Friday, November 27, 2009

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving as much as we did!

I had to post this first picture because this is all anyone will get to see of the lovely orange tulips I got Tuesday, thinking they would look pretty on the red tablecloth. They did. But they were also far gone by Wednesday night. :-/I spent the rest of Tuesday (when not admiring the tulips) baking and getting things ready to go in the kitchen. It was a long day, but rewarding--and it smelled so good! I'd made a pot of minestrone on Monday and we ate it Tuesday and Wednesday too which was nice because then I could just focus on Thanksgiving stuff (we did steal some rolls to eat with it though!)Thomas looks like he's taking exception to being fed dog food. Aunt Debra made sure the dogs each got a little taste of turkey before it was all cleaned up though. ;-)Our Thanksgiving table: (L to R) Debra, Patrick, Don, Evalyn, Ben, Pei, Erik I wish you could have been here--we had such fun. :-)

I kept forgetting to take pictures, so that's it! We followed the meal with the major clean-up, some pool and darts, and some football (on a hastily set-up TV), and then sat down to eat Debra's delicious pies and play Taboo. Everyone had to leave all too soon, but since Erik hadn't slept since coming home from work we went to bed quite early!

I'm so thankful for you!!
Much love from,
christel

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Quick Post

We had a friend come and stay with us this weekend; Theresa was going down to Burbank and Long Beach to visit relatives and we were lucky enough to be on the way! It was great to have some girl talk time and hang out in between her visits with Aunt Cookie and Uncle Joe.

Three out of four pets prefer Theresa (actually, considering Rosie woke her up by dropping a mangled plastic straw on her face, we could probably expand this to four out of four)We also had a great Saturday with some friends from church--Brent, Julie, Hannah, David & Lily--but I was so busy playing games and visiting and eating I completely neglected to take any pictures! Next time. Here are two random photos in the meantime:

Who says cats and dogs can't live together in peace? Have you packed your boxes for Operation Christmas Child? This is their collection week! Hope everyone is staying healthy and not going crazy preparing for the holidays!
Love you,
cmr

Sunday, November 15, 2009

300 Miles From Bakersfield . . .

. . . is Antelope, California! We took a trip up to see the Searls Family last weekend; the weather was lovely and the company wonderful. On Saturday we took a long walk by this creek, which is only a few minutes drive from Andy & Noelle's--beautiful!!The whole crew (front to back): Noelle, Andy, Collin, Megan & Erik Erik being silly for Noelle's picture Mmm . . . blackberriesGiant heart-shaped leafVultureThe kids took advantage of this outdoor time to practice their scary laughs. I don't know which is more frightening:

Megan's crazy, loud maniacal laughter . . . Or Collin's quiet, scheming maniacal laughter!Handsome bearded fellow I saw on the trail The NewlywedsOn Saturday night and Sunday afternoon we got to spend some time with the rest of the Searls Family--good food, good conversation, and lots of fun! What a cute, color-coordinated family!! ;-)

I just realized that I didn't take any pictures inside of Noelle & Andy's house--you'll have to poke Noelle to get into gear and share photos of their new paint/floor/decorating. It looks really nice!

Late addition (just got the pic on e-mail from Noelle)--we also got to meet Calvin's Flat Stanley! :-D

Monday, November 2, 2009

Long Time - No Post!

I'm not going to waste a lot of words and space explaining away my absence from the blog--everybody's busy. So, everyone who has bugged me to start posting again, please take credit for my return to blogging. It's kind of nice to be missed! ;-)

Wow, it's November. Where on earth did September and October GO???

While those of you in the midwest are bundling up and hunkering down for cold weather, we out here are finally peeking our heads out of our air-cooled California caves, discovering to our delight that the blistering, burning sun has finally decided to give us respite. Fall is lovely, albeit dusty. We're entering what seems to me like an extended September. T-shirt or long-sleeves or even (if you grew up here) a sweatshirt during the day, nice and cool and night. We have discovered a nice dog park not too far away and took Thomas and Pippin for their first jaunt today. This is their first time in such a large space off leash AND with other dogs. Oh, Joy! Delight! They had so much fun and as this one is bigger, Erik and I can actually walk around a bit while they run. We're looking forward to making it a regular part of our week!

What else have we been up to?

A couple of our friends from church invited us to go to a "Check it out" meeting with their square dancing group. Erik agreed to give it a go, and we went (about a month ago). We had so much fun and have made it a regular Monday night activity! Who'd a thunk it?

We're still enjoying being involved in our church. Small group started up again in September after a summer hiatus, and Erik has been learning how to run the soundboard so that he can help record the service and run the sound. I've started teaching the 3rd-5th grade Sunday school class every other month. I love alternating months with another teacher so that I don't completely miss out on church myself. While we didn't dress up for Halloween, Erik did dress up to help in my class a couple of weeks ago. Meet Shem, straight off the ark! Halloween snuck up on us this year! I bought pumpkins some time ago, but we didn't get around to carving them until Halloween day.Meet Rasputin and Herman:This was Thomas' first Halloween and he let out some loud "ALARM!" barks every time someone came to the door. He and Pippin then rushed to the pet gate we'd set up in hopes of meeting the kids as they got their candy. We had so many more trick-or-treaters than we did at our other place--it was fun to see all the costumes! I know I promised house pictures and I haven't delivered, so here are two rooms.
The Spare Oom:The Loftice (thanks to Andy for that descriptive word):Still no window treatments, and someday we'll paint . . . but I guess you can suffer through more pictures when we finally get to that point! ;-)

Alright, I now solemnly vow that I will try to be more regular in my posting again. Thanks for reading!
Much love from,
christel