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