RussandDebbiedaily

October 2010 Synopsis

2011-01-23T21:01:00.000-08:00

Okay, so flash back to October. We had Kylies baby blessing, a trip to New York, and one of our favorite holidays--Halloween.

Kylie's Baby Blessing Day 10/10/10

Kylie's baby blessing up in Santa Barbara was such a neat experience to be part of. The blessing was beautiful and then we went over to Jen and Chris' house with some of their family and close friends and had a lunch. It was a great day. Here are some pictures from the day.

Getting Dressed

Mom & Daught

Such a adorable family

Family Shot

Her blessing dress is gorgeous.

Cousins!

More cousin shots!

New York Trip

A few days later Russ and I headed to New York. I had never been before so it was quite the trip for me. Russ had already been in Florida and went to New York two days before me, so I kept telling him, no problem, I can get myself from the airport to the hotel no problem. I traveled all over Europe with some girlfriends, I can get myself to a hotel in New York, no problem.

Well I get to La Guardia airport in New York at 4pm and it's pouring. Instead of taking a taxi, I decide to take a airport bus that takes you to Central Station. There's horrible traffic. I don't get to Central Station until 6:30pm. Once I get to Central Station, I decide I'm not going to brave the metro with my luggage, but I would go and wait for a taxi. Since it's raining, there are no open taxi's anywhere! So I walk around in the rain with no umbrella to I come upon a ritzy hotel. There's a line of guests in beautiful outfits standing outside under an awning waiting for taxi's so I get in line. I look totally out of place in my jeans, t-shirt and tennis shoes--but at this point I don't care at all. I just want to get dry.

I wait for about 45 minutes and finally get a cab. The cab driver takes me to the wrong street and drops me off. By now its 8pm and I'm tired, hungry, soaked and want to stop carrying my suit case around on the dirty wet streets of New York. Luckily I call Russ and he says I'm only a block away. I start walking and walking and walking and I can't find it. I'm totally turned around. I am defeated. I know I'm a block away from my destination and each time I walk up each block I can't find it.

Finally I call Russ again and cry that I'm lost and unless I get myself a taxi again, I'm not going to find it on my own. I tell him I'm going to wait for him on a certain corner and he can come and get me. He shows up with a bouquet of flowers he had picked up for me at the flower district earlier in the day and walked me back to our hotel. He orders takeout delivered to the hotel, I jump in the shower and get all of the dirty New York streets off of me. I snuggle in my warm PJ's, eat and feel a million times better. I realize then that sometimes you can be over-confident. :) My whole thing was that I wanted to show Russ that I knew how to get around, but I guess sometimes it's just not meant to be. He was my hero that night.

Our first real day as tourists in New York City is awesome. We head over to do a Museum day and hit up the American Museum of Natural History. We lose ourselves inside with excitement to see the sweet mammal exhibits, we watch the IMAX Space Show, and check out the cultural halls and the dinosaur exhibits. We have so much fun that we totally lose track of time. We've been there for over a several hours. We thought we would be doing two or three museums that day, but we had so much fun that it was just the one. Here's a few of my favorites.

Then we head over to Times Square. There's a Olive Garden right in the Center of the Square that overlooks it. We decided to go in and got a sweet table watching the streets of Times Square. He had a delicious dinner, then walked around for a while and then head back to the hotel to call it a night.

The next day we decide we are going to hit up the statue of liberty. I've always wanted to see her and am so excited. We sleep in a little (well since New York is 3 hours a head, I guess getting out the door at NY time at 9am isn't really sleeping in- but we head down town. The metro is under construction that day, so we get out at one of the stops and they bus us down to the pier. On our way, all of a sudden we start to notice hundreds of skateboarders and longboarders passing the busses on the street. Soon that hundred turns into a thousand. It's some sort of event where all the skateboards are coming down the street stopping up all the cars. They're heading to wall-street, which were only two blocks away. The bus can't move along with any of the other traffic, so we decide to get out and walk and see what's going on. It's awesome. We watch as they all end at the famous bull in the financial district and are yelling. Many are dressed in cool outfits. Russ and I hang out for a while-- the police aren't able to get there because all of the traffic is totally stopped.

We finally decide to walk the rest of the way to the Pier, which is really close. We get in line to go to the statue. It's a full security effort and they have you wait in the long lines to go through airport-like security. We finally board the top of the boat and we're off! We got tons and tons of pictures. I was amazed by how beautiful she was. I know people say she looks smaller than she is, but I was still so impressed by this great symbol of freedom. I thought back to how she was the icon that immigrants coming over to America. How did they see when their eyes fell upon her? We hung out on the island for a while walking around. unfortunately, we were so late that morning that all of the tickets to go inside the statue were sold out, but it was okay.

Since we weren't able to take pictures with the crowds at the bull, we headed back to the financial district. It was still crowded, but we got some shots. Nice, Russ decided to punch the bulls balls.

We stopped by the stock exchange.

Russ also wanted to show his "Your Fired" at the trump tower.

We founds some really cool buildings and we sat down for a little while to relax and take some cool pictures. We decided to try to jump in front of these pillars.

Then we headed down to Ground Zero. We ran into some really crazy groups that were demonstrating. We steered away from them. We walked around to see where the monuments would be.

We ended up having dinner at a NY pizza place near ground zero, then we walked over and walked around the water line near ground zero. We ran into some movie theaters and were like, let's go. I can't remember what we saw (I guess it really was that good).

The next day we woke up and stopped at Times Square to get tickets to Mary Poppins the musical that night. We then headed out to Serendipity III for lunch. Where we had the frozen hot chocolate. YUM!!! We also tried out the burgers and fries which were pretty good.

Next we headed to Central Park and took a carriage ride through it. We also walked around for a while. the day was beautiful. There was even a couple doing there wedding photos behind us ins some of the pictures.

We then headed back to Times Square to go to Mary Poppins.

We loved it. The actors and actresses were amazing and the props were awesome. We were so glad we picked that one. It was clean and just all around fun.

We only had one morning left so we headed out for breakfast and then to the Apple store for Russ to drop off some more marketing materials, then it was off to the airport. The trip was quick, and we barely touched all the things we wanted to do--but it just means that we'll have to go back again soon to do the rest.

Halloween

For Halloween this year, we decorated the house. We put up tomb stones, put up the witches and paintings and went all out. We were too busy for a party this year, but we're already planning one for next year. I was a flapper, Russ was a pirate. We had our ward trunk-or-treat where we took Russ' car and dressed it up so it looked like he ran over a whole bunch of skeletons. We also went to a member in our wards Halloween party which was so much fun, and then I had my work costume party. And for Halloween night, we had my parents and a few friends over to pass out candy and have dinner. This Halloween was low-key but we had a lot of fun.

September 2010 Synopsis

2011-01-15T11:12:00.000-08:00

Rob & Megan's Wedding

Finally the day arrived for Rob & Megan's wedding! September 5th! It had been about a year and a half since they were engaged so it was finally time for the "I-do's" and celebration!!! :) Rob is one of Russ' best friends from high school and we just loved Megan the moment we met her. The two of them are the cutest couple ever and we were so honored to be at their wedding. Russ was the best man--so he got to give a toast. The whole wedding was absolutely stunning. I forgot my camera, so these pictures off my phone don't do it justice. I also stole a few from Megan's facebook page (thanks Megan!)

Cancun

So the day after Rob & Megan's wedding we hopped on a plane to go and meet Rok and Narine for a Cancun vacation! It was so much fun to take off and get away for a little while. It was an all inclusive with an amazing beach area and pools that we took advantage of every moment we could.

There was one day when I wasn't feeling good. We had been at the beach all day and I had heat stroke. I was in a bad mood because all I wanted to do was get back to the hotel and lay down for a while. Russ talked me into going to the restaurant with Rok and Narine to cool down and get something to drink and maybe some bread to eat.

So we arrive at the restaurant, and I'm bright red and feeling horrible. We sit down and our waiter doesn't come for a few minutes, so Russ goes over to the bar area and sees a tray of clear glasses with water in them. He grabs one for me and comes back and sit down.

I'm so thirsty that I grab the glass and take a huge gulp. I put the glass up to my mouth for another gulp, and just as I start to swallow, I realize something is terribly wrong and I spit the "water" all over the place, including on Russ who is in front of me and the table. It was straight vodka! My throat was burning. Russ had no clue that he had just given me a vodka drink instead of water. He seriously thought they were water cups. We had a very long laugh after that. Poor Russ--he will always be to blame for trying to get me drunk. Hahahaha.

We also decided to be adventurous one day. The hotel wanted to charge us $150 per person to go out to Chitzen Itza--one of the great Mayan temples. For the four of us it was going to be $600. And in Mexico? That's insane. We knew we would be joining a group of 40-50 other people who would all have the same tour guide out there, and then they would make us stop at some crazy expensive shops on the way back and have to spend a few hours there. So we were not liking our options.

Russ, being the spanish speaker he was went scuba diving one morning and met a guy with an air-conditioned taxi. He talked the guy into being our tour guide for the day and he would take us to Chitzen Itza (which is a 3.5 hour drive), and then wherever else we wanted for $275. So we decided to do it and the guy was legit. He didn't kidnap us like I thought he might, and he was really nice and took us all the way out there. We paid $40 for a guide who took the four of us around and $40 for an entrance fee for all four of us. It was awesome having our own tour guide because he answered our questions and even tied in a little bit of the Mormon history into it for Russ and I. We spent exactly how much time we wanted to there, and had the guy drive us back. On the way we stopped at one store to see if we could find some cool souvenirs and then we had him take us to Playa de Carmen (a little town about 20 minutes from our hotel) to do a little more shopping. It was the perfect day and cost us a little more than half to do it on our own. I love my Spanish speaking husband! :)

Julia Born

September 14, Julia is born and I'm an Auntie again! Russ and I head up to meet her and she is a doll! I'm in love again! :)

Utah Visit

While in Utah we were able to visit with a lot of friends. We were able to catch everyone at meals. It was great to see everyone!

Tyler, Desiree, and Lucy met us for a late lunch!
Kaia learns to give Uncle Russ a "Bop It"
Debbie & Lynsey at breakfast
Russ & Chris
Amanda--our BYU student stole some time to come over and hang out with us and Kristen and Riley so we could ooh and awe over Julia.
Amelia and Lily met us for lunch!
BJ and Whitney met us for Breakfast.

NMC's Annual Angels Game

For work I was in charge of our annual Angels baseball game. It was a smaller group this year, and a lot of us were able to bring friends last minute. So Rok, Narine, Russ and I headed out to the old ball game. It was a fun night, even though the Angels lost.

August 2010 Synopsis

2011-01-15T09:41:00.000-08:00

Kylie's Born

I am an Auntie!!! Kylie Dawn Hulme was born August 9^th. She is the cutest little baby! We headed up a week after she was born to meet her in Santa Barbara. It was love at first sight.

Bye Bye Eyelashes

Want to hear something so insane? I was sitting on the bed putting on my makeup on when a commercial came on with a dog. Baxter was on the edge of the bed, but not in his normal spot. I knew he would get over excited and jump as soon as he saw the dog so I yelled out for him to stay. But it was too late. He jumped off the bed and hit the end of the bed wood storage box we have. At the same time I was curling my eyelashes and my hand went out to stop him. But instead…. MY EYELASHES WERE ALL RIPPED OUT! Yes… and a days before my high school reunion. Nice huh? Have you ever seen anything like that? (click on the picture if you want to see it larger)

Vegas with my girls!

So in 2000 after graduating high school, the Rolls took us to Vegas and Lake Mead for our Senior trip. It was such a great time. And all of us remember it like it was yesterday. So in lieu of our 10-year high school reunion, Val and I decided to kidnap the girls. All they knew was that they had a packing list of what to bring and that they would be gone from Friday morning to Sunday night.

Val was so awesome, that she let us use her plane and pilot (yes she has plane). So when we all met for breakfast before taking off, we announced that we were flying somewhere (we had told the girls before that we were renting a car so it would be a total surprise). The pilot was in on the scheme, so when we arrived at the airport, he didn’t say anything about where we were going. So the girls loaded the plane and we went up in the skys! It was so fun because from John Wayne Airport, you start heading over the ocean for a while before they make you turn around and head back inland. So as we were flying out the girls were like “are we going to Hawaii? To San Francisco?” Then as we started to head inland it was questions like “Are we going to Val’s house? To Palm Springs? To Utah?”

While the girls were trying to figure it out, our pilot did a couple of demos where he stalled for us, letting our stomachs drop out of the sky. Not very fun for me, I was scared to death, especially since I was sitting co-pilot, but it was fun for the girls.

Almost an hour into it, Rachel was the first to see us descending on Vegas… “It’s Vegas!!!” she yelled! We all were so excited.

We spent the next few days living it up. We rented a car, stayed in one our friends hotels and hit the strip, shopping centers, going to a musical, and of course Lake Mead. We were supposed to rent a boat at Lake Mead, but it was too choppy, so we went to a beach and hung out in the lake instead.

There were a lot of sleepless nights for the girls (I couldn’t make myself stay up, I was too tired) as we all chatted each night away.

On Sunday we went to the Las Vegas Temple and had a devotional before we hit the buffet and jumped back on the plane. It was such an amazing trip. I am so grateful for these girls. Ten years and we are all still the best of friends. I can’t wait for our next adventure!

Flash Back From 2000 Vegas Trip

How little were we? It's crazy to see us doing the same stuff 10 years ago!

Mission Viejo High School 10-Year Reunion

So how does it feel going back to your 10-year high school reunion? Most people would say you would be nervous, or wouldn’t know who and what you were going to see, maybe you would feel shocked that it was like you never left high school… but for me, we’ll I don’t know how to describe it. It was so much fun to catch up with old friends that I hadn’t seen for years—many since the day we all graduated. I was lucky to have helped plan the evening, so I had already been in touch with a lot of people through that, so it was more or less finally getting to see them after the work we put in.

July 2010 Synopsis

2011-01-15T09:13:00.000-08:00

Kristen's Baby Shower

July came right around the corner and all of a sudden it was time for Kristen's baby shower. This time it was at my home. I decided to make it a little easier and set up tents outside in a little community grass area across from my house. We rented tables and used lots of balloons, streamers, beautiful sunflower decorations and hanging balls to tie everything together. We had a great turn out and again, it was a great morning full of great friends, delicious food, and lots of laughs.

July Fourth

Since Kristen's baby shower was on July Fourth weekend, all the sisters were down. My dad had just had his surgery, so we sisters decided to go down to San Clemente Pier and watch the fireworks. It was fun hanging out in beach chairs, snacking, and talking away.

Ed & Kana's Wedding

It was really super cool that my cousin Ed asked me if I could be his photographer for his wedding. It was so much fun to organize everyone and take pictures. Unfortunately the San Diego Temple was under construction, so the temple pictures didn't turn out that amazing, but our group shots turned out good. Here are a few of my favorites from that day. Oh, and have you ever seen a bride and groom smash a whole cake in each others faces? It was the coolest thing I've ever seen! Check out those pictures at the bottom!

Allison Barlow Wedding

My cousin Allison married her love Nathaniel this summer. We Barlow's love a party... so I headed up to Valencia for her reception. On the way, I got a speeding ticket (it was so unfair-the cop pulled over about 5 other people in the wedding party who didn't know where they were and didn't see the well marked sign when entering the neighborhood), but anyway, that didn't put a damper on the reception. It was beautiful. I got to hang out with my cousins which was so much fun. Here are a few shots of the day.

Waterpolo

So I decided to add a little fun to the summer and take a Waterpolo class with one of my high school waterpolo buddies, Leah Johnson. We also hooked up with Renee too and it was a lot of fun. It was crazy being in the water with a whole bunch of kids fresh out of high school wanting to join the Saddleback College team, but Leah and I kept our pace and did a good job in scrimmages (we were always opposite of each other when scrimmaging). It was a lot of work and a lot of fun doing that for two nights a week for two months. We had a great time. I wish I had some pictures… but who wants to see me getting torn up in the water by a whole bunch of teenagers? Not me.

JUNE 2010 SYNOPSIS

2011-01-15T08:40:00.000-08:00

Jen's Baby Shower

We had Jen's baby shower at my mom's house. It was so great to see so many friendly faces after making the move from the Mission Viejo Ward. One funny event (we'll it wasn't really funny at the time, but it is now) is that I thought the shower started at 10am so I showed up at 8:45 to find out that the shower started at 9am! Everyone was rushing around and I said "chill out guys, we have plenty of time." My mom gave me a look and said, "Um, we have 15 minutes!" That's when I started running! We put my aunts and cousins to work when they arrived and we had everything together in a jiffy. The shower turned out amazing. We had some adorable decorations put up, the food was amazing--Jen's famous waffle receipe, and of course hanging out with the guests was even more fun! We even had a surprise visit from Rachel Myler who flew in from Utah for a few hours for the shower. Oh and I don't know if you can see or not, but there is a really cute fruit baby buggy I made. Isn't it adorable?

Rachel Myler
Opening Gifts
Sisters! I made some fun baby cupcakes for her too! CHeck them out!
Yummy! Look at the cute fruit baby buggy!
Aunt Chris and cousins Stephanie and Lisa!Playing the games
Grandma Love
Aunt Donna & Jen
Food lineup!
Outside buddies!

Prom With Our Neighbors

So did I mention that we have the coolest neighborhood ever? Since we moved in, we have felt so welcomed. We have four houses that go around the cul-de-sac that have the nicest people. One family, Kavon & Cheryl, invited all of the neighbors over for a prom. We all dressed up, hung out, danced, ate yummy fondue, and had a great night. Here are some pictures of the evening.

Scott & Carly Visit

The Andersons had a big family reunion and we had the pleasure of getting to hang out with Carly's family and Scott and Carly. It was a fun week and we wish we had been able to hang out more, but the new iPhone had came out that same weekend and we had over a thousand orders online in a day and the store was bustling. It was a huge production, and I even ended up taking the week off of work to help. But we had time here and there to see them and it was a lot of fun. Here are some pics from the beach that we hung out at before they left.

Hello Blog... It's been a long time.

2011-01-15T08:23:00.000-08:00

Hello Blog.

Hello blog, it's been a long time. So I've decided to quickly catch up. Its been such a fun last several months that I haven't had the time to update you--so instead I'm going to do a monthly synopsis of all the fun things we've been up to. So here we go!

May catch up

2010-07-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

So to say our lives have been normal would be a complete lie. I’m sure you’ve noticed the extended delay on us posting anything on our blog. I would blame the iPhone4, or maybe it would be a car fire where I thought Russ was going to die, or maybe even throwing two baby showers or going to two weddings, or maybe I would blame it on the constant company we’ve had. I would say, however, that this summer has been a blast! And I guess life is good when you’re so busy that you don’t have time to blog. I’m sure all of you fellow bloggers have also gone through stints of lapsed blogging time. But then again, blogging is like keeping a journal, right? And journal writing isn’t always easy, right? So I’m sorry that I haven’t kept up on this blog or followed anyone’s blogs for the last few months. My goal tonight is to catch up on the last two whirlwind months. Or maybe I’ll just catch up on two or three items at a time. I wish I had time to go into more detail, but hopefully the pictures will explain themselves and you’ll see what a great time we’ve been having.

So the last blog I did was my birthday in April. Since March I had been secretly planning Russ’ birthday. I had decided to fly Brian and Cathy down (Russ’ parents) to surprise him at a beach bonfire party we were planning.Everything lined up perfectly and we decided to have the party on May 15^th, a week before Russ’ birthday. We got there and set up and guests started coming and mingling. Russ was just sitting down to roast a hotdog for himself when he heard behind him “Hey are you roasting one for me?” He turned around and there was Brian.It was awesome to see the double take and then the excitement as he realized his parents were there. I had been so Stealth about it that he didn’t even realize what hit him until the party. Here are some shots of the night.

Brian and Cathy were able to stay for two weeks. So we ended up doing a lot of fun trips. That Sunday we went to visit Russ' Aunt, Uncle, Cousin and Grandma.

One Thursday we went to the beach and then down to the outlets to shop.

Russ had a planned race that weekend in Palmdale so on his real birthday night we all met up at BJ’s for his birthday dinner. My dad, Jen & Chris, Brian & Cathy, Russ and I were all there to celebrate. Afterwards, Russ, Baxter, and I went in his car and Brian and Cathy went in there’s to make the long trip to Palmdale.

By the way, this is the scariest story of my adult life. Russ and I had to stop for gas in the beginning so Brian and Cathy were a good 20 minutes ahead of us. As we reached LA the 101 interchange came up. Right after the interchange we hit a bump or something in the road. Russ’ car came crashing down hard on the concrete road. He started to lose power in his car. He started shifting to see if maybe he could get power in one of the gears. We were in the fast lane and so he was going a good speed that he started to drift over. But I don’t know if you guys know that area, but another freeway comes in right there and merges from the right, so there’s a whole bunch of bridges and merging cars and no place on the right had side to pull over.

As Russ is shifting gears trying to find one that works and trying to get over 4 lanes, a lady in a van pulls up to us and starts flashing a flashlight at us. Her window is down and she’s yelling at us “Your cars on fire! Your cars on fire!” By this time we can see smoke. I’m trying to help Russ figure out a plan, but he’s hoping that the car will drift long enough to find a place to pull over. In my mind, I’m thinking Baxter doesn’t have a collar or leash anywhere near me, so I’m going to have to hold him tight wherever we get to.

Luckily, Fourth Street exit came up to our right and Russ was able to pull over enough on side dirt of the off ramp. I open my door and see flames under the car. I forget about my purse and everything in my car. All I have is Baxter and my phone and I start running down the off-ramp.

Now, for those of you who don’t know. Russ has a pretty souped up car. There are tons of after market parts that he’s put into the car including a methanol kit, which boosts the car, but also has methanol lines installed. Since we’re on our way to the race, his car is filled with tires, all of his race stuff and a 5-gallon tank of methanol (to replenish the 5-gallon tank he has installed in the trunk of the car). As I’m running away from the car screaming for Russ to follow me, I turn around and see all of the dirt flying up in the air, flames coming from under the car, and on this dark not-very-used off-ramp, the lights of cars on the freeway passing us by. And there was Russ opening all of the doors to the car and getting the methanol and some of the more dangerous items as far away from the car as he could.

I pulled out my cell phone from my pocket and called Brian and Cathy and said--- “There’s a fire. Stop wherever you are at and turn around.” I think I might also have been screaming at Russ to get away from the car at the time… so I probably totally freaked them out. My next call two seconds later was 911. As I’m waiting for the dispatcher to find my location, I watch Russ open the hood of the car. Flames start coming out of the passenger side of the car. I started yelling at him even more to get away from the car and just leave it. He had another idea instead of just running. He found some coolant and a water bottle and started dousing the fire. The coolant made the flames a little higher. At that moment, I felt like Russ was going to die and my whole world was going to end. Literally. My body was so full of adrenaline, grief, and pure fear on not being able to run back and help him. It was the absolute worst feeling in the whole wide world.

Once Russ started throwing the water bottle onto the flames, it started to die down. Within seconds the fire went out. The fire truck couldn’t find us, saying we weren’t where we told them we were. They arrived about 15 minutes after the initial call which is pretty sad. Once they did find us, they were followed by a CHP officer. The fire chief looked at the car and claimed the fire to be out. They checked the area around us and once we said we had a tow truck on the way, they took off. The CHP officer came and looked around, made sure we were all okay and then headed off. (Russ was sweating bullets that he was going to get a huge fine for all of the modifications on his car, but the CHP officer didn’t say or do anything about it).

Once Brian and Cathy got there and we were waiting for the tow truck, I went in the car and said a huge prayer. We were so blessed that Russ was okay that he was quick enough to get the fire out. My body hurt so bad from the stress of the event that I fell asleep waiting in the car. The next two days I didn’t do anything since every muscle in my body hurt.

Russ and his parents still headed up to Palmdale the next day since they already had another little birthday get together planned with the Palmdale crew.

So I guess that's all I have time for tonight.... more to come soon!!!!

Turning 28!

2010-04-16T12:04:00.000-07:00

Turning 28 isn’t so bad! I don’t know why, but 28 has always been a magic number for me… when I was a little girl, I used to fantasize about being 28. There was something about the number that I could never quite get it out of my head. Maybe that means this year will bring good luck! I hope so!

My birthday on Wednesday was so much fun! Instead of going to my website design class, Russ talked me into skipping and going to Mimi’s Café for breakfast. We had a great time and then he dropped me off so I could put in a few hours of work. When I got to work, I had some presents and cards waiting for me! It’s crazy, but I love my work friends! They always spoil me! I got a painting from Kate and Twilight Scene It from Brenda and Erica—yeah I can’t wait to play it! And to top it off, I got a call that someone was in reception waiting for me to sign some docs. So I headed up to the front, and when I opened the door, everyone from the company was there to sing me happy birthday and we all had lemon meringue pie.

After getting a few things done at the office, Russ picked me up and we headed to the Spectrum to movie hop. We saw The Bounty Hunter and Date Night. Both were hilarious!!!! After the movie, Russ said he had to go and pick up his laptop from his store. I complained that I didn’t want to walk all the way over there and I wanted to go and sit in the car… but he insisted that because we just spent four hours sitting and watching the movies, that we should get a good walk in. Then he asked if I wanted to go and play a game at Dave and Busters since we had time to kill before dinner with my parents (which was planned at RipTide). I told him that it sounded good to me, because I wanted to win a t-shirt at my wheel of fortune game. When we went in, Russ started to steer me in the wrong direction and I insisted that it was the other way… as soon as he pulled me to the side, I was surprised with my friends and family waiting for me at a party table. It was great! It was so fun to be surrounded by such great people in celebrating my special day! We had dinner and then Casey & Rob, Narine, Dave & Allison, stayed to play games. Russ and I didn’t get home until 11:30! It was so much fun!

Thanks again to everyone who helped Russ with the surprise! It really was an awesome night!

just about to blow out the candles! I totally forgot to make a wish!!!!

Russ and the birthday girl.... wow.... his hand is as big as my head! :)

Andrew, Melanie, Russ and I.

Rachel and Allyson... such hams! :)

Andrew,Dave, Allyson, Rachel, Me, Chad, Carrie, Melanie

Another shot! :)

Russ and Me!

A happy 28-year-old!

I had to do one cake at a time.... :)

My grandma and my parents.

Narine made all of the table decorations and this beautiful card that everyone signed. Thanks Narine!!! She helped Russ pull everything together!

Wow... I had to take in a lot of air for just one cake... 14 candles a cake was a lot to get through!

Nick, Me, Narine, Casey & Rob.

SPECIAL THANKS....

Thanks again to my mom and grandma for taking Baxter out so we didn't have to worry about him all day.

Thanks to Rachel for inviting everyone!

Thanks to Casey for picking up the cakes! Thanks to Cathy & Brian for buying them. :)

Thanks to Narine for all of the table decorations, scheming with Russ so I wouldn't know, and the beautiful card!

Thanks to everyone who came!!! It was the perfect night!!! Thanks again!!!!!

Russ makes page four of the Orange County Register

2010-04-04T10:00:00.000-07:00

Check out page four of the Orange County Register today. You'll see
Russ front and center!

Final countdown

2010-04-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

So here is Russ waiting for the new ipad. He was the first one in line
and brought a sweet set up. He paid a guy to stay over night for him
and then he headed back over at 6am this morning. In Irvine he was the
first ipad owner. He got some really good press for it too and will be
features in tomorrows orange county register. I'll post the article
when it's up.

As soon as he got the iPad, he rushed back to his store to make sure
his stealth armor product was 100% ready for all of the incoming
people who wanted them covered. He's looking forward to the sales this
weekend. :)
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New home-- were in!

2010-03-23T12:54:00.000-07:00

It's official! We are currently surrounded by boxes and endless
projects... But we are in our new home! We can't wait to invite you
over!

It's me Baxter! Happy St. Patricks Day!

2010-03-17T22:03:00.001-07:00

Happy St patricks day from the taylors

2010-03-17T22:00:00.000-07:00

Amidst the boxes and packaging tape and all of our life strewn across
the house, we still have time to take a st patricks day photo. :)

I can finally check police chase off my list

2010-03-14T10:17:00.000-07:00

One of the best automotive days in my life. Started out with cars and coffee which is a show Saturday mornings I go to in irvine. This show they had an exotic car rally.....I pretty much had to be a part of. I saw the guy handing out the maps for the rally and I distracted him just enough to take one of the maps. Then I ran into a guy I know that was participating in the rally. All of the exotics started to leave so me my friend Rok and Baxter jumped in the Evo and followed the cluster of Ferraris, porsches and even a lamborghini reventon. [very limited quantity and expensive lambo].

So I follow 100+ exotic cars to an undisclosed location behind John wayne airport. This was amazing. I then finagle my way into the area where they are meeting and discussing the rally. We were waiting for about 30 minutes and then the rally started. (not off road race-just a point to point "drive"). So we get in the car and I was about 10 cars from the fake police car they had as our point car. Yeah. They had a staged police car spotting for real cops. And a mustang gt that looked like one. They were blocking off the entire street so the 100+ exotics could all stay together. Well that didn't last long. We got onto the 241 toll road and ferraris & lambos were flying by me at 160+mph. That was incredible. So I ended up getting seperated with about 10 other cars we had to go all the way tithe 91 and the. Double back which was about 15 minutes. So we were speeding to catch up with the other group. Then we realized that there was a police helicopter following the pack. So I broke off from the pack and headed down Antonio and the chopper was following me. Then I came up to crown valley

6 CHP cars boxed me out on Antonio and crown valley.Baxter had his head out the door trying to see what was going on. "Luckily" I just got a 108 mph speeding ticket. I am hoping to get the video footage from the chopper. I still find it ironic that ferraris and lambos going 160+ mph and I get the ticket.
Besides the ticket I had an incredible time

Date night dland

2010-03-13T11:02:00.000-08:00

Last night we hit up disneyland. I had gotten a pass on my birthday
last year and had only used it once... So to get our moneys worth we
headed out for a date night. We had so much fun! We watched Captain
Eo, went on splash mountain and got soaked, went in Pirates of the
carribean and on thunder mountain. It was so much fun!

Here's us on splash mountain
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Russ' lucky #

2010-03-12T19:25:00.000-08:00

Russ' football #. Don't hate.

New Years In Las Vegas

2010-02-13T07:36:00.000-08:00

New Years Eve was definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience for Russ and I. We decided that we would hit the road with Rok and Narine and head to Vegas to celebrate 2010. I know what you're thinking... Vegas for New Years? Isn't that a little extreme to go to "sin city" when you don't drink? We'll there is A LOT to do in Vegas that doesn't all have to do with drinking and gambling and all that.... and we did it.

We took off early New Years Eve day after I went into work for a few hours to process the payroll. The ride there was smooth with no traffic and we ended up getting into vegas around 2pm. We met up with Russ and Leslie Day (One of Russ' best friends from high school, who is as general manager at a local hotel in Vegas and hooked us up with some rooms--thanks again Day!) and we hit up some Mexican food for lunch. Then Narine and I dropped off the boys at the hotel room who wanted to take naps before our night out and we went shopping at TJ Max to see if we could find any last minute fun things to wear for the evening. I ended up getting my whole outfit, dress, leggings, belt, etc. Narine ended up getting a really cute skirt that she also wore. By The way, I love TJ Max. :)

We got back just in time to get ready and head out to our reservations at the Rain Forest Cafe in the MGM Grand. Here are some pictures of us there.

From left to right we have Russ, Leslie, Rok, Narine, and us.

They boys were besides themselves when they found these awesome snow tiger t-shirts. They wanted to buy them and be twinsies.

After dinner we headed out to the strip. It was JAMMED PACKED with people, as you can imagine. We ended up finding this perfect spot right in the middle of all of the action so we could see the firework shows once it hit midnight.

Narine and I had several drunk girls come up to us asking us where we found our cute new years hats and if they could buy them off of us.... we should have sold them for $100 each--I'm sure one of them was drunk enough that they would have paid it. :) But in the spirit of New Years, we wanted our hats on to celebrate!

Here's a shot of Leslie, Russ, Russ, and I right out side of the Paris hotel.

And here is a picture of Russ, I, Narine and Rok--all with our cute New Years hats on.

So when the countdown completed we all celebrated! We had a perfect spot and were able to see about four of the firework shows that lined the strip. My favorite part was watching the show right behind the mini Eiffel Tower. It was stunning. Vegas definitely goes all out at New Years. The grand finales for each of the firework shows were awesome.

The hard part was getting back to the MGM Grand where we had parked our cars. We couldn't believe how insane it was. It was so insane that some guy even came up and groped me. I know!!!!! Can you believe it!!! I was so mad about it and felt so violated. Unfortunately it was so crowded that I didn't even have time to get Russ' attention to beat the heck out of him... and by the time I told Russ what happened, the guy had moved back into the sea of people all around us. The insane part was that people had brought their babies and children to the strip! I don't think any of them realized the situation they would be in--and many had to lift the strollers above their heads to keep their kids from getting trampled. Leslie, Narine and I keep mumbling what bad parents these people were... not only was it freezing out, but what the heck were they thinking?

After pushing and pretty much crowd surfing... we got back to the MGM grand and waited a while before we decided to brave the parking garage. By this time we had the 2am munchies and decided to go to Ihop for some New Year's breakfast. I don't know what we were thinking... but by the time we had stuffed ourselves full of chocolate chip pancakes we remembered that the boys had tee-time set for 11am the next morning, so we decided that we better get off to bed.

Here is Narine, Leslie, and I right before we headed to the parking garage. We wanted to show off our hats and cute outfits one last time.

So the next day the boys headed out to golf at one of the local courses and the girls decided to go shopping at the outlet mall. I wanted to switch out my Coach purse that I had gotten as a Christmas present and get some good deals... so off we went. We had a fabulous time and the outlet was having a huge after-Christmas sale, so we were able to get AMAZING deals! The three of us shopped away until about 5pm. The boys also had fun golfing--they did 18 holes so they didn't finish until about 4:30pm and they came back with smiles on their faces about their scores.

Russ and Leslie already had plans for the night, so we said goodbye and Rok Narie and we decided to get ready for another night out on the strip. We decided we would try to get tickets to one of the shows so we hurried up and got ready to go down town to see what tickets we could get. Unfortunately we were too late for all of the shows that started at 7pm, so we decided to go to this hypnosis comedy show. We didn't realize that in the title it said hypnosis "unrated" which in Vegas -- you never know what you are going to get... and it ended up that the comedian was this really sleazy gross guy. Definitely a waste of money, but whatever. I guess that's the Vegas experience.

The next morning we decided to go to the pawn shop where Pawn Stars is filmed. I'm not sure if you've ever seen the show... but it's pretty interesting. My in-laws love it... so we thought it would be really cool to go and check it out. Unfortunately there were like 50 people waiting in line to go in--about a 45 minute wait, so we decided it wasn't worth the wait, but we did take a whole bunch of pictures out side of the place.

As seen on TV....

Russ wanted this motorcycle that was like 5 grand... but I was like "No Way, Jose!"

Then to finish up our Vegas trip in style we headed over to the Treasure Island Buffet. Where we decided it would be fun to try to sneak out a whole bunch of chocolate strawberries for our trip ride back.... but Russ decided to tattle on Narine and I with our waitress and she ended up giving us the WORST looks! Russ ended up filming us trying to get our strawberries out... maybe I'll get him to post the video.... it was pretty funny. Leslie was the hero when she went and found some plastic cups that we just put the strawberries in and put the lid on top and put in our purses. :) I know.... the Las Vegas spirit was getting to us and we probably shouldn't have snuck out the 8 chocolate strawberries that we did, but hey would have stayed longer to eat them (I know... I'm justifying).

Check out the strawberries in Leslie's bowl...

Narine showing off a yummy strawberry!

After Treasure Island we attempted to hit the road only to find completely stopped traffic! So after checking the traffic report and our maps, we decided to go to Henderson and watch a couple of movies while we waited for the traffic to clear. We ended up seeing two movies--- Up In the Air and Sherlock Holmes. It was a perfect ending to our fun Vegas trip.

Russ' Car makes it on The Smoking Tire Show...

2010-02-09T19:40:00.000-08:00

Christmas in Seattle: Vancouver Day 2

2010-01-31T07:43:00.001-08:00

The next morning in Vancouver we woke up and headed over to Tim Hortons and McDonalds for breakfast. I don't know if you've ever tried the little bite-size donuts from Tim Hortons, but they are A-Mazing! During breakfast we got a call from Brian and Cathy's alarm company saying that the alarm went off and they were sending the police over to the house. Poor Carly's mom who we asked to stop over to take the dogs out didn't know the alarm was on and didn't know how to get it off. Luckily the police didn't have to go over when we explained the situation to the alarm company, but it make our morning interesting. We decided to go shopping after breakfast and walked over to the mall. On our way over we found a really cool countdown clock to the olympics and an art museum.

I was a little antsy from all of the shopping yesterday so I asked Russ to take me back to the hotel. As we were walking back, we decided to head down by the harbor and were in for a real treat as we found Canada Place. We walked around and got some great shots of the city and harbor.

Then we headed off to Whistler where a lot of the events for the Olympics are to be held. The drive up there was absolutely gorgeous. I couldn't believe all of beautiful lakes and majestic mountains. When we got there it was really really cold (you'll notice Russ has two sweatshirts on--the crazy boy didn't pack a jacket for our trip). We were worried about the ice on the roads coming back so we only stayed for an hour up there. We walked around the plaza and checked out all of the little shops. Here are some fun hats we found in one of the shops. I really wanted to buy Russ the bear hat, but the with the look he gave me... I decided I'd rather not be eaten alive.

On our way back through Vancouver to Seattle we couldn't help but stop at Shabu sha again. They boys went crazy with their Toro rolls and the food was again excellent.

We made it back to Seattle around midnight and Russ and I quickly packed up our things for our flight that had us getting up at 5am to catch. As we snuck Baxter back on the plane again and settled down, we talked about what a fun Christmas trip it was! Something we'll never forget. Thanks again Brian & Cathy!

Christmas in Seattle: Vancouver Day 1

2010-01-31T07:10:00.000-08:00

The day after Christmas we headed up to Vancouver Canada for a mini-vacation. We got there early afternoon and walked around downtown looking at the shops and taking in the sites. It was Boxing Day, so there were a lot of good deals going on and a lot of people on the streets. We went to Shabu sha for dinner which was an all you can eat sushi/shabu place. Russ was introduced to the Toro Roll... which now he has a major obsession over. I don't think I've ever seen him down so much sushi in my life! The food was really amazing though and he atmosphere was fun too where everyone cooks their dinners in the little grills that are on the table in front of you. Brian was our master grill chef and cooked all of our beef and chicken for us.

Here is Russ and Scott representing the Shabu chop sticks.After dinner we walked around and found the coolest thing in the Hilton Hotel... a gingerbread house contest. They had about 50 entries that people from all over the city made--some from professional bakeries who made these elaborate detailed houses, and others from local elementary and junior high schools. It was really cool to see all of the houses. I got some good ideas for mine for next year! Here is a HUGE real gingerbread house behind us. The whole thing was made out of gingerbread, frosting, and candy. It was amazing!
Here are Cathy, Carly and I showing off our new coats and Coach bags (presents from Cathy and Brian--this isn't my new one, but Cathy had given me this black one a year or so ago--she really knows how to hook a daughter up!) on the streets of Vancouver.

Christmas in Seattle: Christmas Morning

2010-01-31T07:02:00.000-08:00

My parents tell a story about when my sister Jen was around 9 years old on Christmas morning she decided to complain that she didn't get enough gifts and that present time didn't last long enough. While we were eating breakfast an hour or so after the gift opening, in revolt she said "All the rich people are still opening presents." Well this Christmas morning was full of at least two hours of unwrapping. I don't think I've ever spent that much time unwrapping presents in my life! Cathy and Brian really spoiled us rotten. Russ also surprised me by going shopping and buying me about 20 items for my wardrobe! What a stellar husband right? My coolest surprise gift came from Cathy and Brian which was a coach purse! Russ got the cams he wanted for his car (supposedly they add another whatever horse power to it.. which puts him over 500?)
Carly made Russ and I this beautiful blanket. Here we are opening it. I love how Baxter is looking right at the camera. Here's Scott getting his gameboy (maybe PS3?I'm not good with the names for these things) which I guess he had snuck under the tree and opened a day early so he could charge it and put it back in the box without his mom seeing he had already opened it... so it was all ready for him to start playing on Christmas morning.

Brian made us the coolest clock ever! It's our favorite picture of Baxter. It now is featured in our kitchen and is our favorite clock ever!

Here are Russ and Brian doing a high-five on their awesome presents!

Here we are opening our stockings which were LOADED! They had gift cards and our favorite candies, t-shirts for Russ and Scott and COACH keychains for Carly and I. They were the coolest stockings ever!

After the long present opening festivities, and a nutritious breakfast of more cinnamon rolls and sugar cookies, we lazily sat down for a game of New Moon with my new board game. Even though the boys refused to play with the pink and purple game pieces and had to use their own army men on the board, surprisingly Scott ended up winning the game. I think we might have helped him out a little too much with the trivia, but hey, a winner is a winner. Congrats Scott on being the Twilight New Moon Champion (a title I'm sure you'll want to share with all of your friends.)

Christmas in Seattle: Christmas Eve

2010-01-31T06:58:00.000-08:00

Christmas Eve day started out with Russ running on the treadmill with a cinnamon roll. You think I'm joking? I kid not. But if you've ever had one of Cathy's cinnamon rolls... you'd understand the sugar heroin that somehow makes you addicted to the point of running on a treadmill while eating one. After his workout, we hit Bellvue where we met up with everyone for lunch at the Cheesecake Factory which was near Scott's work. After lunch Scott went back to work, Carly went to finish her Christmas errands and the rest of us decided to go shopping and to a movie.

Yeah, I know, Russ and I look so cool, don't we? Here we are with our 3-D glasses right before seeing the Christmas Carol with Jim Carry. I was surprised that didn't get too sick with the 3-D... but the movie was pretty cool.After the movie we headed back for some yummy dinner--Brian made this amazing shrimp dish--and some of the Taylor movie classics-- Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story, and Polar Express. Cathy and I decorated cookies and we all hung out in anticipation for Christmas morn.

Christmas in Seattle: Family Photos

2010-01-31T06:21:00.000-08:00

So it's been over a month since Russ and I last blogged. I can't believe it's been that long! We've been so busy that it's been hard to sit down to take the time to upload pictures and share everything we've been up to. But I couldn't sleep this morning, so I thought this would be the perfect time to catch up.

For Christmas this year we headed up to the Taylor's in Seattle. We had so much fun! We took family pictures the morning after we got there. We went to a really cool park about 30 minutes away from their house--near Carly's work so she could meet us during her lunch break. I thought the photos turned out great! Here are a few of my favorite shots.

Cute mother and daughter-in-law shot!

The boys being funny... they liked this little statue because they thought it looked like he was peeing... so they had to pose the same.

This picture says a lot! We were trying to get our gang signals going, but then we figured out we didn't know what gang signals to throw... and then I couldn't even get my fingers to do it... so we ended up just laughing until we figured we were to lame to attempt even trying in the first place.

After two boys for 20-something years, Cathy now has her two girls! :)

Russ Bungie Jumping

2009-12-25T21:03:00.001-08:00

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

2009-12-23T20:55:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-21T07:56:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-19T21:40:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-19T20:55:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-12T16:08:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-12T12:47:00.000-08:00

At the track

2009-12-12T12:46:00.000-08:00

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!

2009-12-12T09:33:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-09T08:04:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-05T10:03:00.001-08:00

Russ' Race last weekend

2009-11-23T22:30:00.000-08:00

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.

Out to see New Moon

2009-11-21T15:32:00.001-08:00

Shoot Out Date Night

2009-11-01T17:11:00.000-08:00

So on Friday, Russ and I went to On Target, an indoor shooting range on 27692 Camino Capistrano off of the Avery in Laguna Niguel. (if you haven't been there before, you should check it out, it's awesome!) They had the coolest set up. They put black lights in one of the shooting rooms and then painted all of these pumpkins and hung them up and put big ones on the ground. You got to go in and shoot the heck out of them. For those of you who don't know, I'm pretty against guns (It's always a big battle between Russ and I), so this was a big deal for me to go. I had a lot of fun and even though it didn't change my mind, it did put me a little more at ease. We even saw a whole bunch of people we know there.... which was pretty cool. We finished the night out with a Typhoon Salad, Alaskan and Galaxy Roll at my favorite restaurant, Rip Tide. It was a cool way to celebrate Halloween!

The Taylors Halloween Party part 1--the guests

2009-10-31T22:19:00.003-07:00

Russ and I threw a Halloween party last week at our house. We had such a great time and wanted to share some of the night. Russ and I were so busy that we didn't have a chance to take the pictures, but our friends Heather and Cody were awesome and went around and took a lot of shots. Thanks a ton guys... you are the best! Here are some of the photos of the night.

Russ, Baxter, and I were all vampires in matching capes and necklaces.

Here is my cousin Stephanie's husband, Jeff spinning in the background.We took all of the furniture out of our dinning room and he DJ'd the night away for us. The music was awesome, Jeff is way talented.

Kevin (Michael Scott) and Michelle (Flapper)

Heather and Cody (Harry and Hermione) (Thanks again for taking all of these photos guys! You're the best!)

Rok (Skelator) and Narine (thanks again for all of the help on the food Narine!)

Melanie & Andrew (Whip-It Duo)
Ashley and Travis (Nacho Libre and his Nun)
(Chad, Dave, Kelly, Brad, Rachel, Carrie, Allyson, Rob, and Nick)
Another vampire shot!
Iryna, Maxim, Roman (cave woman, pirate, and knight)
Carole (my mom, the statue of liberty)
Nick, Carrie, Christine, and I all checking out the food.
Rob and Casey (in drag, and a deviled egg)
We did a fashion walk where everyone had to strut the line and show off their costume. The winner was Michael Jackson (Brad). Everyone looked so awesome!!!!!!!!!! I think I might take a couple of the ideas for possible costumes in future years!

The Taylors Halloween Party part 2--the food

2009-10-31T22:19:00.001-07:00

The food was awesome! My friend Narine created a whole bunch of ideas and we put them to life. The menu included mummy dogs for appetizers (hot dogs with croissants wrapped around them with pepper balls as eyes--they went so fast we couldn't get a picture of them!), then for dessert we had coffin brownies (brownies cut out like coffins, with RIP written on them), Frankenstein rice crispy treats (rice crispy's dipped in frosting with sprinkles, chocolate chips, and mike n ikes), pumpkin rice crispy treats, RIP pudding cups (brownies or sprinkles were used as the dirt and a chocolate cookie with RIP on it as the tombstone), and the most beautiful pumpkin cake you've ever seen (so beautiful that no-one touched it and still, a week later, I'm using as a centerpiece because it just looks so great!). We had sherbet punch (fruit punch, orange juice, 7-up, and orange sherbet) with some dry ice to give it a scary look. Here are some pics of the food.

The Taylors Halloween Party part 3-Decorations

2009-10-31T22:18:00.000-07:00

Russ and I had so much fun planning the decorations. Russ spent a lot of time outside on the entry way which was decked out with a hanging ghoul, spider webs, pumpkins, and tombstones.

And the bloody hands on the front door.......

When you walked in there were vinyl stickers of flying birds about the flyer place and up the hall. Russ has a plotter (aka sticker cutter) at his store, so I got the images for him and he made all of the stickers. Underneath the stairs was the picture of me holding Russ head on a platter (we had a lot of fun a few weeks prior doing a mini photo shoot and taking a whole bunch of halloween photos). We did the stairs and inside entry way with fall leaves.

Some of you might recognize some of these photos of Russ from his graduation cards we did a couple of years ago. We decided to blow them up and make a "costume wall" with Russ in all of his poses. This was right in the entry way when you came in.

And then there were three photos lined up of me running scared with a knife in my hands and fear in my eyes. This was above the couch in the family room. In the DJ room there were three more shots--black and whites of Russ, Baxter and I with flashlights shinning on us looking scared. They turned out really cool.

And we had floating pumpkins in the pool. They decided to have a party of their own and stay in the shallow end instead of floating around the pool, but Heather and Cody did a great job helping us figure out how to get them to float (thanks again guys).

And what is a halloween party night without intense fog? Around 10 pm some of the thickest fog I've seen came galloping in. It gave an awesome ending to a great party!

We had so much fun planning the party! And probably went a little overboard, but hey we're the Taylor's and nothing is ever normal about us........

Passing Out Candy... Baxter and I were a hit!

2009-10-31T19:46:00.001-07:00

Baxter came up here all on his own.... and Russ decided he had to take a shot. This was his second costume of the evening since the vampire attire had a hard time staying on.

I want to suck your blood!

2009-10-31T19:00:00.001-07:00

Baxter sending a Happy Halloween wave

Baxters costume

2009-10-31T18:53:00.000-07:00

Off with his head!

2009-10-31T17:56:00.000-07:00

So for our party we took a whole bunch of fun photos and posted them around the house. Here are some shots of what we did! My favorite is the one with Russ' head on the platter!

Monster Mash!

2009-10-28T10:31:00.000-07:00

Look what my mom sent me today! So funny! This is Russ, my dad Jim, my mom Carole, my brother-in-law Riley, and my brother-in-law Chris.

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And Cathy sent one of Baxter, Brian, Cathy, Russ and Scott. So cute!

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Franz the Butler, Makeup and All

2009-10-18T21:50:00.003-07:00

Grandma, Russ, Chris, Jen, Jim, Debbie, Carole
Carole, Jim, Debbie
Wow... check out the makeup! I've never seen him like that before! :)

The hills are alive..... with Franz the Butler

2009-10-17T16:47:00.000-07:00

Try singing the title... catchy huh? Well the Barlow hills are alive... they have been for the last four months as my dad, Jim, has been studying, practicing and enjoying working on a theater production with the San Clemente Stake Church of Jesus Chris of Latter Day Saints... you guessed it, The Sound of Music. Russ and I had the pleasure of attending his second opening night last night. My mom is sending over the pictures, so I'll update soon. My dad plays Franz the Butler who in the play has a lot of parts. It was really cool to see him on stage acting. When I was a little girl he did a couple of other amateur productions with the church including "Moving On" and "Razzle Dazzle" where he played singing and acting parts. Going to the Sound of Music was a little bit of a flash back for me and very enjoyable. He did such a great job! All of his queues and everything were perfect. It was a little weird to see him heil hitler though. Not so sure I enjoyed that... but hey Franz the Butler was a Nazi, so what can you do... he played his part perfectly. The evening was great and I'm thinking of going to see it again next week. The play made the Orange County Register today. Anyway, it was such a treat to see him up there acting. I'm so glad he has fun outlets like this that he likes to do. It made me so proud of him! :)

Link to the OC Register Article:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/cook-maria-mccleary-2610662-church-experience

Fwd: Kristen 1

2009-10-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

> I love my sister Kristen! And it's days like this when I need a
> laugh that she seems to brighten everything up. Here is our texting
> conversation this morning. How random, but how funny is she?
>

Kristen 2

2009-10-09T11:40:00.001-07:00

Kristen 3

2009-10-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

Here are the sterilized items

2009-10-07T09:06:00.000-07:00

The sterilized knee hammer

2009-10-07T09:05:00.000-07:00

So I went with Debbie to her doctors appointment today and there were
all kinds of toys to play with.
Soni pick up the knee hammer and Debbie is like "don't pick that
up or they are going to have to resterilize everything. Funny Debbie

Holy Poop!

2009-10-03T11:38:00.000-07:00

So this morning, Russ and I wake up to this next to my side of the bed. The little stealth puppy must have grabbed the scriptures off of the night stand and taken it to his lair (aka underneath the bed) and decided to shred away. There was leather and pages everywhere when we woke up. So Russ says "forgive him for he knows not what he does." All I've got to say is I'm not cleaning up his holy poop.

Disneyland Date Night

2009-10-03T10:12:00.000-07:00

Last night we went to Disneyland with Rachel & Chad, Matt & Christine, Travis & Ashley, Angela & Ian. Casey & Rob came too, but they had to leave early. It was insane at Disneyland. We left the Irvine Spectrum to drive up there at 6pm. We didn’t get into the park until 7:30--- during this hour and a half, we got up to the Disney exit pretty easily, however we sat in a very very long line for the parking garage for over an hour. In this time Russ managed to pick a fight with a mom in a mini van who wouldn’t let him merge. He rolled down the window and asked her why she wouldn’t let him merge. She argued back that it must be because he is wearing glasses and he can’t see that the merge isn’t happening yet, and he shouldn’t be trying to merge at that moment. Russ went back to give her some fly comments and she of course argued back, but in the end, she let him in. Ahhhh...

And then for the four hours we were at Disneyland we were only able to go on two rides because of the lines and the crowds. So we went on Space Mountain (which was so cool how they changed it so it was a “scary theme for the holidays) and Indiana Jones. On Space Mountain, Russ tried to show everyone how cool he was by talking about how after the ride you can hang back for a second and then jump on the ride again where there are empty spots. Everyone was in awe by this “trick” and to prove that it worked, Russ did just that. He jumped on the ride right after we got off. He gave us a thumbs up as we watched him start to pull away from the loading dock. But he didn’t get very far. One of the ride attendants noticed what he did and a few seconds later they stopped the cart and asked him to get out before they would proceed with the ride. So he came back to our group with is head hanging low. But he still swears it works, he just got caught. :) I must admit that it is true. When we’ve gone to Magic Mountain or Knott's Berry Farm I’ve watched him do it several times. It was just so funny that it didn’t work the one time he was trying to prove that it did.

Despite the long lines and the infinite time it took to park, the night was extremely fun because we got to hangout and talk with everyone who was there! We’re looking forward to another Disneyland Date night soon!

It's One, Two, Three Strikes Your Out At The Old Ball Game!

2009-10-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

Creative help?

2009-10-01T23:08:00.000-07:00

I need your creative help! A $10 gift card to Yogartland (or your favorite dessert shop) to who gets the winning slogan for a logo I'm designing. I need all suggestions by noon tomorrow (October 2). The company is a dance studio. Their logo incorporates a crown/tiara in it. They are mainly a ballroom dance studio, but many of their students compete and they stay on the edge of dance. They offer other classes such as salsa, ballet, etc. They might want to go with something "royal" or "generational" or something about being on the "edge." If you have any ideas, please comment!

Russ gets a personally signed Chip Foose mustang

2009-10-01T20:41:00.000-07:00

So Russ met a guy tonight who is opening a shop in Down Town Disney
called the Ride Maker. It's a store similar to Build A Bear, but for
boys who get to build their own cars. They can choose the body, thr
color, the window tint, the engines, the lights, etc. Such a cool
idea! Russ and the guy hit it off talking and the guy gave him this
car! So cool! Russ is going to go to the grand opening too. So fun!

A couple more pictures from the game

2009-09-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

We had a great time at the game last night! And it was literally a Texas Massacre! We got to see the Angels win the 2009 AL West Title! Here are a few more pictures from the game last night.

Angels dominate the rangers and Russ and Debbie are there to cheer them on

2009-09-28T21:06:00.000-07:00

Debbie is soo cool

2009-09-28T20:01:00.000-07:00

Debbie planned a whole angels night with her company. She was passing
out candy. Taking pictures and having a good time. She is pretty cool
because she did all of that.

Recipe holder

2009-09-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

Tile

2009-09-19T20:14:00.003-07:00

Organza Flowers

2009-09-19T20:14:00.001-07:00

Super Saturday

2009-09-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

So at church we had a Super Saturday where we had a whole bunch of
crafts to choose from to make. I ran out of time and wasn't able to do
the homemade card table or Rachels tutu's, but I did get to make 9
organza flowers(which I'm going to use for some cute headbands and
sweater embellishments), a tile that says "Taylors, Established 2003",
and a recipie holder. I had so so so much fun! I love crafts! I also
came up with some fun Christmas present ideas too, so some of you
might benefit from this Super Saturday! This is me at home showing off
my final products.

Sister Outing

2009-09-12T20:32:00.001-07:00

So with our husbands out of town, Jen and I decided to meet half way
in Santa Monica and have a girls day. We had massages at Burke
Williams in the morning, lunch at Johnny Rockets, shopping on 3rd
Street Promenade, and then yummy Gelato to finish the day. It was a
blast. Here's a self portrait of us at Johnny Rockets.

2009-09-10T19:50:00.001-07:00

So Russ was paid by Hurley to engrave 50 iPods and a laptop. This is
the laptop, isn't it so cool?

Russ' new license plate

2009-09-01T14:02:00.001-07:00

So Russ pit his new license plate on his car today.....

Finally got them

2009-09-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

Should be funny to get a ticket and have the cop write the plate on
the ticket.Funny until I have to pay for the ticket.

Russ holding Dusty in the palm of his hand.

2009-08-30T09:14:00.001-07:00

So we sat on the far fence so we could watch Dusty play defense. I
thought it would be funny to take this picture.

Cricket game

2009-08-30T09:12:00.000-07:00

This morning we got up early and headed over to watch Dustys Cricket
game. I never even knew cricket existed. It's way cool! We enjoyed
watching the game and learning something new. Here is Russ and Dusty
during his half time.

At Alices Bday Party

2009-08-29T20:50:00.000-07:00

Here we are at Alices bday party

Russ and Dusty at illy's

2009-08-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

Russ and dusty getting ready to order their sandwhiches at Illys.

Shadow fun!

2009-08-28T18:36:00.002-07:00

Shadow Foreplay

2009-08-28T18:36:00.001-07:00

Russ with his ticket

2009-08-28T17:27:00.000-07:00

And Russ signing it.

2009-08-28T17:26:00.000-07:00

Thw officers excuse was that he was issuing seatbelt tickets and
couldn't see inside the car. Russ say "come on, like you're going to
give anyone a seatbelt ticket? I'm mean really..,, what is the deal?"

Just another shot.,,

2009-08-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

Russ gets pulled over in LOMPOC for tinted windows

2009-08-28T17:19:00.001-07:00

So were only into the first few hours of our trip and here we sit
while Russ gets pulled over for his tinted windows yet again. Can u
see the cop car in the background? Priceless.

Visiting Jen in Santa Barbara

2009-08-28T15:25:00.000-07:00

Russell Junior

2009-08-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

So can you totally see Russ teaching our future sons how to to do this?

Bicycles... whatever, drifting your power wheels.... priceless.

Bouquet

2009-08-15T15:11:00.001-07:00

In the kitchen.

Bouqet

2009-08-15T15:01:00.001-07:00

In the family room :)

6 bouquets 6 years.

2009-08-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

For our anniversary we went to medieval times (photos to come shortly,
they're on our camera, not my iPhone). Russ also suprised me with 6
bouqets of flowers. He knows my love for the funky ones and the bright
colors so he got orange and purple ones, I'm not even sure what kind
they are, but they're beautiful! I placed them around the house. Here
are a few shots.

6 years

2009-08-14T18:32:00.000-07:00

Debbie is the coolest. For our six year anniversary she suprised me
and brought me to medieval times. Should be a fun night of wenches and
meat

Medusa drives the mini

2009-08-09T18:06:00.000-07:00

This is what Debbie looks like when she drives the mini

Kristen goes back to school

2009-08-08T17:27:00.000-07:00

Check out her super cool backpack with a my little pony "tail."

Debbie goes to the race track

2009-08-07T11:22:00.000-07:00

Here is Debbie's First Ride around the race track, I edited down some of the content to show some out of car track time as well as in car footage. Hope everyone enjoys.

Debbie finally takes a ride with Russ around the race track

2009-08-06T13:35:00.000-07:00

They fit!

2009-08-06T12:49:00.001-07:00

So after some intense garage cleaning and a garage sale set for this
Saturday, the cars finally fit in the garage! Yeah!

AutoClub Speedway-Russ Race

2009-08-05T16:02:00.000-07:00

Russ' Race at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana

2009-08-03T15:04:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics of my last track day at Auto Club Speedway. I ranked in the top 6 of 30 drivers and ran a 2:04 lap time which was only 4 seconds off the top guy. I was most happy about smoking two corvettes and getting my butt handed to me by a corvette ZR1-that thing is a beast. I will have some video soon

Gangster

2009-08-02T09:52:00.000-07:00

Lovin' the 30s/20s

2009-08-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

So I couldn't find any of the cotton 30 dresses so I went for more of
a 20s look which I had way too much fun in. :)

30s

2009-08-02T09:48:00.001-07:00

Hip couple

2009-08-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

Lisa's 30th

2009-08-02T09:45:00.001-07:00

So this was like the coolest birthday party ever (sorry Jared, your 30
cupcake tasting bday was cool too, but this one took the cake) So the
night was full of a delicious dinner, swing dancing lessons, dancing,
a game of birthday Jepordy and lots of fun!!!

Happy birthday Lisa!

2009-08-01T20:51:00.000-07:00

So for my cousin Lisas 30th birthday she had a swinging party all
about the 30's! Here are Lisa and I!

Catching up

2009-07-23T21:40:00.000-07:00

The last few months have been so fun! Busy, but fun. I haven't had the opportunity to post too much because of all of the craziness. But I wanted to recap really quick on what's been going on in our lives since the beginning of June.

The family got together at Fred & Chris' for a summer BBQ. It was so fun to see all of the cousins again. I loved it! A few days later we had all of the cousins over again for a July 4th pool party at our house which was a blast. We swam, ate burgers and hot dogs, and then went to the Laguna Hills firework show. Some of the other July fourth pictures are posted around July 4th--Baxter's rave photos were also part of this night. Next we had Scott & Carly's wedding in Seattle. We flew up on Wednesday night and flew back on Sunday evening so it was a quick trip full of wedding preparations and then the big day! Here are a few fun pictures from the wedding.

Here we are getting our nails done before the big day.

And here are some photos of he wedding.

Okay, I'm going to have to do another post with just wedding pictures cause this is taking way to long to download tonight. Stay posted for some more Taylor adventures---coming shortly!

Russ blows up a shark---a jibjab tale

2009-07-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

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So my mom made this of Russ, Riley, and Chris.... the three brother in laws. Pretty cute mom!

Cartoon Debbie

2009-07-15T19:07:00.000-07:00