Almost forgot...

It wouldn't be Christmas without our infamous Santa Dog! I don't know what we ever did without this wonderful dog - he has truly been a blessing to this family. Travis and I are taking him to obedience class to work on just a few problem areas but he's even impressing our instructor! So I have to say THANK YOU SUZETTE for fostering this amazing dog so we got a chance to meet and fall in love with him and make him a part of our family!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

The family gathered at our house for our annual Christmas Eve celebration. The kids all picked up some wonderful presents - but I think the best "gift" we all got was Robin and Sisco announcing their pregnancy. So next year, I'll be able to post yet another picture of grandkids with Santa. Speaking of ... the first picture is Kalel and the second is of Manny and Angel.

As if you couldn't tell - Kalel *hated* this weird guy in the funny suit (aka - Grandpa). Manny and Angel weren't too much better although they are a little older and able to be bribed! The promise of ice cream goes a long way on 3 and 4 year olds!

I got an "A"

Not all of my grades have been posted yet, but my grade for Drawing and Rendering has... I got an "A"! WhooHoo!

The official update - I ended up with three "A's" and one "B". I got the "B" in my AutoCad class which I'm perfectly happy with since I don't feel we learned anything in the entire class anyway!

Um.. Merry Christmas?

I actually slept in a little bit this morning (trying to get over strep throat) and when I got up I had plans to go to the grocery store and pick up the items that I need to make my world famous baked beans for Peter's graduation party this evening. I had even gotten as far as to putting my jacket on and pulling out my car keys when our home phone rang. My mom was calling to tell me that she had been involved in a car accident. She was headed to our family doctor because she's got this same crud that we all have - when she had someone turn left in front of her. She slammed on her brakes but was unable to miss him. Here's the good part - she's fine. The bad part - her car isn't; the accident took out her radiator. So now we're dealing with insurance companies, tow truck drivers and rental cars. I guess we know three businesses that aren't being affected by this economic downturn right?

A new college graduate!

Congratulations to Lindsay's husband, Peter who graduated from ASU today with a Bachelor's degree in Economics. Remarkably he said after 5 years that he was "done"... isn't his mother-in-law (the perpetual college student in her 28th year) a better role model than that?

Just a hint at what I've done this semester

I finished my drawing class yesterday and remarkably I think I may pull an "A" - can you say shocker! Anyway, I had to scan in all of my drawings and give them to my instructor so I have digital copies of them and figured somebody somewhere may like to see what I have actually accomplished this semester. It is pretty remarkable considering where we started.


The first drawing is what is called a two-point perspective of a great room. The second drawing is a birds eye view of a bathroom. The drawings were done on 19 x 24 paper so they're a lot larger than what appears here so I hope you can actually see the hours and hours of labor put into these drawings. :-) I know that I'm pretty happy with 'em.

A wet, rainy Thanksgiving

Ok, that title is just to make everyone in the midwest feel like we had a really crummy Thanksgiving. It really did rain and was overcast all day, but it was still about 65 degrees. We spent Thanksgiving at Usery Park where Travis and I went on a hike before everyone else got there. It was shorter than we had planned to do (we were going to do the 7 mile hike but with the threat of rain all day I really didn't feel like being away from "shelter" that long - so we did the 1 mile hike basically a couple of times. Jay and Suzette, Mom, Lindsay & Peter and the boys as well as Suzette's family and some friends were there.

Here is Travis getting "bucked" off of the whale.













Peter with the boys playing on the swings.













Nic mugging for the camera!