share because most people don't know the people in the pics. But to me the people pics are the best, they are making me laugh.... I was just looking at pics from the RDCC Christmas party in 2003... remember? At the restaraunt near Covent Garden next to Pacifico? Well the pics are hilarious (although I have already forgotten some people!!! I can't remember some of the names and some people I go oh yeah! I remember them!!) This was the first night I saw Evil Reed.... oh a night to remember...


So the great news is that Jamie got a job!!! YAY! It is even a promotion, he will be a 1st asst on a small budget movie called "Stay Alive". It's such a small budget that they won't have a 2nd asst which is what he normally does. So think good thoughts for him as this is a big deal and a lot of responsibility! Big changes! He leaves Wednesday for New Orleans and will be there for 5 weeks, so poor me!!! Let's hope he gets back in time for the move!!!

23 more days til I see Star Wars!!! I got our tickets for Katherine and me the other day and we are looking forward to it!!

Yesterday we had some excitement looking out my window. A psycho crow (we think it must be the one that left the leg on the ledge) sat on the ledge screaming at us. He was there for a good few minutes and then kept flying around past the window... back and forth.... Katherine called him Satan

6 weeks from today, but who's counting. I keep thinking of all the great things about owning a house that I will try not to take for granted.
* A dishwasher
* Central air
* A hose to wash off our bikes when they get all muddy
* A garage to put them in instead of next to the dining room table! (especially when they are muddy)
* No one living below us so that when the cat races around at 2am, we don't have to worry about waking up the neighbors!
* An outdoor BBQ
* An outdoor anything for that matter!
* A garage to store our crap in
* A place to plant tomatoes
* Best of all, the ability to look at something you don't like about your home and know that you can fix it or change it to be anything you want!!!

We got very good news! The appraisal came back on our house and it is for the amount we are paying. Even though we still feel we are paying a bit too much to live in a 2 bedroom, 950 sf house in Tujunga, it is nice to know that there are other people out there willing to pay the same amount we did!

Today is our 2 month anniversary! WOW time sure does fly!

You will all be very sad to know that the bird leg has disappeared from my window ledge. There is now a half eaten apple and a lot of bird poo. Nothing worth taking a picture of. I will keep you updated in case something worthwhile shows up.

The front of the house. A great feature is the garage being in front of the house, sets the house back so when you are on the front porch you feel a bit of privacy, especially with the big pine tree. 

The front yard. The owner is a big gardener as you can see with all the flowers. 

Jamie and I sitting on our new front porch