Celebrating Grandpa

Grandpa had another birthday and we wanted to celebrate with him so we did. I made a simple cake and we snag to him and we enjoyed each others company. It was a bit sad that we didn't have any candles for his cake but he pretended like a champ and we had a lot of fun. So Happy Birthday Grandpa - we'll do a better job celebrating next year!

Thanksgiving Lunch

When I was a kid, I loved the cafeteria Thanksgiving lunch and begged my mom to let me buy it every year. The other great thing is that parents are encouraged to have lunch with their kids on this special lunchtime. Lorne and I were so excited to go and have lunch with Jasmine on her special Thanksgiving lunch day. Now, I guess I had a different palate as a kid - the food wasn't the worst ever but it certainly wasn't as good as I remembered it. But our daughter in her pilgrim hat? Gorgeous!

Violin Update

Jasmine has pretty much mastered her twinkles and in a group class she volunteered to do a little performance for the class. I was so proud of her. She has come a long way and I am excited about her learning new songs now!

Lindsay's Baby Shower

While we are on the subject of amazing good friends, let me tell you about Lindsay's baby shower. Lindsay and I became friends about a year and a half ago and she also became my employee for a time (we miss her at OC) and since we became so close I offered to throw her a baby shower. You all know I love any excuse to party! It is the Latina in me I suppose.
It was a lot of fun and it was great for Lindsay to get out of her house as she had been home bound trying to reduce contractions and let baby Luke cook in her belly a little longer before coming out to meet us.
I chose a Giraffe theme and it was so cute! The food was yummy ( a big thank you to my husband for making the quiches for us) and the cake was cute too!We played a couple of games. The first one entailed drinking apple juice out of a baby bottle for two minutes and whoever drank the most won. It was so fun to watch them play and the winner (Lindsay's friend Jaime) drunk a lot of juice! I was impressed!The second one was to create a baby out of playdoh to look like what you thought baby Luke would look like. It was really funny and the ladies were super creative. Jeanene won this task with her very shall we say detailed version of a baby boy.Lindsay then cut the cake and opened presents. I had a lot of fun and hope everyone else did too. I just love celebrating babies and new life and friends...it brings me great joy to see people so happy.

National Harbor and Goodbye

It was Monday and that afternoon Jeff & Jill would be flying home back to their kids and away from us. We decided that one more adventure would be fun so we headed to National Harbor to walk around and show Jeff & Jill what it was all about since it was not finished being built when they moved away.
We walked around to all the shops and down by the water to the Awakening and then finally into the Peeps store - which is always a big hit with the girls.It was then time to say goodbye and it was hard to do but we knew that we would be seeing them again as soon as we could and that our friendship can survive anything.

Temple Time

Sunday after church, we decided to go up to the temple to really bring the spirit into our Sabbath day. We went up and watched the Joseph Smith movie and walked around the Visitor's Center. It was so peaceful and we could see they were beginning to put up their Christmas trees for the holiday season.It was so nice to share this time with Jeff & Jill and to think about how through the Savior our families can be forever and our friendships eternal as well.

Jeff & Jill Come for a Visit!

We have been missing Jeff & Jill since they moved. We wished them well when they left and secretly (or not so secretly) hoped they would return here someday after Jeff's studies were completed. This hope was not to be realized. Jeff took a job in Utah after he completed his MBA and now the cute family has a lovely home and roots they are planting too far away from us.
That being said, we vowed to keep our friendship strong and do everything we can to get together at least once a year.
This time it was their turn to come to us and we were glad to have them for the weekend. First order of business was to have fun and we decided to go to Montpelier to visit the home of James Madison.They were having a steeple chase horse race on the grounds that day so we would hear the crowds cheering and the steeple chase call and it really set the mood.
We took a tour of the house and realized that they were still in the process of restoring this landmark and consequently much of the house wasn't furnished yet. That didn't matter, it was still interesting and the grounds of the house were fabulous.We strolled the gardens and took lots of pictures and took in the lovely scenery that is the countryside in Virginia.On our way back, we stopped in Manassas to have dinner at The City Square Cafe (somehow in all the years we had been friends Jeff had never been to my Uncle and Aunt's restaurant) and enjoyed the company of our friends.