Saturday, December 17, 2011

Merry Christmas


Not everyone will be home for christmas this year so I thought that I would bring a little bit of our christmas home to YOU!

This year I have added a christmas TRAIN that goes around the tree. It is cute and plays fun music as it goes.





It is under my smores tree which is decorated with smores ornaments and other ornaments that remind me of the outdoors such as fishing gear, camping gear, bears, stars, lanterns, gingerbread men, winnie the pooh looking for honey in a hive, a moose in a canoe and of course some santas!

This hangs on our front door.

























Our formal tree. . . looks very pretty with the lights all on!


















One of my favorites is our CARTOON tree. Look and see if one of your favorite disney and cartoon characters are on the tree. If not then you better request that I find one! We have ornaments for "CARS", "The Incredibles", "Dora", "Finding NEMO", "Scooby Doo", "Star Wars", "Batman & Robin", "Bob the Builder", "The Ginch", "Cat in the Hat" and other Dr. Seuss characters, "Monsters Inc.", "Toy Story", "Blues Clues", and a few others! The kids love this tree.







My Singapore tree with ornaments from the chinese new year that I got while living there. Plus a wooden reindeer that belongs to Katie given to her from our neighbor in Folsom.

Some of our nativity sets collected over the years.

Good all Cowboy Santa and Fireman Santa, and don't forget Mr. and Mrs. Claus. Tory gifted me Mrs. Claus one year :)


















As you can see Christmas decor is everywhere.
My Red, White and Blue Patriotic Tree! It has everything red, white and blue to include white house ornaments, santas in USA themed dress, flags, colonial ornaments, stars, etc.

Don't forget good old Santa and our bamboo nativity set from Indonesia.





Hope you all have a very Merry Christmas
and a Happy Holiday!



Thursday, December 1, 2011

And The Grand Canyon with Katie!






You can barely see it but there are people over on top of that cliff to the left! That gives you a idea how awesomely large the Grand Canyon
really is!!!

Hopi Point . . . a favorite place to view the canyon. Hopi Point is one of the most popular viewpoints for watching the sunset and sunrise because of its wide vistas. The Colorado River comes into view to the west.
Ok, it looks pretty simple that Katie is "just" sitting there looking out
over the canyon . . . BUT it was kinda of scary
because there really wasn't much ground below you
if you were to slip and fall. I told Katie
I don't want to go home from the Grand Canyon and say oh, yeah
we lost Katie to the CANYON! BE CAREFUL
Tom almost freaked OUT!


Okay, so Tom isn't freaking out here. I was cuz I didn't want him to lean on me and stumble and knock me over. It was a beautiful sight though!











Again, here you can see little tiny tiny people over on the next cliff over from us. The canyon is just plain MASSIVE!
This is the scary point where Tom was pacing!




This was taken at Hermits Rest located at the far West end of the Grand Canyon National Park. It is here that there is a beautiful building with a awesome fireplace built by . . . . Mary Colter, one of Grand Canyon's most famous architects, built Hermits Rest in 1914 to look like an old miner's cabin, complete with a giant fireplace and front porch.






The Colorado River as it winds
down through the Grand Canyon
This is taken at the East end of the National Park looking Northward. At Desert View.


Sunset on the Grand Canyon east end at Desert View.


We had a nice time. It was a beautiful day. We wish we could have taken Kim with us too but that was not to be. Glad we were able to spend the weekend with the twins and now they are back in Utah and we are back in California. Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving Week too!

Thanksgiving in Flagstaff, AZ



This Thanksgiving we drove to Flagstaff, AZ to be with Kim and watch her as she played in a couple of games against Northern Arizona and Kent State. We lost the first game to NAU but beat Kent State. In the first game Kim was high point with 14 and high rebounder with 7 all while coming off the bench and only playing 16 minutes of the 40 minute
game. We were proud of her efforts and the next game she had a team high 12 rebounds in a one point victory! We love you Kimmie and keep up the hard work!