Happy New Year

We hope you all have a wonderful and safe evening!

Merry Christmas

We wish you all a wonderful holiday!

Doug's 4Runner officially passed!!

Whew! Finally!!

The cost of vehicles

Well ladies and gentlemen we are up to $1400 to Smog Doug's SUV!! Yep. After another call from Doug and more tears; with each call, the price from the auto shop goes up $200-$400 - the price has reached $1000+ for the auto shop and $400 for parts he already replaced. The trade-in value on his SUV is $1400 in "fair condition", but it's not fair condition because it's a salvaged vehicle after it was hit while parked in front of his parents home over a year ago.

And my SUV is scheduled to go back on Friday the 26th. I'm so grateful to my parents for letting us use a truck they have until we can figure out what to do. I've been waiting for the check, but I found out this morning that they won't cut the check until they have my SUV back. Kinda hard to buy another car without money huh? And I have a list of things to fix or replace on the vehicle before they take it back or they'll charge me to replace it. So, I have a rock chip in the windshield to fix and they will measure to make sure the tires have 4/32" tread left on the tires; crap like that. Um....it's going back as a LEMON! Do you really thing the windshield chip makes that big of a deal. The guy even told me to run it through a car wash. If he didn't notice...it's raining! Sheesh.

It's been a poopy morning, every time I answer my cell phone, money has been shooting out the door. As Doug said, "It's cheaper than buying a new car." and Becky said, "Well, it could be a lot worse." Uh yeah! Those don't help right now.

If you need a good laugh

This video makes me laugh every time I watch it. Watch if first and then read my comment to the post.

Christmas Party Photos

On our way...

Arrived...

Beautiful room. Even a television to watch while soaking in the tub.

My work family... aren't the all beautiful!

Awwww....

Gettin' our groove on...

I wish I could remember what I said to Kristie.

Turn down service...even slippers left by the bed and light music playing on the Bose system.

On the way home... There was a Raider game, so the blimp was out and about.
The Oakland Temple...
A cool building with a green top and a neat clock...

I hope you feel like you were there! We had a blast. It was a great get away weekend before Doug's birthday too.

Our Christmas Tree

This is the tree my mom gave Doug and I. We are now the owners of an artificial tree. I love the smell of fresh trees, but after my drama with mold I don't want to chance getting any in our home. I think the tree is about 7 feet tall.

Foggy days and nights

I took this picture of our street a couple weeks ago. It was foggy day and night for a while. The next picture is with the flash on. Too bad it wasn't snow for a little while.

Quick update

Just a quick update...we spent the night at the Four Seasons in Palo Alto over the weekend. My company had the Northern California Christmas party there and if we had to drive 75+ miles they put us in a room for the night. As I told my brother earlier that day, we were big pimpin' for the night. This is one photo from the evening. I'll post more soon.

Also a huge thank you to Dan, Lisa, Peter, Athina, and Chris for coming and having a birthday dinner with us for Doug. The staff at the restaurant sang Happy Birthday SO many times while we were there! Seems like everyone decided to have a Red Robin birthday dinner. Oh, speaking of - Happy Birthday to Lisa too! On a sad note...I left my Southwest Chicken Pasta leftovers on the table. Sniffle sniffle. I love that stuff. I always leave half so I can eat it again the next day. It was a good time with friends, thanks guys!!

Doug is really busy this time of year. By the time I see him I'm lucky if his eyes are open. Hopefully this is our last year of the 2 job craziness. We'll see.

I love our little map on the bottom right! It's fun to see where everyone reading our blog is on a map.

And one last thing I keep forgetting to mention: Matel, the maker of Barbie, won a lawsuit against the maker of Bratz dolls and they are being pulled from production now. I'm glad these dolls are being pulled. If you didn't know, these dolls even wear thong underwear.

Doug's Party

We're having a get together for Doug's birthday on Monday. If you would like to come, leave me a comment - and your email address - and I'll email you the details. You can post your information here and I'll delete the comment so it won't be added to the blog. The more the merrier!!

Christmas will be tight this year...

I received this email last year and it circled back around this year. I have to post it because someone ended up with these as a gift at the Ugly Sweater Party!!

My dear friends, Somewhat embarrassing to admit, I'm not getting an annual bonus and Christmas is tight this year. I will be making bedroom slippers for you all as gifts. Please let me know your sizes. You'll most likely agree that it's a splendid idea, and should you wish to do the same, I've included the instructions below.

These slippers are:

* Soft and Hygienic
* Non-slip grip strips on the soles
*Built in deodorant feature keeps feet smelling fresh
* No more bending over to mop up spills
* Disposable and biodegradable
* Environmentally safe
* Three convenient sizes: (1.) Regular, (2.) Light and (3.) Get out the Sand Bags.

I've attached a photo of the first pair I made so that you can see the nifty slippers for yourself.... Awaiting your response. It's crucial that I get the right size for each one of you.
How to make bedroom slippers out of maxi pads: You need four maxi pads to make a pair. Two of them get laid out flat, for the foot part. The other two wrap around the toe area to form the top. Tape or glue each side of the top pieces to the bottom of the foot part. Decorate the tops with whatever you desire, silk flowers (this is most aesthetically appealing), etc.

Ugly Sweater Results

Here are the pictures from the party. Doug got 2nd place. For winning we got a hot cocoa set. I may have found our knack in life: making sweaters, ugly sweaters! The 4th picture down shows the cute duck we came home with from the white elephant exchange. I got another hot cocoa set. I'm hiding it behind me in the picture - it was frozen anyways, so it couldn't be taken away :)

I must tell you that I glued 2 - 3D packages under the Christmas tree on my sweater, well not realizing until we got to the party and I looked down did I notice the packages were a little, well...um "package" like. HAHAHA

The bottom picture are our hosts for the evening. Debbie was so good to take photos of everyone in front of their beautiful tree.

Bye Bye Rav4

After 2 1/2 years, 2 accidents, 18 trips to the dealership and all the rental cars I've been through, Toyota is buying my Rav4 back as a lemon. So, now I have to give the car back by the end of the year and they give me all my payments back. What am I going to do for a car when I give it back you ask?? I don't know!!

Highway 50 Billboard

This billboard is too funny not to share. It's along the freeway as Becky comes to work every morning, so she drove me over to see it and take a photo. Please note the bottom line. Sorry if it's not your cup of tea, I can't stand strip clubs, but it's just too funny. Oh, if you're wondering...her boobs are TOTALLY real!

Mervyns Warning

Discounts and deals, I love getting and finding them, but....

Yes, Mervyns is going out of business and there are big sales. We've bought jeans, PJs, and a couple jackets at clearance, but be warned. My friends and I have been in Mervyns frequently during this "going out of business" sale. Today Kristie told me she was at Mervyns last night and was looking at an item and she noticed a new label on the tag. She peeled back the new tag and found a price much lower than the new price on the tag. We already had our suspicions they raised the prices to discount them and now we know we are right! I found a cute tea kettle and tea set at Mervyns and at half off it was $25, but Kmart's regular price was only $15 for the exact item. Here is a hysterical picture from when Becky and I went a couple weeks ago...

The small white banner says, NOW HIRING. I kid you not!! I laughed so hard and had to take a photo.

Ugly Sweaters

I cant post pictures of the sweaters we are creating for an ugly Christmas sweater party we are going to at Kevin and Debbie's. But, stay tuned! I looked and looked to find ugly sweaters, so I had to give up and decided we'd make our own. I finally found some ugly Christmas sweaters at Kmart, but I'm not going to pay $25 each for sweaters we'll never wear again; couldn't even find any at thrift stores. My sweater is made and ready to wear, we are still working on Doug's. Enjoy this ugly sweater I found online in the meantime. It's so ugly it's almost cute.

Failed SMOG

Doug took his 4Runner in to have the smog test to register it and failed it. CRAPPY!!!! We only hope he can get it fixed without spending a small fortune, which has already cost us a few hundred dollars for parts. Doug has already done quite a bit of the work, but still needs to get it into a shop to have a new catalytic converter welded on. After all the repairs and tune up stuff is done we have to hold our breath and pray it will pass. My step-dad told us to make sure we run a pre-test, which he pointed out we should have done in the first place. Well, ya learn as ya go. If it won't pass with all the repairs we will probably have to let California pay us to "early retire" Doug's 4Runner. I don't know what we'll do if that happens.

Cutest Herb Garden

Isn't this the cutest little garden you've ever seen!? My friends gave me this little greenhouse to grow herbs. I have basil, oregano and parsley growing. I figured I haven't posted about things I've been growing for a while, so these little herbs are keeping me entertained. All the oak trees I spent so much time and energy to grow are all pretty much dead. I gave a pot that had a few plants in it to my parents and the deer at them. The trees we brought to the house have all died too. Poor trees. We still have the shamrocks, which I thought were goners, but they have grown back pretty quickly. The orange tree is boring, but still alive and a couple other plants we have are still alive also. I have a couple new plants also! I got one from my coworker, Jean, for my birthday and an Azalea bush, but it's shaped into a tree - Sabrena brought that to us for our housewarming. I have another Azalea bush, but it's growing out of control - I just let it since I don't know what to do with it yet. Okay, I'm rambling about plants. I better get my other posts done!

Busy Thanksgiving

We had the day off together and the weather was nice, so we played in the backyard for a while. Okay it wasn't playing it was working. We ripped out the plants along the back of the house and started pulling the pond apart. We filled the trash can and had to stop. I'll add the "before" pictures later, this laptop doesn't have the pictures in it.

Then we went inside to prepare some food to take to Doug's parent's home for Thanksgiving dinner. I made 6 quarts of mashed potatoes. I only know how much it was because my stand up mixer will hold up to 6 quarts and it completely filled the bowl.

We gathered up the food we were bringing and headed out for family and food. We took our camera, but I didn't take photos while we were there. Here are the photos of our backyard.