Russ Bungie Jumping

So I found this video today while organizing my iphoto library. This is from 2005.... please excuse Russ' choice of words... but isn't it cool?

Mission Stow-Away Baxter Successful

So the trick to sneaking Baxter onto the plane is to

1. Check in separately--one of us watches Baxter while the other goes and checks in. (Security does not check to see if you have a ticket for him, so you just take off his collar and walk him through the metal detector.)

2. You don't sit in the proper terminal, so that people don't come and pet him and make a big deal about him being there.

3. When handing in your ticket, you put your jacket over his carrying case when walking in.

4. You put him right under the seat, so the stewardess don't see him........ and

5. You've made it! :)

Luckily Baxter is such a good dog, he's easy to stow-away! Hopefully we'll make it back successfully too! I think this was Baxter's 7 flight this time!

Santa Scarf Delivery

Yeah, I finally feel like I've caught up a little on the blog! Its funny because I uploaded the pictures in between wrapping each present this weekend.... so it would be upload a picture, go wrap, come back choose the next one to upload, go wrap, come back.... it was a vicious cycle, but I got both the wrapping and the blog done.... so I'm happy! There was one more thing I wanted to write about before we head off to Russ' family for Seattle.

This weekend my friend Narine and I were given a special opportunity from our friend Alice. She makes these absolutely stunning scarves. She travels a lot for her business, so she makes them while she's on her plane rides across the country. She gave us about 20 scarves and 15 ornaments to take to people we thought would be in need. My grandfather John, before he passed away earlier this year, was taken to Freedom Village in Lake Forest to stay during one of his harder medical periods. My grandmother recommended that we take the scarves there because there were a lot of lonely people that might really enjoy something as beautiful and amazing as a scarf. So off Narine and I went.

At first we didn't know how we would approach them with the scarves, but we quickly saw them bright up as we told them we were bringing them a Christmas gift. One lady was so excited... and said "this is my first Christmas present!" Another told us that she was so touched and also teared up. A third lady was so excited to talk to us for 10 minutes and brought us into her room where she showed us her monkey collection-- she literally had hundreds of stuffed monkeys in her room. As we made our rounds on the two floors, our hearts were full. It felt good to really brighten these peoples day. They were all in awe by the beauty of the scarves and when we told them that they were handmade, they were so excited that someone took the time to do something like that for them.

It was an amazing experience. Narine and I walked away so grateful that we had the opportunity to stop by and deliver and meet some new friends. I know that it really touched me to be able to do it too... it was the perfect thing to do for Christmas. We're going to try to make it a tradition.

This was two of the ladies that we met that were so excited for the scarves. The one with the orange scarf was so funny! She kept telling us she felt like a queen with her scarf on.

Gingerbread Follies

On Monday night we planned on meeting up with Rok & Narine and making gingerbread houses. I was really excited because Narine was going to make dessert and I was going to bring the houses for us to make. With a busy day at work, I rushed home and on our way over to our house I ran into Michael's and bought three kits. When we got to their house, we opened the kits to find that they were the accessory kits to the gingerbread houses-- the ones where you melt the chocolates for the windows and trees and stuff. It wasn't even the right stuff! But it all worked out because Narine had made these amazing desserts and we couldn't pass up trying them out, right? :) So we had dessert and planned to make the houses later the week. Narine is the one who helped me get the desserts ready for the Halloween party, and no joke, she is the most creative food person I have ever met. She hand made these beautiful peanut butter icecream and coconut snowmen... which were not only the most adorable dessert I have eaten, but also were delicious. For the snowmen hats, she made these round cookies and then blow-torched marshmallows onto them giving a weathered hat look... I wasn't kidding when I said she was creative. Cut gumdrops were used for the nose and chocolates for the eyes.

She also made this amazing chocolate silk pie-- where she handmade the chocolate crust using a food processor and then also used the torch on the meringue on top. Russ was in heaven--- you can see it on his face.

Since the houses were out for the night-- unless we just wanted to make chocolate trees and windows, we decided to meet up on Thursday to finish the activity. I went back to Michaels, and guess what? They were all out of gingerbread house kits. So I tried Costco, which was also all out. So I sent Russ to Target and he found these really cool mini gingerbread villages. They looked pretty easy, but man were they hard! The little houses were so much more work than a large one.. but they turned out so cute! Here are some pictures.

Here I am starting on the houses...

Here's Russ coming to terrorize the village instead of help build it. He pretend to throw some sprinkles on... but that was about it.

I think Rok actually put some of the sprinkles on... so I guess he went one step farther than Russ.

Having way too much fun!

Narine and here finished village.

My finished village.

Um...yum!!! Did they ever smell good. Here's me ready to plunder and eat my village whole.

Yeah, the boys really didn't help with the ginger bread houses at all... this is what they did end up doing... along with a car meet at the In-N-Out. But they didn't complain, they loved the video games and cars... and we girls loved the gingerbread houses... so no complaints on either side! :)

Fall--lalala

This fall has been a lot of fun... it's definitely breezed into winter (but I guess it's not really winter because it's 80 degrees out today, but anyway...) way quicker than I expected it to. So here I am with a lot to catch up on for what we've been up to. I think I'll start after the Halloween party. In November Jen and I flew up to Utah to meet Kristen and Amanda for a sisters weekend. We had so much fun going shopping, out to Mimi's cafe, decorating Amanda's dorm, shopping again, visiting the Mylers, getting manicures and pedicures, watching a movie, and just hanging out and catching up. I am so lucky to have such amazing sisters. Even though we don't always get a long or see eye-to-eye, we do have a great time together and it's nice to know that no matter what, we will always be there for each other. Here are a few shots of the weekend.

Two weeks later, it was Thanksgiving and this year it was at my parents house (we rotate every year with our spouses families, so next year Thanksgiving will be at the Taylors and Christmas at the Barlow's). It was cool because in the morning Russ played in the Mission Viejo First Ward Turkey Bowl. Riley came and joined him towards the end. It was really interesting to watch. Russ really does love football, and he dominated the defense. Literally... he dominated. They had to put like three guys on him to keep him from killing the other teams quarterback. I could tell he had a lot of fun. Here are a few photos of him.

The thanksgiving dinner at my parents house was amazing. We had all of our favorite dishes, and this year as part of the fun, we each were assigned to make or bring a few things. Here we are together.

The next day we had family photos. Amy, a friend from high school of mine (http://lajwbrady.blogspot.com/ if you ever need photos you should call her up!) has her own photography business and is amazing. Here are a few shots she took of us.

Afterwards we all went to Skimmers for lunch. If you haven't ever tried their California Cobb Salad and you live in Southern California, you're missing out!!!

All smiles

For those of you who know Baxter.... He's a smiler! No joke. He smiles
whenever you kiss him and raise your voice giving him praise. It's the
cutest thing ever. Russ caught this at the race track today. Priceless.

Debbie and Baxter chillin at the track

At the track

Here's Russ at the track today! Doesn't he look great! Outside of the
rain... Were having a blast!

Baxter orders room service in Palmdale!

Baxter knows where it's at. Breakfast in bed... Some eggs some
sasages... And he never wants to leave a hotel room again! :)

Baxter getting in trouble

Here is a video of what Baxter looks like when he gets in trouble. He
totally fakes it up with the eyes and ears. Funny dog

Santa morning

Russ' Race last weekend

Last weekend while I was in Utah for my sisters trip (pictures coming soon!), Russ raced in Fontana. My parents and a few friends went out to see him race. Here are a couple of shots my mom got of the day. Russ will hopefully blog about the day soon.