Tender Tennessee Christmas

This year, Jon and I and my parents headed out to Nashville to visit my sister Kristin for Christmas. We had a fantastic time in the beautiful state of Tennessee. It was a great time enjoying family and being somewhere other than Orange County. Jon and I definitely needed the break after the crazy Christmas season we had just been through at work. Thanks K, for letting us invade your house and come visit for Christmas! We had a wonderful time!


The first morning, we headed to the famous Pancake Pantry and then went on a hike around Radner Lake. Absolutely beautiful! We even saw deer jumping around.




Kristin also was able to get us tickets to the Titans football game. Great game... REALLY cold!


Here we are before going out to a nice steak dinner at the Stoney River. Mom and Dad's treat! Probably the best steak I've ever had! Thanks M&D! Overall, it was a great trip and a much needed vacation!

Girls Christmas Dinner

I have such amazing friends. There are a group of 7 of us girls that have been friends since high school and earlier. Each year, we get together to celebrate Christmas. This year, we gave up the gifts for a nice dinner at Savannah. What a great time we had! We were short one this year, as she was home in her last month of pregnancy. We missed you Liss!


Our private table at Savannah


Our photo shoot after dinner

The Green Machine # 2

For our Christmas present to each other, Jon and I decided to go big this year... literally!



The boys at Switchback Cyclery put this one together for us!



We absolutely love it! It's so much fun to be able to ride together, and Jon is a fantastic captain! Here we are out on our first ride.



Good times to follow!

The White Elephant

Each year, Jon and I host a white elephant gift exchange for a group of our mountain bike friends. This year was year number 5! There were about 30 people in our little condo. We had so much fun getting together to catch up, eat, drink, and open some crazy gifts! Some of the gifts included a white trash cookbook, the "grandma got ran over by a reindeer" doll with music, the "club", and lots of ugly ceramics. This party is always especially great for Jon and I. We love being able to see all of our friends that we have not seen in a while because of how busy we are at work this time of year. Thank you all for coming and making it such a great tradition for us!


Lots of presents and crazy footwear!





Great friends and fun!


Whoever did this to our new bike is on my permanent BAD list! Who knew that a good hiding place for the lock key would be our key ring!

O Christmas Tree

Jon and I always get our Christmas tree the week after Thanksgiving. This year we did something we have never done before. We walked into the Christmas tree lot at Home Depot and started looking at all the trees. There weren't many opened up yet and all the ones that were open, seemed to have something wrong with them. So we ended up just grabbing one that was still wrapped up and taking it home with us without looking at it. We had our fingers crossed that it would be OK. It is more than OK, it is probably the best tree we've ever had! The guy at Home Depot said we would go up on the boards as the first people to ever buy a tree without looking at it first.


When I was decorating the tree, I pulled out a box of ornaments that I had completely forgotten about. They were some big red ones from Crate & Barrel that I had got last year after Christmas on half price. I was so excited for my new ornaments! Our tree is all in red, silver, and white this year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Each year, my family rents a cabin in the mountains to celebrate Thanksgiving as a family. This year was our 38th (some say 40) year together as a family! We rented a house up in Big Bear right on the lake. There were about 25 of us this year. Besides some appliance problems, the house was perfect, with an absolutely amazing view of the lake. We had a great weekend catching up, playing games, going on walks, and eating... and eating... and eating! We also got to head over to Jon's parents house to spend some time visiting with his parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle, and sister and husband. It was a very cold weekend in the mountains, just like Thanksgiving is meant to be!

I am so thankful for everything God has given us in our lives. We are so grateful for the wonderful family and friends that we have!


Here's a picture of a group of us out on a walk by the lake.

A Night Out with Emma

On Saturday night, a group of us went out for a fun night with friends. Drew's cousin Emma is visiting from Scotland, so we wanted to take her out for some Orange County fun. It was a great night, Emma is a lot of fun to chat with. And the best part is we've been invited to stay with her in Scotland when we go!


Good times!

Happy Halloween

Here are some pictures of the Halloween bike ride and the party we went to at Max & Erins house. Good times!

Ride to Solana Beach

Today we did one of our favorite road rides. We meet at the Irvine train station and ride down to Solana Beach. It's about a 60 mile ride. We stop at Pizza Port for some awesome pizza, then jump on the train back to Irvine. This trip, there were 11 of us. It was an amazing day, absoultely beautiful out! The rain on Saturday cleaned everything up for us. Here are a couple of the few shots I got on the way down.

LA County Fair

This past Sunday, Jon and I made our first adventure to the LA County Fair. One of our customers, David from Executive Gift Baskets, volunteers with Habitat for Humanity. Every year, Habitat for Humanity builds houses on the fairgrounds for families that can't afford their own home. David, along with probably hundreds of other volunteers, worked together to build these homes from scratch. Jon and I went to check out what they have built. It was an amazing project for a great cause.


Jon and I enjoying the fair


David and Kevin in front of the house they helped build

Friday Afternoon Hike

The weather has been so nice lately, we're finally past the summer heat waves and enjoying the cool fall air. We'll see how long that lasts! This Friday, we got off work a little early and picked up our nephews (and their dog) for a hike. We did a little hike out from their backyard up into Oneill Park. This is a picture from the top of our hike with Saddleback in the background. The boys did great and we look forward to more hikes in the future.

A Beautiful Wedding

Over the weekend, my sister got married. It was an amazing weekend! We stayed at the Inn at Perry Cabin in St. Michaels, Maryland. We went sailing on a 50 year old skipjack. We explored the town and nearby towns by foot and bike. And we enjoyed some amazing food and fun with family and friends. We wish you the best, Shannon and Thys, in your new marriage! Congrats!


A beautiful morning at the Inn at Perry Cabin


The view from the porch outside our room & the inn with our room in the far corner








We're Sailing!!


Dinner at Scossas Saturday night




Tandem bike ride to Oxford


This is how they do it in Maryland

Wedding Time!




Sisters


This looks familiar




The new Mr. & Mrs.!