December

This is my first official Christmas alone, its a weird feeling not having anyone around (besides the dogs of course!) during the season. Last year, I had Mitch and we went up to visit his family. The year before that I was still living at home with my dad. This year it's me in the house, doing my own shopping, deciding what and how to decorate.
Not to mention having to fend for myself. Making my own meals, picking my own bedtime, my own shows, when to do my homework, doing only one set of laundry. Its a weird feeling, I have never been quite on my own before.
Its easy for me to live alone..when someone else is paying the bills though! lol. Its nice not to have to worry about when that paycheck is coming in and what it is going towards. It's all taken care of, I just have to budget for myself. So, its not as stressful as living alone would be. At least I have that going for me.

Its been just over a month since Mitch has been in Kuwait, and it's been a different experience than I expected, that's for sure! I was expecting not being able to keep in touch, besides a once a week phone call, and the occasional skype session. But, the base Mitch is at has wifi! So he has been able to use facebook messenger on the wifi and we are able to talk everyday. Typically one of us is tired when we are talking, with the 10 hour difference. It is either my night and his morning or afternoon, or my morning, and his evening. So we usually only talk for a while, but it is nice to run out of things to talk about, versus not having enough time to talk about what we really want to. I feel really blessed to be able to keep in touch with him at most times.
The time has gone by pretty quick, but when I think about what we have left to go, it seems like only a small time.

Well, onto more fun stuff!

    I hung some ornaments from the archway

 The yard lights. Janice and Kaden supervised :P

 Janice and I made those Jingle all the way wood blocks. We want to add some curly wiring and hang bells on it arched across the top, so it's not quite done. I decided since I don't have a tree up yet, that this would be a good way to display our special ornaments. I love ornaments!

I am pretty proud of the house decorating I've done. I still don't have a tree, or put stockings up but I still am enjoying just the decorating I've done.

Dad's 50th surprise " 'Stache Bash"

My dad turned 50 this year and Janice thought it would be fun to throw a surprise party for him.

We went through a couple of themes before deciding on a "Mustache" theme.

Which turned out to be really fun! 

We made felt mustaches for those who couldn't grow their own, or couldn't find one to use. Along with Mustache glasses and had several party games.

It was really fun to see everyone participate in the mustache theme! Even grandma wore one!!

Our dad was so surprised, we had the party at our house, and to lure my dad over here I had invited him over for 'dinner'. We had everyone arrive about half an hour before he did. and obviously having a bunch of cars around the cul-de-sac was a bit of a giveaway, but he was still super surprised. He was walking up to the door when we opened it up. He turned to Laura, asking "What's going on? do you know?" All the while everyone is wearing (or holding up mustaches on a stick) on their faces! He was pretty confused, until we all started saying , "Happy Birthday!".

Everyone ate, and we put on a slide show of pictures of my dad, from when he was young to more recent pictures (a good amount of which he DID actually have a mustache!). We had put together a few games including matching mustache's to their names and then matching mustaches to their star's face. As well as awards for best mustache and best miss'stache, etc. 

 Grandma's 'stache and Uncle Mike's double 'stache :P

 Kelsey had a pretty great looking one, and Tim used one of the mustache on a stick that we made!

 Aunt Mercy definitely had a neat handlebar mustache, very Photo-worthy!

As you can see, some of the mustache's got traded around, everyone wanted a piece of everyone else's!

We even added mustaches on mirrors and mini 'staches on pictures around the house. Including our wedding pictures and pictures of the dogs!

Big shout out to Janice with her fantastic party planning skills and ideas! It's always so much fun to put parties together with her. Can't wait until our next bash!

1st Anniversary

This last July was our first anniversary!

To celebrate we spent a week in Phoenix at a Hilton resort.

We went shopping, out to dinners and spent time in the pool & lazy river at the hotel, it was wonderful :)

TDY in San Diego & Universal Studios

Mitch had another class, this time in San Diego.

For the most part, I was in the hotel room studying, doing homework and watching TV. But once Mitch came home we would go out, usually it was just to dinner and hang out around town. We weren't sure what exactly we should do. Weekends were really fun, we spent the first day we got there (before Mitch's class started) at Seaworld. It was a little chilly and rained on and off throughout the day, but it was still fun, especially since it wasn't very busy! The dolphin petting area hardly had anyone around so we were able to get a few pets in there as they came around.

The last weekend we were there we drove down to LA, and went to Disneyland for a day, which was fun, but it was sweltering hot in the lines in the sun, and there was another 2 hour drive to get to our hotel (which was closer to universal studios), so we left Disnleyland pretty early, comparibly.
Rina and her boyfriend drove up to meet us at our hotel so that the next day they could go with us to Universal Studios. It was a lot of fun!

 I convinced everyone that we should go on the Jurassic Park ride first, as it is my favorite!

This is the result of our first go around

Thanks to Janice and Mike for coming over to watch our pups!

You guys are the best!

Kaden's 2nd Birthday!

Kaden turned 2 this year and he had a dinosaur themed party.
Our present to his was a giant "rideable" dinosaur. It would roar, wag it's tail, move his horns and open and close his mouth. It was really awesome, kind of wanted to keep it for myself!

Anyway, he was apprehensive about it, at first but after a minute he would go up to it and when it roared, kaden would roar back! We tried to get him to sit on it, but he wasn't quite ready for that. 

 Checking it out, and getting a better look, all while staying safe by mommy.

Unfortunately I didn't get a video of Kaden roaring back at the dinosaur, but this video is still too cute. :)

Our previously green kitchen

This was our kitchen about a month ago, Mitch said it looked like a green screen.

He also referred to this commercial everytime we told someone about it, if you haven't seen it, watch it. It's hilarious. You will see what part I'm referring to when I say mitch brought this up everytime, without fail. 

We have since painted over it, and its now tan like our living room. We are looking for some decorations so it isn't quite so plain anymore. Since the green really spoke for itself! :P

Snow day

Today, we woke up with snow on the mountains and thought to go up and let the dogs play in the snow.

We all had a lot of fun.

Hunter loved eating the snow! and the weeds and the bushes and the twigs..

Sheba was so excited to be running around so much space, and loved jumping up on us to say thanks. :P

Christmas in Vancouver.

Snapshots of our Christmas vacation!

First day in the snow

First time snowboarding! 

Loading into Sean's Subaru after a long night of boarding.

New Years Eve.



It was a fun vacation, and we loved spending time with Mitch's family, but we are so happy to be back home with our puppies, during our week away, Hunter grew about 10 lbs!