Landscaping: Phase I

Our big accomplishment for 2008 is having completed the first phase of our landscaping project. When we purchased our home, there was pretty much just dirt in the backyard and on the side of the house. We wanted to put in a nice backyard, pour concrete on the side of the house for RV access and then refurbish the front yard to update the curb appeal.

We broke it into those three phases and tackled Phase I in 2008, which was the sideyard concrete project. First Chad had to spend many days tearing out the grass, tearing down an exisiting wall and leveling all the dirt. Then he built a masonry 1/2 wall between us and the neighbors. Then, in April, the concrete was poured. Since April, we've installed a shed and, just recently, Chad completed the gate to go across the whole thing.

It was a lot of work, but the end result is really nice.

Before:

After:

Visitors

We just had a great couple of days acting like 'tourists' showing some of our friends around.

Stacey & Sarah Wampler (some of our friends from Tucson) and Sarah's little sister Tina came and spent 2 1/2 days with us and we showed them 'the town' -- or what little bit of it is still pleasant this time of year (it's been REALLY cold around here lately!!).

On Monday we went down to the Santa Monica Pier and Third Street Promenade. It turned out to be a gorgeous, warm day and we wandered all over and enjoyed watching some of the crazy street performers that were out.

From there we headed to Hollywood to try our luck in the 'Wicked Lottery'. This is the opportunity to win $25 front row seats to that day's Wicked performance. Everyone I've told about it has actually won seats, but we'd never gone to try for ourselves. When we got there at 5:30 to get in line we were definitely shocked by the amount of people that were there.. and, sure enough, there were WAY too many and our chances were next to nothing -- and we didn't get in. So.. we headed over to Universal City Walk and wandered around for a while checking out the crazy stores and nightlife.

Yesterday we headed down to the Getty Center where we enjoyed the view and the gorgeous gardens. We then headed back to Hollywood to see if we'd be any luckier the 2nd night.. We drove over on Mulholland Drive, which was beautiful -- big houses and great vistas -- but then we hit traffic and didn't make it in time. We didn't feel too badly though because when we drove by the Wicked Theater there were more people there than there were on Monday night!!!

So.. instead.. we headed over to Hollywood Blvd and Highland and wandered over to Grauman's Chinese Theater and put our foot/hands in all the prints to see how we measured up to the rich and famous (by the way.. just as a comment.. some of those actresses feet are TINY!!!)

We had a ton of fun hanging out with them and hope that they can come and hang out with us again!

Monterey

OK.. now that the majority of the holidays are over, it's time to play catch up on the blog...

The weekend prior to Christmas we took a little trip with Chad's mom up to Monterey.  We just went up to go sight-seeing and relax prior to the holidays.  We stayed at my parent's home up there and had a great weekend full of Sunny Days (we must have brought the weather with us, because it was raining prior to our arrival and started up again as we headed out).

We headed up there the Friday prior to Christmas, arriving late that evening.  The next day was supposed to be our 'good' weather day, so we headed up to Santa Cruz and spent the morning harassing the wildlife on the pier and eating yummy treats:

We headed back over to Monterey in the afternoon and, on a bit of a whim, decided to go sailing. In a sailboat and everything!! Chad has been wanting to take sailing lessons for a while now, so he was very excited when 'Captain Dutch' let him steer while we were out in the bay. It was a BEAUTIFUL, surprisingly smooth, ride and we all enjoyed our short sojourn out to sea:

On day two of our vacation, we decided to take a drive around Pebble Beach on the 17-Mile Drive, which is a breathtaking ride including views of the amazing coastline as well as the amazing homes that are there. We stopped at the Links on Pebble Beach and took some pictures -- just to prove we were there:

On Monday we went down to Salinas and went through the National Steinbeck Center, which was very interesting. We then went and spent the rest of the afternoon in the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which is one of my favorite places. I just love staring at sealife -- especially the jelly fish! :-)

After all the great sightseeing, we decided to spend our last day in Gilroy literally 'shopping until we dropped'. Gilroy has the largest set of outlet stores I've ever seen, and a few were going out of business, so the deals were amazing. Both of these facts meant that we were shopping for 7 hours solid. For three non-shopping types, it was a LONG day.. but we were happy when we left. :-) That evening we hung out with Shel & Meghan  ( Sam had to work late :-(  ) and celebrated Christmas a little early with them.

We headed back early Christmas Eve, getting home around noon and then commenced our final Christmas preparations.

It was a wonderful trip and was the perfect start to our holiday break :-)

Merry Christmas!!

We've been without internet for the past week so I haven't been able to keep terribly up to date on the blog.. (I'll have to catch up on that later). 

However, I wanted to take a minute and wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas from our home to yours.  We've had a great day at Chad's mom's house full of gifts, yummy food, games and spending lots of time with family (which, of course, is the most important part).  

We hope everyone is having wonderful, happy holiday!!  

Love to you all!!

Let It Snow!!

They've been predicting snow on and off for weeks, but when I looked at the weather forecast last night, it seemed actually probable that I would wake up this morning to a winter wonderland.  I was also excited that I might be able to experience my very first snow day and not have to go into work.  So, when my alarm went off at 4:30, I jumped out of bed and went to the window and saw.. nothing.  I was so sad that I went back to bed until 6:00 just to see if it might appear before then.  6:00 came, but still no snow.

So.. since it didn't appear that I was going to get a snow day.. I decided to get up and head into work.  I left the house just after 7:00 and I hadn't driven 2 miles before it started to snow.  By the time I was about 4 miles from the house, it was coming down pretty good and stuff was starting to stick -- even on the roads.  I drove slowly and finally made it to work at 8:00 (it's normally a 20 min drive).  Once I was at work, it really started coming down.  By 10:00 our parking lot was about an inch deep in snow and at 11:00 it looked like I was going to have to dig my car out to get out.  So.. after much debate (and sending my entire team home since they live elsewhere and the roads out of the Antelope Valley were closing right and left).. I decided to just come home before the roads got any worse.

So.. I got home about noon, opened the drapes on my big window in the family room, and watched the snow continue to fall.  It's been falling non-stop since this morning and is supposed to continue into the night.  While I can't say I'm much of a fan of driving in it (Chad, his mom and I tried to go to the movies and just being in the car as it was sliding around was enough to give me a heart attack), it is beautiful.  Just standing on our front porch watching it come down made us feel like we lived somewhere other than a desert -- somewhere that actually has four seasons!! :-)

 

Christmas in Bethlehem

Tonight was our ward Christmas party. In an effort to do something a little different, our activities committee decided to do a 'Christmas in Bethlehem'. We had done something quite similar when I was growing up in 6th Ward. I remembered how cool it had been, so when they called and asked me to help them plan it, I was actually pretty excited about the whole thing.

The amazing women in my ward transformed the cultural hall into a pretty fair representation of a Bethlehem market -- complete with trees and wells and a courtyard. It was really amazing once it was together -- much better than I could have anticipated.

The first part of the evening was spent in the 'market'. We paid our 'taxes' (canned food), signed the census, and were issued our allotment of gold/silver for the evening. There were shopkeepers for each of the shops in the market -- soup, chicken, bread, fruit/nuts, salads/sides -- as well as jewelry, carpentry, etc. We went around, paid them our gold pieces and ate some yummy food. Sam, Michelle & Megan were kind enough to come down from Monterey for the weekend to be the official photographers and they had their own booth in the marketplace, complete with a beautiful backdrop that someone in the ward had painted for the occasion.

The second part of the evening was a short presentation of the Christmas story. I had been asked to organize the music for it, and have spent the past several weeks planning and practicing. I took the celtic harp (more authentic to the time period), and played the prelude for the program on it. Once everyone was assembled in the 'courtyard' by the stage, we commenced with the play. Michelle volunteered to play the piano for me so that I didn't have to do my regular routine of running back and forth from the piano to the harp. The music was beautiful and the spirit was strong and I really enjoyed the whole thing.

Every time I participate in one of these events, I am always amazed by the amount of work it takes to make it happen. This was definitely no exception, and I must admit it's a relief that it's over. However, it really was better than your average ward Christmas party and I'm grateful to all who worked so hard to put it together. (And to Sam who was kind enough to share his photos:)

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas!!

I love Christmas. I love the entire month of December. In fact, I start celebrating Christmas sometime in the beginning of November. My piano students thought I had lost my mind when I broke out the Christmas piano music for their lessons on November 1st, but in my opinion, one short month is just not enough to enjoy Christmas music!

While we were in Phoenix for Thanksgiving, we went and saw the Mesa Temple Christmas lights -- one of my favorite Christmas activities. We went the very first night they were turned on and it was the perfect way to kick off the season!







(For any and all who might be impressed by this -- I took all of the above photos with my little digital and they're all hand held -- not a single tri-pod in sight!)

Now if I could just get my Christmas decorations up I'd REALLY get into the Christmas Spirit!

Hope all of you out there are enjoying the season!