Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Monday, October 29, 2007

fall & family

My cousins Christina & Brad flew up from Southern California to spend the weekend with us. It was great fun getting to spend time together, be silly, and have a good time.

family

After a huge brunch and some time shopping at the Nordstrom rack, we headed to the local Wente Vineyards for some wine tasting and a tour of the estate to see how the wine is made there.

wine grapes

We loved it!

We loved it!

We played a bunch of wii. Despite Christina's lack of any sort of technique, she managed (to our surprise), to beat all of us at boxing and became the Undefeated Champ.

Undefeated Boxing Champ!


To celebrate the fact that it's fall, we went to a Corn Maze and got lost amongst all the stalks of corns.

In the jungle

And in between all of that, we ate a lot, slept a lot, and caught up on old times. Such fun.

Thanks for coming up to hang out with us!

Friday, October 26, 2007

Pumpkin Carving Night!

Halloween 2007

We had our second annual Halloween Pumpkin Carving/Girl's Night. This year, our pumpkin designs have gotten even more creative. We're getting a little more experience and skills (and arm muscles from the carving!). After a little trouble with the scraping out of the insides, fixing some broken teeth, picking out pumpkin seeds, and running to pull the burning seeds out of the oven....we successfully carved six magnificent festive pumpkins!

Halloween 2007

Halloween 2007

Halloween 2007

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

One proud mamma

Prepmeister

Google had a little competition for the upcoming "Google Dog Calendar". I submitted a few photos of my babies, and what do you know....Max won!

You can call him, Mister February.

I am one proud little mamma.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Kind of, but not really, around the corner

I love Christmas.

I love the reason for Christmas. I love the smells of Christmas. I love the music of Christmas. I love the lights, trees, family time, presents under the tree....everything.

I am slowly gathering all my Christmas decorations and accumulating a few more, just waiting for Thanksgiving to be here and over so I can start decorating and celebrating.

I tend to get a little excited and prepare way ahead of time. Me, the person who had my Halloween candy ready nearly 3 weeks before Halloween.

So last week, I picked up two lighted Christmas lawn ornaments for my new lawn from the store. I had the guys at the store climb their ladders and pull down the big boxes, then carry them to my car. One of the guys mentioned how it wasn't Halloween yet.

I looked at him and said, "...and your point?"

:). Man, I can't wait.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Luaus bring people together

Our Crittendon campus had a luau for lunch today. So a friend and I hopped on the Google bikes and rode out to that side of campus for lunch with a few other friends. After having some homemade ice cream for dessert, we were discussing if we wanted to walk or bike back to the main campus. Just as we were talking about this, the on-demand shuttle drove up, so we started running and caught the shuttle instead.

As we were sitting on the bus, a guy behind me called out, "Kimmy!" I turned around wondering why I didn't recognize this guy and suddenly felt bad for not knowing who he was.

Guy: Do you know Diane ♥?
Me: *laughing* Yes! She's my cousin. How do you know her?
Guy: We go to church together in the city. She told me I'm supposed to keep my eye out for Kimmy ♦. So I was sitting here on the bus and saw your badge said "Kimmy ♦" and knew I was supposed to know you. I've been looking for you. I found you!!!

Then we had a nice conversation. Turns out he has only worked here a couple of months and works waaay on the other side of campus on totally different projects than I work on. Most likely, we would have never run into each other, but things just fell into place perfectly with the luau, the shuttle pulling up right then, us running to make it, and the fact that I sat on the outside aisle where my badge was showing...plus his attentive eye.

Hawaiian food...bringing people together.

tobycam

Toby is at home today, instead of at his usual "daycare" with Grandma & Grandpa. We set up a webcam so we could watch him throughout the day. Look at my cute boy.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Max takes off his clothes


Max takes his clothes off just like the rest of us....one arm at a time.

Friday, October 12, 2007

What's your coffee order say about you?

The Today Show had a little segment this morning about what your coffee order says about you. It could say you are a high maintenance, adventurous, bold, easy going, boring, etc.

Interesting.

My usual coffee order is:
A tall nonfat half-caf extra hot black & white mocha, no whip
What's that say about me? High maintenance? No.... Of course not! Let's call it creative, particular, and health conscious.

I used to order just a tall mocha. Then realized I was drinking them so often and was putting so many extra non-beneficial calories into me, that I switched to nonfat. Then the whipped cream defeated that purpose, so got rid of that. Then I started getting old and caffeine was having a much bigger effect on my little heart, so I had to switch to half-caf. One night on the way to Tahoe, I overheard a man try a black & white mocha, tried that too, then never went back. And I've always loved things extra hot. Usually things aren't hot enough. So that's how I got to that order...

My friend told me that he usually gets a tall bold coffee, used to get lattes but then it got too expensive. He asked me what that said about him. Cheap and boring? hmmm....yes, that might be the case. hehe. ;)

What's your coffee order say about you?

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

Bunny fears

Nicole sent me a picture over IM the other day of a little bunny and said how much she wanted a bunny. I told her that I was afraid of bunnies. Her response, "What??? Is this your small and rodent like fear?"

Actually...my fear of bunnies started in 2nd grade.

Our class had a "class bunny" that we each "got" to take turns taking home every weekend. Once in awhile during class my teacher would take the bunny out while we sat around in a circle and she would hold it. One day, the bunny did something and clawed my teacher's arm which proceeded to bleed profusely. From that moment on, me and bunnies were no longer friends. Instead I was deathly afraid of them.

When it was my weekend to take the bunny home, I never took it out of its cage...much less even stepped anywhere close to it. My dad ended up taking care of the rabbit in the garage. I did try to feed it a carrot once, which meant, I ran up to the cage, shoved the carrot through the holes, then ran away screaming.

Darn rabbits.

Monday, October 08, 2007

Boys on my toes

I got some cute new flats that I wore for the very first time today. I was telling my friend this morning about my new shoes and said that I "have boys on my toes" when I actually meant "bows".

Oops!

Boys on my toes sounds much better anyways.

Friday, October 05, 2007

Max's haircut

Hm...Mommy, I'm not sure about this haircut

Max got a haircut yesterday. The groomer gave him a mini bowl cut and little bangs.

He is unsure of how much he likes this cut....

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Technology doesn't solve everything

This morning after grabbing some coffee, I backed my car into a pole. It was heartbreaking. I was feeling pain from the dent that the pole left. What's funny about this is...I have backup sensors AND a backup camera, and yet, I still ran into the pole. The pole just happened to be between the sensors and I didn't look at the camera. Luckily, the bumper was not damaged whatsover, but the chrome part above the bumper got dented.

Once I got to work, I shared my "exciting" event of the day to some friends, one of whom mentioned that I might be able to bang it out with a rubber mallet. Hmmm....interesting. At this point I had nothing to lose. So after miraculously acquiring a rubber mallet, we went down to the garage, used a towel and banged at my car with the rubber mallet.

And what do you know...it actually really improved the dent and how it looks.

I guess technology doesn't really solve everything...sometimes you just need a good hammer.

Before:

After:

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

semi sad

The hard drive on my laptop went to hard drive heaven last week. The 30GB of music and 50GB of pictures I had on that laptop are trapped and crying out to me. Luckily, with the overheating I was experiencing lately, I decided the week before that I would back up all of my important stuff. Phew. Was that the best move ever or what? Well...it could have been better because I still lost the things that I created/acquired/bought in the last week. I realized as I was reloading some of my data onto my new replacement laptop, that all of playlists that I had on my iTunes are also gone. :(

I don't keep track of my music well and usually throw them in playlists and update all of my iPods by playlist. When I got new songs, to be sure I listened to them, I had a playlist for those too. So sad. So now I start over. I need to go through and filter/organize, then re-do all of the iPods.

Sad.

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Central California Adventure

This weekend, my good friend and college roomie, Joie and I headed out to Fresno to attend our other good friend's bridal shower. As most things relating to Joie and I, we had an adventure from the moment we started our road trip.

After grabbing some coffee for the road and gabbing about everything and everything, we realized a restroom stop was needed. Of course...this was also when we reached a 20 mile stretch of nothingness. As my bladder cried out, we pulled over at a truck stop in the middle of nowhere. We didn't blend in well to say the least...at the truck stop in the middle of the agriculture fields, running around in our high heels and dresses.

Once we arrived, we joined the girls for a one-of-a-kind Bridal Shower Scavenger Hunt and a fun time welcoming our friend to the married club. There was running. There was screaming. There was pushing. There was cheering. It was a great time.

We learned all the roads in/around/to/from Fresno. Luckily, Joie brought along her portable GPS, who we lovingly called Garmin. Garmin was in a finicky mood and would sometimes take us on mini detours, driving around in circles, ("isn't this where we started...?") until we finally made it to our destination and home. Thank you Garmin. Despite your moodiness, we still love you.

We are heading back for the wedding in two weeks...let's see what adventures are in store for the next trip!

Fall Couch Potato

The Fall Season has started. How do I know this? Unfortunately I haven't seen any leaves change color yet...BUT, my shows have started again. And that? That makes me a very happy camper. This season, it is also making me one big couch potato. Sad, but true.

Thank goodness for DVRs. Oh technology...what would my life be without you?

In addition to my usual shows: Grey's Anatomy, CSI, The Office, Dancing with the Stars, The Bachelor, Desperate Housewives, Brothers & Sisters etc.

I now have a few new shows I'm "testing out" to see if I should keep my season pass. I'm secretly hoping I won't like them so much so I can decrease the time I spend watching my shows. At least DVRs and dual tuners are helping to make my life remain somewhat normal where I am not tied to the tube and continue doing my regular things and catch up later.

I'm very much looking forward to rainy cold nights cuddled up in a warm blanket on the couch working my way through my queue. I am okay with succumbing to the tube for a few months. Honestly, that sounds so great.

Monday, October 01, 2007

Breaking news?


The "breaking news" on CNN is that Britney Spears is losing custody of her children. Is this what our world is coming to?

What about the more important things going on in the world?

I feel bad that things have fallen apart so quickly for her and that she has made some really bad choices. It's really sad when KFed is considered the "responsible" parent.