Do you ever have one of those nights?.....

Those nights where you go to bed early but still take forever to go to sleep cause you're thinking about your day (what you did, what you still need to do, etc., etc.)? Then you get frustrated because you're not falling asleep yet you should be asleep. Well, that's a typical night for me but this one was a little different.

I finally fell asleep around midnight but woke up to a loud noise 15 minutes later along with a very bright light coming into the bedroom window. Now, i'm fairly used to the search helicopter flying around and shining it's bright lights, after all I went to school in Riverside. :) This was almost an every night occurrence there, so I wasn't immediately alarmed. Once I came to, I heard some more noises beneath our window, not to mention a few cuss words followed by fast cars screeching into our alley. When I got up to look, I saw 4 cop cars with 8 police....as the search helicopter slipped away in the night after locating the men who tried to steal a car.

Apparently, after straining to hear the cops talk...outside our window...a neighbor saw the men and called the police. The men went running and chose to hide down our alley. Such a safe feeling! Not sure how many guys, but definitely more than one. And I'm not sure whose car they were trying to steal but all I could think about was how these men were outside our window and being pushed up against our garage to be handcuffed. The night before, a car alarm went off twice, sounding it's alarm FOREVER at 4:00 in the morning. Hmmm....I wonder if there's any connection. I thought I moved away from the IE...

Poor Jeff missed all the action...didn't see the bright lights or hear the loud noises. He woke up when I got up to check to see if all our windows were shut and locked. Needless to say, it now took me even longer to fall asleep and I was a little tired teaching the next day.

I guess it could have been worse, I could have waken up, not fully cloathed to the S.W.A.T team banging down our door with guns pointing at me insisting I was someone I wasn't. Right Nathan and Kristy?

The Mission Inn!!

Some of you know that a few things went wrong at our wedding :( so we got a few things in return for some of those mistakes. The Mission Inn gave us an expensive Sunday brunch, along with an overnight stay for free for the two of us and a 50 minute massage of our choice. So, we thought it was a good time to go a couple of weeks ago, as it was our 6 month anniversary and Jeff's birthday. I can't believe it's been 6 months already!! And they've been a great 6 months! When we got there, they had informed us that they upgraded us to a Presidential suite, which was nice. I included some pictures of it which was a 2 story hotel room, with a big porch overlooking the courtyard. The two story was nice but somewhat annoying as the bathroom was downstairs and the stairs were steep so forget about any middle of the night bathroom trips.

We walked around on Friday night taking more pics of the beautiful hotel, as well as going to the courtyard where we got married. Saturday was the massage at Kelly's Spa at the hotel which is soooo nice. The massage was great and relaxing and well worth it! Nothing like a nice free massage!

It's New Years....and it's almost February!

So I was told by my brother-in-law that I need to update my post...and seeing that my last one was before Christmas, I guess it's about time. So here goes.

It's becoming a tradition for Kristy, her parents and I to decorate the floats for the Rose Parade. Ever since I was little I have always wanted to volunteer and decorate but just never did until recently. This was my second year and I already feel like a "pro." It's really fun and would love to continue the tradition for years to come. We did a lot this year which included some persistence on my part as our float manager doesn't always seem to be on top of it. :)

This year, our main float was the Manger scene; which included putting in carnation flowers all over. (Note to self: must bring gloves for next year, who knew poking carnation flowers into the float could hurt so bad). We worked a little bit on the silver leaf portion of another float (the submarine), as well as tacking on Christmas tree pieces on the back of the gigantic Indian float (for those of you that saw it this year).

I look forward to the many years to volunteer for the beautiful parade...who knows, as Kristy says, I should be the next float manager. :)

Our First Little Christmas Tree

So, being the newlyweds that we are, we wanted to get a tree but thought that with our little place and the fact that we wanted to save money we got our first little Christmas tree. Yay for cheap trees at Home Depot! It pretty much has all my ornaments on it from when I was little and throughout the years (of course, including Ohio State ornaments along with all my Coca Cola collections. Jeff has none but I think he's ok with it.

We got our little tree following our time in Arizona with the fam. We got to see both the Haidet"s and the Cowell's living in the beautiful state of Arizona. It was a great time...the Haidet clan got to go to the "North Pole" via the Polar Express. We got to sing Christmas carols, eat cookies and drink hot chocolate while Santa got on board and gave each child a bell from his sleigh. All of this was in Flagstaff, so needless to say it was cold, rainy, windy and snowy (you can see Kristine outside in the snow)...which all made for a "wonderful" drive home.

Ashlee and I did a little bit of Christmas shopping followed up by my yummy dinner and birthday cake and awesome Buckeye scarf made with love from Ashlee. Thanks Ashlee! The kids got to open up our Christmas gifts to them simply because there's nothing like seeing there faces light up when they open there gifts. I hate to miss that so I'm glad I got to see that this year (even though it wasn't officially Christmas). All in all, Jeff and I had a great time with family and always love to visit.

IT'S GOOD TO BE A BUCKEYE!!

Buckeyes go to the Rose Bowl....well, that's the least they'll get unless drastic changes happen in front of them, they can still go to the National Championship game! Most likely they go to the Rose Bowl, and I for one, am super excited! A Rose Bowl, a possible championship game and Big Ten Champions...all from what's suppose to be a rebuilding year. I love college football, and I love the Buckeyes! O-H-I-O

Go Buckeyes!

Jeff and I recently went to Ohio to hang out with my Grandparents. It was a great time with G and G! We got to visit Columbus and the University, as well as where my Grandma grew up. We also got to go to an Ohio State game which is always a highlight for me. Gramps, Jeff and I got to see a huge pumpkin weighing in at about 15oo pounds at a pumpkin festival in a neighboring town. This pumpkin festival is an annual thing where they make everything with pumpkins...including pumpkin pizza, and so on. It was a great time to get away and relax with G and G. This video is a little video of the Ohio State Buckeyes running in to start the game against Michigan State. The pictures are, obviously, us at the game with Uncle Dave who works at the stadium. He gets paid to see all the home games which makes me a little jealous.

Pumpkin Carving Time

So, Jeff and I wanted to go back to the good old days and carve pumpkins. I have to admit, mine was probably the best and you can't beat the yummy pumpkin seeds. Because of my love for Ohio State Buckeyes I wanted to do something dealing with that. I ended up carving Brutus the Buckeye and it turned out ok. Poor Jeff's plan didn't work out as well as he thought. We still had fun anyways! Jeff's fell apart before I could take a picture of it. This picture isn't good but you get the idea.