A blog to share the goings-on of our family...about our three children (affectionately referred to as "monkeys"), about living in Texas, about my frugal coupon shopping, and about anything else that may strike me...so that we can seem just a bit closer to faraway loved ones.
I got a few awesome pictures with my Christmas gift, a DSLR camera (thank you, honey!!), so I couldn't help but share with you.
Last night Joshua read 'Twas The Night Before Christmas to the kids. It was his sixteenth year reading the story...I just love tradition like that!
All three kids got exactly what they asked Santa for this year. Em and Trev got cowboy boots and Carter got a spark scooter. Carter declared "I got exactly what I asked for AND it's exactly what I wanted!" He just cracks me up! It was an awesome morning, unwrapping gifts around the tree with family and friends! Then Joshua made us a "Grandma Ruth style" Christmas breakfast. Yum! And then we lazed around for the afternoon playing games and hanging out.
Sorry this will be an unorganized post, but my laptop crashed so I am stuck blogging from my iPad. (I wont be able to insert pictures where i want them, but i think you can get he idea.) It isn't ideal but its better than nothing as I really wanted to get a post up for everyone, to wish you Merry Christmas, and to tell you we are thinking of you.
It's been a busy month, regular activities plus Christmas ones added in. But we were able to fit in an awesome Santa party put on by our realtor, Darlene. She seems to have a sweet spot in her heart for our family, so the boys got a bit of special treatment, including a private visit with Santa before the regular "everyone stand in the long line for a turn to talk to him" chaos. Trevor requested cowboy boots and Carter asked for a spark scooter so we'll see how that works out ;-). Thank you for an amazing time, Ms. Darlene!!
I've put off getting my normal artwork and pictures on the walls yet...anti climactic post move blahs...but Christmas inspired me to get my seasonal stuff out, so I thought you might enjoy a tiny peek around our home with a few things actually on the walls!
Carter had two fun Christmas parties at school, including cookie decorating with his friends.
Emilee wowed us with her voice at her choir Christmas concert and Daddy brought her flowers (anyone else floored by how pretty she is?!).
Trevor started his cross country season...he's running about 5 miles per day training...pictures to come in January from his first meet!
I got a huge Christmas surprise on Saturday night...Joshua convinced Art to hop in the car and make the 1700+ mile drive from CA to spend Christmas with us! They didn't say a word to me, so I about fell over when LaVerne walked up to me in my kitchen Saturday evening! We haven't spent much time with them in almost three years so its pretty awesome to have our dear friends with us!
Andy and Mandi are here too...having moved here from CO last month. We have started doing Sunday Night Family Dinners (this is a very special tradition Joshua's family always did when family was close by). And we got to celebrate Mandi's birthday yesterday...and we are excited to have family in town for Christmas (especially Joshua since his family can rarely come visit us). They are even going to stay the night tonight so we can all enjoy opening gifts around the tree together.
I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!! {insert VIRTUAL HUG}
In October, Joshua was invited to a customer appreciation event by Freightliner and at the last minute he was told he could bring me along. So we were able to get Mom and Dad to come out to watch the monkeys and Joshua and I got a four day getaway! Between Joshua's company and Freightliner, we were treated like royalty the whole trip. (I sure hope that my sharing does not come across as bragging. I'm crazy humbled by the luxuries we get to enjoy on occasion nowadays. Between Joshua's crazy hard work paying off and his company being just downright amazing anyway, we are soooo lucky it just boggles my mind! So please know that as I share our adventures, I'm thinking "looky here, guys, can you believe this stuff? cuz I can't!" lol.)
So our trip started off in First Class...no better way to catch up on photo editing for long overdue blog posts than to be enjoying a yummy margarita and warm nuts!
Toward the end of our flight from Houston to Las Vegas we flew over the Hoover Dam and I was able to snap this cool shot.
We stayed at the beautiful Bellagio
We got some time to walk around on the strip. We saw a Pirate show right along the side of the road and snapped this picture for pirate-obsessed Carter...
And Joshua loved the ceiling of the Venetian...
But Joshua's favorite was the World's Largest Chocolate Fountain. It's 27 feet tall and it was located right inside the Bellagio in one of their pastry shops. (You might want to click on the picture and enlarge it so you can see the crazy awesome details. They didn't use mirrors as the picture seems. The upper portion is the underside of the pools and streams. It really is AMAZING!!)
In the morning, Joshua woke me up by using the remote control to open the curtains (seriously?! remote control curtains?!)...
And brought me yummy fancy coffee with a little "B" stopper.
The official "appreciation" was a surprise dinner event. We got all dressed up for it. I think this is the fanciest we've ever dressed up except for our weddings! It was really fun to get all dolled up, and I didn't even fall over in my heels lol!
The theme of the event was Mission Impossible style, and Freightliner spared no detail! This is what greeted us as we walked into the grand ballroom.
They had photo op stations, where we could take pictures with Secret Agents...
And this is the only picture we remembered to take of the food, which was crazy amazing! The main dish was Chilean Sea Bass. I've never had it before and WOW, it was just to die for!
After the dinner, a surprise guest was to perform. They did a fantastic job keeping his name under wraps before the party...and we were all floored when Keith Urban walked out on stage and gave an intimate performance for our crowd of 150ish people.
We were seriously 10 feet from K.E.I.T.H U.R.B.A.N.!!!!! He gives an outstanding performance!
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