Merry Christmas!

Here's wishing all our family and friends a Merry Christmas! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. The picture below is of me and my brothers with Santa. It has to be one of my favorite photos. I believe this was taken in 1976 or 1977. It's a classic!

Today, we spent some time with my mom's side of the family celebrating an early Christmas. It is always nice getting together with them and catching up. Some pictures to soon follow.

Jim Carrey's awesome website

I stumbled upon Jim Carrey's website. Check it out. It's pretty wicked!

Happy Birthday to my brothers!!

Wishing my brothers a very happy 34th birthday! Love you guys!

New Moon fever...

We are super excited that in a few weeks we will be heading to West Des Moines, IA for Thanksgiving. We already have our tickets purchased for the midnight showing of New Moon (thanks Kate!). This past weekend we met Loren, a very dear family friend for lunch at Grand Lux at Fashion Square Mall. We had a nice visit with Loren and his sister. After lunch we walked over to Nordstrom's and saw these life size cardboard of Edward and Jacob. We couldn't believe all the merchandise that Nordie's had...shirts and jewelry with Team Edward and Team Jacob. Of course we couldn't pass up a few shots with the life size cardboards of Edward and Jacob.

Joe and Edward ~ 10/31/09 Nordies

Oh, who to chose?! I don't think you can go wrong with either one. ; )

And on this day 4 years ago....

Christina and Joe met on-line using a dating website. We instant messaged for a while and proceeded to talk on the phone until 5am the following morning. We had our first date that evening and needless to say it was an instant connection.

This is a picture of the white roses he brought me on our first date. So beautiful. I wish they could've lasted forever.

This was our first New Years together and was taken while we were having dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.

The proposal...October 14, 2007 at Cheesecake Factory.

Now four years later we are married and very happy. I'm a very lucky woman to have found such a wonderful man. I love you babe!

12 of 12 IV: October 2009

It's 12 of 12 for October - yay! It seems that this is the only reason I update my blog. All I can say it's all because of the new crack called Facebook. Well, here's my day...not overly exciting despite being a holiday. We had to work (no holiday for us- bummer!) so I couldn't take too many shots at work. Some kind of HIPAA violation or something. : )

As always...credit for this fun concept goes to Chad Darnell, click here to see more 12 of 12 participants.

7:30am - Fresh from my Boot Camp Chicks workout and all set to leave for work.

8:30am - My niece Sophia who's seven years old sending me a few instant messages. Oh, to be a kid again and have every holiday off from school. Such the life.


11:00am - The daily AJ's run to satisfy our caffeine kick.

1:30pm - My hubby fresh from his dental appt. Look at those pearly whites!

4:30 pm - Watching Mad Men from the previous night...Love, Love, Love this show!!

5:15pm - I was checking out the registration for The Freaky 5K. Our normal plans for Halloween at my brothers isn't happening this year so my hubby and I are going to do this fun 5K walk/run.

5:30 pm - Random shot of our little patio. Yesterday we walked to our storage unit a few blocks down the road to bring our bikes to the apartment. It's that time to get out and ride.

6:00 pm - Attempting to launch Farm Town on Facebook. Boy, was it slow...

6:15 pm - Finally! My farm it coming along. I had some blueberries to harvest. Cha-Ching!

9:00 pm - Watching the Rachel Zoe Project. Another addictive show. How cool is my pic? I got both Rachel Zoe and Taylor in one shot. Drama, drama! Just gotta love it!

9:30 pm - I'm ending one pic short for this month. My final picture is of the projected weather for this weekend...101? Give me a break! I'm anxious for some 70 and 80 degree temps.

October already?

I can't believe it's already October. Our temps are still in the 90's but it's better than 100 degrees. Give us another week and we'll be sleeping with the windows open. I can't wait! We've been spending Saturday's watching my nephew Brycen play tackle football and he is loving it. He won his game today. Way to go Nitros!

I'm getting close to having to buy a new laptop. My power cord is not staying connected and it's causing it to go into battery mode therefore my screen keeps flickering which is highly irritating. It all started after the motherboard was replaced. Of course, the warranty is no longer active. I'm not too happy about this at all but pretty soon it's going to force me to break down and buy a new one as it's grating on my nerves and may be thrown out the window soon. Argh!

I've been working on getting my wedding scrapbook album done. I can't believe how many pictures we ended up with so it's been a bit challenging figuring out what pictures to include but I'd rather have too many. I'll post some pics of the pages completed as soon as I can.

12 of 12 IV: September 2009

I'm a bit late in getting my 12 of 12 done. It was a very busy and fun day so I'm going to make this short and sweet because it is seriously past my bedtime and I have to be up early for hike up North Mountain. Here's my day and check out the rest of the folks that participate in the 12 of 12 concept by Chad Darnell.

7:45am - Brycen slowly getting ready for his football game.

7:40am - My hubby helping Brycen fasten the belt on his football pants.

8:30am - It's me. Chillin' at the football field.

8:45am - Brycen is #62. The team warming up.

10:00am - Brycen running to his Center position.

10:15am - My hubby concentrating on the game.

11:40am - Brycen coming out of the family & friends tunnel. Oh, by the way the game was tied 14 - 14.

12:45pm - Brycen all showered up after the game and we joined mom at Manuel's for lunch.

2pm- Brycen hanging out waiting for grandma to arrive so we can hit the pool. It was another toasty day.

2:30pm - Brycen wanting to play a little frisbee in the pool. Game on!

3:30pm - We took a little break from the pool and played a few games of Uno. Those two in the picture are major cheaters! I had to keep my eye on them. : )

7:00pm - Dinner. Papa Murphy's pizza. Half pepperoni/sausage and BBQ Chicken. It was very yummy!

What's happening...

Do you remember what you were doing on Sept. 11, 2001 when you found out about the planes flying into the World's Trade Center? I do. I was home getting ready for work and turned on the TV which was out of the norm for me. It's usually the radio but I decided to listen to the Today show and that was when I sat on the edge of the bed completely shocked at the images being shown and what was being told to me. I'll never forget that moment and hours afterwards. I pray for all those that lost a loved one that day.

As we must move on...this weekend is more football. We are having Brycen spend the night and taking him to his game tomorrow. We hope they pull off another win. Joe's anxious to get home right after the game to see Notre Dame play Michigan. Brycen, Mom and I will plan something fun to do so we can get out of his hair and let him enjoy the game time.

Next weekend is a girls scrapbook weekend in Payson. I can't wait as I really need to work on our wedding and cruise album. Lots of organizing and photo printing to get done this next week.

Oh, tomorrow is 12 of 12. So, look for a post of 12 shots from my day. Bet you can guess what the main theme will be tomorrow. Yep, football. : )

It's been a while....

It's the start of fall with Labor Day holiday behind us, the kiddies back to school and fall TV closing in on us however it is still 100 degrees here in AZ and still feels like summer. However I will take 101 over 115. It doesn't sound like much but trust me there is a difference.

We spent Labor Day weekend on the home front. We watched our nephew Brycen win his first Pop Warner game-- Way to go Nitros! Joe camped out on the couch to take in all that College football had to offer and was so happy to see Notre Dame win their game(this makes for a very happy hubby- yay for me). We ran some errands and took some naps (which were much needed). I watched the Rocker starring Rainn Wilson and Christina Appelgate. I must say I enjoyed watching this much more than I thought I would and found myself laughing out loud.

These long weekends are great because they give me a chance to catch up on some recorded shows like Project Runway, Inside the Actor's Studio, What's Brian Bointano Cooking?, and of course Mad Men.

How great was the opening scene on this weeks episode of "The Arrangements" showing little Sally Draper driving Grandpa Gene's Lincoln!

We scheduled a trip to West Des Moines to visit Joe's family over the Thanksgiving holiday. We got a smokin' deal on airfare. I'm just hoping for some pretty decent weather meaning no snow! This AZ native is a stranger to that kind of weather although we did have snow when I lived in Texas but that was 25 or so year ago. We are super excited for the trip and can't wait to eat at a few of our favortie places and hit the huge scrapbook store....tenderloin sammie and Archivers here we come!

Brycen's Pop Warner scrimmage game

On 8/20/09, my nephew Brycen had his first Pop Warner scrimmage game. They have been practicing every night and every Saturday in sweltering heat for two weeks. Brycen did very well playing Center despite having a bronchial infection. The team didn't fare so well though and lost their scrimmage. Let's hope they can get it together for their first game on 8/29 and let's hope for some much cooler weather!

Brycen in uniform

Brycen coming in for a drink...man, was it hot. There was a breeze but it felt like a hairdryer blowing on you. Yuck!

If you look carefully you can see Brycen in center position.

My hubby while we are waiting for B's scrimmage game.

Joe and Piper. She loves her Joey!

Joe with Piper and Caitlyn. We will miss these girls. They were leaving the following day to live with their dad in Wyoming. : (

Keri and the girls

And me with the girls. Christmas can't come soon enough as it will be the next time we see them.

Go Cards!

Ciao ~ Christina

I'm testing to see if my cell will update my blog.
Ciao ~ Christina

12 of 12 IV: August 2009

Yes, it's the 12th of August so you get 12 photos of my day. It was a bit challenging because I am in Dallas for work and was in an all day meeting which didn't provide me with too much opportunity to snap some photos but I did manage to get 12 shots. I'm heading back to the dry heat of Phoenix tomorrow and can't wait because this humidity does nothing for my hair. : )

Credit for this concept goes to Chad Darnell, click here for more info.

7:20am CST- Smiling despite the fact my internal clock has not caught up with Central Time.

9:30 am - This was inside the women's bathroom stall. Apparantly it is necessary to provide a courtesy checklist on proper toilet use and I must say it was a very polite checklist.

This was outside the bathrooms. Nice to know where to go if a tornado touches down because I come from a state that has no major weather issues.

Mmmm, Panera Bread ice tea. My caffeine fix.

6:00pm - Dinner at Texas Land & Cattle with the work gang.

The view from my hotel room. The green awnings are of the Dart Rail System that can take you downtown. The window was super dirty so the shot isn't very good.

8:00pm - Checking my farms on Facebook.

8:30pm - Watching Wipeout. Nothing much on TV...

so, I decided to read the USA Today.

10:30pm - I took a little walk outside the hotel and they have this neat water and light display that dances to music beats. People like to run through the water to see if they can avoid getting wet. It didn't work out to well for a few people.

More dancing water

11:00pm - Watching Big Brother 11 on Showtime After Dark. I was surprised to find that the hotel had Showtime becuase typically they have HBO. Sweet!