The One with the 2009 Wrap Up

It feels like only yesterday everyone was singing "gonna party like it's 1999." How has it been ten years, an entire decade, since then? Time is flying.

2009 has been a great year. So many wonderful things have happened, lots of changes, lots of good times, lots of memories. Here's a photo collage Picasa made for me with my favorite photos from 2009.

And today I scrapbooked and already tried out one of my 2010 goals: I used patterned paper! These are my two monthly layouts for American Crafts.

Let It Snow

Just Cruising Along...

HAPPY NEW YEAR'S EVE!

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The One with New Year 2010 Resolutions

I figure if I put these goals in writing I might actually adhere to them! So without further ado, I present my lofty goals for the year 2010:

PERSONAL GOALS

-Patience. I'm so bad at this right now. All around I need to work on patience: while driving, with the animals, with Chris (sorry I'm a monster babe!), while working, while shopping, while cleaning, so on and so forth. Be patient!

-Try and live a stress-free life and realize there are 24 hours in the day to accomplish everything. Sort of goes hand-in-hand with patience.

-Try one new recipe per week.

SPIRITUAL GOALS

-Monthly temple attendance; hit up the LA, Newport Beach, Redlands, San Diego, and maybe Fresno, Oakland, and Sacramento temples.

-100% church attendance and visiting teaching.

-Attend more church activities.

-Read scriptures daily.

FINANCIAL GOALS

-Stick to our budget like glue, like a moth to the flame, like, like, like something else that sticks to something else.

-Pay off our car puhlease!

SCRAP GOALS

-Use more patterned paper.

-Make two layouts and two cards per week whether for personal or assigned projects.

-Submit to magazines and hopefully get published.

CRAFT GOALS

-Host another bookbinding workshop.

-Learn to crochet and make a scarf and hat.

PHYSICAL GOALS

-Exercise 1/2 hour at a time, three days a week (ha).

-Do one outdoorsy thing per month (we're such homebodies...) like go to the beach, hike, go camping in our brand spanking new Christmas present tent and sleeping bags.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

(almost)

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The One with Hambly Studios Cards

Here are some cards I made for a recent issue of CARDS using Hambly Studios stuff. I LOVE Hambly Studios. Their products are so bright and fun and colorful and trendy and easy to use and goes perfectly with everything....swoon.

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The One with "Snap Back to Reality, Oh There Goes Gravity, Oh..."

Gotta love some old school Eminem. Did I ever listen to Eminem growing up? No. But those songs sure are catchy and get stuck in my head like *that*.

We're back in sunny SoCal. No time to post on Saturday, too busy shopping for my Malm. No internet to post on Sunday cuz we were driving all-the-live-long-day. No time to post until right now, Monday night, cuz I had to work all day. So I'magonna recap the past couple days.

Saturday my mom got home from work at noon and we headed out to Bellevue Square. The reason for sharing the below photo is threefold: 1) This is Bellevue. 2) This is Bellevue when the sky is blue and the sun is shining (a rarity in these parts of the world). 3) Check out the moon in between the buildings - picturesque!

We got some lunch first, we needed our energy, then we hit up Ann Taylor, J. Crew, Ann Taylor Loft, Macy's, and Target.

We accomplished what we set out to do and word on the street is Malm got many a comment on Sunday at church for her ultra hip outfit. We done good.

Saturday night we got some yummy Thai food at a place I'd never been to before in Redmond but will probably go back to again cuz it was good. Then we took off. Bye bye Redmond! One week of vacation was not enough and I'm looking at flights on Alaska Air as we speak cuz I need to be able to look forward to my next trip home. Direct flights from LAX to Seattle are only $59 each way. That's a killer deal. Schaweeeet! Anyways, back to the story, we stopped in Lake Oswego to say hello to Chris' paternal grandparents (hi Grandpa Jay and Grandma Marge, so good to see you, thank you for reading!), then we drove a few more miles to Salem to spend the night at Chris' sister's house. Thank you Bethany and Peter for the presents, the room to sleep in, the mints on the pillows, and for letting Joey terrorize your dogs...sorry 'bout that....

On Sunday we woke up at 6am and continued on our drive. It's so easy to get from WA to CA/vice versa. You take the I-5 all the way up/down. We'll never need directions again. Although I'm seriously considering ever repeating this drive. 20 hours in a car = insanity! Plus we almost got in a serious accident yesterday that could potentially have been fatal. I'm soooo glad it wasn't our time and I'm thanking my lucky stars we made it home alive, safe, and sound. It was about 7:30 in the morning, just as the sun was coming up. We were cruising at 70 mph up into the mountains of southern Oregon, just before Mount Shasta.

It was pretty cold outside, but there wasn't any signs of snow or ice or rain. Everything was fine and dandy. All of a sudden we lost traction and started swerving back and forth across all three lanes of the freeway. There were accidents all over the place in the ditch and I thought we were going to add to the mayhem. Somehow Chris managed to keep swerving back and forth until we got traction again and we continued on our journey. I guess it really is true about ice forming on bridges, because there wasn't ice anywhere else except on that bridge where we almost died. Rachel would have missed us.

Somewhere in California we saw tons and tons and tons of birds flying south for the winter. "Flying V!"

Then it was back to the grindstone. I worked a full shift today (usually I only work the afternoon shift) and stuffed thousands of envelopes with 1099 forms. Fuuuun!

Whelp. That was our Christmas 2009 vacation. Tons of fun, forever memorialized here on my bloggity blog so I can look back on it forever. Now I'm gonna go do some of this:

Sleep.

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The One with the Christmas 2009 in WA

Chris and I were the first ones awake at 6am on this beautiful Christmas morning. I guess we're still 5-year-olds at heart.

Allie recently decided she finds Brandon Boyd (the lead singer of Incubus) attractive. Back in high school I shared the same infatuation so I created an ink drawing of him my senior year for my AP Art portfolio. I passed this drawing on to her for Christmas. Ow ow!

The best present I got is top secret and I literally can't even say what it is until at least January 5th. You can bet your bottom dollar I'll be blogging about it as soon as I get the A-OK from my dad.

It's true what "they" say though - giving is better than receiving. A couple months ago I was figuring out what to get everyone in my family and I was having a hard time deciding what to get for my mom, a.k.a Malm. Suddenly I had the brilliant idea that we should treat her with her very own version of What Not to Wear. Every day she wishes she had new clothes and every day she wears some form of gray or black, or a sweater that she bought years ago (I'm talkin' 1996 and earlier...). Me-thinks it's about time for an upgraded wardrobe! I texted Allie and asked her what she thought, got her stamp of approval, then I texted Dald to see if he'd fund the present. He had to mull it over for a few hours, but coincidentally within that time Malm complained to Dald about her clothes and he decided this would be the perfect Christmas present. It's been fun planning out the details behind her back. At one point she told us she had to work all day Saturday (the day of our intervention and shopping spree) but I told her absolutely no way, she HAD to get the day off. Which led her to believe that she was going to a play or show of some sort. Sure Malm, that's it!

Let me just say that I think my Malm is divine. She's the most patient, loving, caring, beautiful woman in the whole wide world. And I know it's so totally super shallow of me to say that I only wish she'd dress better. I mean, what do I know, I'm no Stacy London or Clinton Kelly. Heck, I used to go to school in MY DAD'S T-SHIRTS! It wasn't until about 7th grade that I realized clothes were important to me. My feelings about this transformation for my Malm were reaffirmed when she came walking down the hall in this:

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huuuuge fan of scrubs. I love being comfortable. I change into sweatpants the second I get home. But wearing sweatpants inside out because "she has a texture thing"? Oh boy. I'm sure we can find some sort of comfortable and fashionable material to lounge around in Malm :)

And so, on this lovely Christmas morning, Malm opened up ten different envelopes in numerical order.

Each envelope contained a picture of a $100 bill with a word written on it: 1)This 2)money 3)is 4)for 5)your 6)very 7)own 8)version 9) of 10)What Not to Wear. Of course she started crying, that's what she does, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Once we got home from the cabin, and after our failed attempt at seeing Sherlock Holmes (sold out! Bummer!) we raided Malm's closet. We ransacked her closet. We pillaged and pilfered her closet. We took out over half of her clothes and shoes. When I recognized shirts and sweaters from when I was in elementary school, that means they had to go.

She's still got a handful of grey/black items to keep her sanity.

And we left her with what we deemed her most stylish and fresh tops, which is actually a lot.

But the rest was put into 10 (yes TEN!) garbage bags and driven to the DI trailer this evening.

Watch out Bellevue Square, cuz tomorrow, we're comin' to get my Malm a whole new wardrobe!

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The One with the Thursday (Christmas Eve) in WA

It was frosty this morning!

First thing's first - we headed down to Target for our annual $5 gift exchange. Malm found these super cute $5 Target gift card coins which we all spent on our randomly chosen family member. We came home, wrapped the presents, and we'll open them up tonight during our evening Christmas Eve festivities.

"Then one foggy Christmas Eve, Santa came to say...."

We stopped off at the Sultan Bakery on the way to the cabin and Malm treated us to doughnuts/chocolate milk/chocolate chip cookies.

Too bad we were all full from breakfast else we would have ordered these GINORMOUS pancakes! Seriously, 12" across. The people who got these just left them!

Eric makes really ugly faces. Meanwhile Allie always looks cute.

Here we are in the car on the way to Lake Wesnatchee. I mean Wenatchee.

The mattress/bed frame on top of the car started coming loose so we had to pull over and Dald fixed it. Joey was entranced.

We've never had the chance to snuggle with Joey in the car cuz we always sit in the front, but today we got to be with him!

He likes us! He really really likes us!

When Joey sleeps his ears relax and go flat. This is how we know he's actually asleep.

Cabin Sweet Cabin.

Dald decked it to the nines.


We wonder what kind of animal left these tracks. They're in pairs, not staggered like normal steps....Hmmmm?

Snowy Joey likes the snow! He loves running around and smelling everything.

The cabin is nice and toasty inside cuz Dald left the heat on (purposefully) last time he came up.



We played a couple rounds of BANG. Thanks for making an ugly face Eric!

Attempt #2. Thanks for making an ugly face Chris!

While the honey-baked ham was cooking we bundled up for our 2009 family photo. First destination: the porch.

Second destination: we drove down the street to an open field where Allie had envisioned a little something.

We brought out two chairs, set them in the snow and snapped these.

This one is my personal fave. I like how you can see the scenery. And Joey is looking at the camera.

Third and final destination: we drove down the street the opposite direction to a spot overlooking the lake. This is my second fave. I like the scenery in the other one better. But I like the lighting of this one.

Joey kisses before he found a mouse trap with a dead mouse under our designated bed....ew. His lips will not be touching mine ever again. I love how he's not even looking at me, he's just like, "Do I HAVE to?"

Lake Wenatchee

Chris, Paige, and Joey - 12/24/09

Back at the cabin we fell asleep while Malm slaved away in the kitchen and I started blogging.

Malm made potato skins from The Pioneer Woman Cookbook. They're soooo good.

We also had honey-baked ham, peas, rolls, and Martinelli's apple cider.

For dessert and fun we drove 25 miles to the Bavarian village of Leavenworth to get caramel apples from Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory and to see the sights.

I love this town at all times of the year, but the lights displayed at Christmas really are something special.

Merry Christmas Eve!

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