Merry Christmas!

Hope your stocking is filled with something great!

Vacation!

It is amazing how quickly you can get to work when there is no traffic. This morning I was running around my apartment like a chicken with my head cut off – trying to finish all my last minute packing (I was not left with much time last night, when I got home at 9:45pm from my work Christmas party). It is a good thing my roommates have already left because my stuff seamed to have exploded all over the apartment. After managing to cram it all into the suitcases I looked at the clock only to realize that I was extremely late. Like I was actually late to leave – normally I leave between 7:50 and 7:55 – it was 8:05. YIKES!!! I thought I would never make it to work.

I don’t handle being late very well – so I gave myself a pep talk about how it was ok that I was going to be late because I was packing yada yada it would have been done but we had a work Christmas party. Boy was I shocked when I pulled into the parking structure at 8:20am. I think I hit every possible light green and passed maybe 10 cars on my way – I don’t think anyone else has to work today.

So now I am here at work being so productive by blogging, and counting down the hours until 1pm when I will leave and officially be on Christmas vacation (and get to hold little Gavin) until next year. I have not had this many days off since college (granted that was not that many years ago) I am so excited!

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas!

The Weekend Events

The Christmas celebrations just keep on coming. Here is the rundown: Friday night we went to check out some wonderful Christmas lights. Major thanks go out to Lisa Brown he gave us directions to what I do believe may be some of the best displays of Christmas lights ever.

I can tell I am getting older because the minute we pulled up in front of these house which had every square inch of their property covered with one form of light or another, my first thought was, "man I wonder what there electricity bill is?" Yeah that's right I am full fledged electric bill paying adult.

My favorite part about these two houses is that they were playing Christmas music. You may be wondering how in the world we would hear the Christmas lights if we were driving/sitting in our car.................but naturally with the curiosity level of Angela we could not simply drive by with all the other cars. We had to be unique - we parked and then strolled around the lovely displays - which as I said earlier was made much more enjoyable by the music.

I must have gotten really smart over the weekend, because looky there riding on that camel I look like one of the wise men.

Since I know the rest of the world is getting covered in a deep blanket of snow, I would like to point out how cold it is here in southern California - you can practically see the coldness in this photo.

Celebrate Good Times Come On!

This post is worthy of celebration for many reasons. First of all it is officially my 100th blog post. I don’t really know if that is a big deal, but TV shows always make a big deal about reaching there 100the episode so I decided to make a big deal out of it. CONGRATULATIONS to me!

Reason to celebrate number two, today one of my coworkers became an official citizen of the United States. She passed her test and got sworn in. I learned a lot via her becoming a citizen – until now I did not know how any of it worked, so thanks to her I am fully educated in US citizenship.

Finally the third and final (quite possibly best) reason to celebrate today……if you are thinking I am going to say it’s FRIDAY, well you would be wrong. It’s Rachel’s birthday!!! For the next five months all members of the Penthouse will be 23 – I have to throw this out there because Rachel really likes to make it known that Angela and I are her elders and she is rapidly growing old and shrively. Not quite sure what that says about me?

Rachel and I suffer from opposite extreme problems, which makes cohabitating in the same apartment somewhat interesting. I am always hot (of course I mean more than just in appearance, but thanks for thinking I am attractive) and Rachel on the other hand is always cold. She often thinks the apartment is negative 100 degrees (her bed no joke has 7 blankets on it – and it always looks like there is a body under the covers which can be really creepy when you come home at the end of the day to a dark apartment empty all except the body like figure under the covers). Therefore this Christmas/Birthday Angela and I took it upon ourselves to prepare her for winter, with a plethora of cold weather items including an electric blanket.


Happy Birthday Rach!!

Dancing Queen

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Christmas Party - Penthouse Style

Friday night Angela, Rachel and I hosted a lovely Christmas party at our apartment. The first challenge of the night was figuring out how we were going to get all 25 guest into our teeny apartment. There was some furniture rearanging which left us with some broken decorations. But all ended well......................everyone fit very nicely and it was grand party. Here are some candid photos from through out the night. Covering all events including the gingerbread house contest and the gift exchange.

When It Rains It Pours

This morning I awoke like any other Monday morning, not wanting to go to work. Rachel told me it was raining and I snickered – thinking it was most likely drizzling. Since we don’t really get much rain here in southern CA. Then I looked out side and saw the downpour that was occurring. No fun! Thankfully I have a massive golf umbrella to keep me dry. As I descended the stairs from my apartment I was met with a frightful sight. Our apartment is located on the bottom side of a small rise, and because of that the path which I had to follow to get to the parking lot was submerged in a good 6-8 inches of water. There was absolutely no way to get around the puddle I had to go right through it. Naturally I was wearing flat shoes without socks. I thought maybe if I walked on my toes my whole foot/shoe would not get wet. No such luck on my first step my whole shoe filled with water. So gross!

After I sloshed my way through the winding path that led to the parking lot – I was forced to cross the rushing river that used to be the parking lot to get to my car. Whew I made it to my car and thanks to my umbrella I was dry minus my feet and shoes. So I took of my shoes put them on the floor next to the vent and cranked the heat. Needless to say the commute was extra slow due to the rain. I left a good 10 minutes earlier than normal and arrived 10 minutes late. Nothing like a good 50 minutes to go 6 miles. Most of the roads I traversed were covered with 1-2 inches of water (I had needed a car wash but no longer). Then I hit this lovely intersection which was completely under water. Seriously the car in front of me the water was above his tires. My car is still a little new to me I did not know if it had great submarine like qualities yet as this was the first rain I have driven it in. But I am happy to report that I traversed the lake like puddle just fine.

The best part of the whole thing was I arrived at work late – but figured it was no big deal everyone would be a little late due to the insane rain right. Well it was not raining at work one bit. Not even a little drizzle. Completely dry. Everyone was already at there desks taping away at their computers when I got there. How is it possible that it is practically flooding where I live a few miles away and it is completely dry here? My rain excuse was not truly understood by my coworkers, they had a hard time believing the rain was as bad as I made it sound. Ye of little faith.

At Last!

I was awakened this morning to a door bell at 4:42am. My first response was who in the world is at our door at this hour? Then I remembered we don’t have a door bell at our apartment……..what in the world. Oh wait my text messages make a door bell noise. My thoughts immediately jump to frustration…………who would text message me at this hour? “Seriously this is way to early.” If you did not notice already, I am not completely coherent when awoken in the early hours. I opened my phone and see that the message is from my mom and immediately realize it must be about Lindsey/Gavin. Ok I read the message and was a little confused by what it said (something about “them” breaking her water) until I realized I had slept through the earlier message I had gotten informing me that they were at the hospital and she was getting her epidural (ok so the “them” was the doctor – not Kevin and my mom – you may think I am crazy but remember it was early in the morning and just days earlier I had joked that I was going to break her water with my knitting needle to get things moving along). I rolled over said a little prayer for Lindsey and went back to sleep.

When I awoke 2 hours later to my alarm I thought he would have been born already. I double checked my phone to make sure I did not sleep through any more texts. Nothing……hhhmmm how long does it take to get him out of there?

I went along getting ready, sent a little message to momma making sure I did not miss anything. And then whala as I was driving to work I got a cryptic message that said 8lbs 15.5oz. Good thing I am such a good detective I was able to figure out what this meant. It was of course followed by this lovely pic.

Gavin Edward Holt
12/12/08
8lbs 15.5ozs 22in

The (Holiday) Show

Last night was the December/Christmas edition of “The Show.” Angela and I attend like last time, and got the royal treatment with reserved seating as well. I could definitely get used to that kind of life. Since most of you are unable to attend “The Show” which I so highly recommend I have put together a few clips for you. The following are two digital shorts that have appeared on “The Show” at one time or another, staring Jake. Enjoy!

Tree Number Three

This week has been and continues to be extremely busy. I feel like I have waited all year for December to come around so that I can enjoy the holiday season – and then December gets here and it is just so jam pack full of stuff that it goes by way too fast. One of my multiple activities last night included helping Ashleyann decorate her Christmas tree. It was supposed to be a gathering of all of the women in our grace group, however some of them ended up getting sick, so it was really only four of us. But we still had a grand ol time. It ended up being one of the most fancy trees I have ever partaken in decorating.

Tori and I got a little tangled in the lights.

I got to do the honors of putting the angel on the top of the tree, but first it had to be trimmed down.

Naturally with a tree so lovely we had to take turns poseing with it.

Angela

and me

I think that Ashleyann thought we were going to work up a major appetite decorating the tree, she made cookies, cherry cobbler and brownies for us. What a treat!



After the tree was finished we sat around chatting, drinking coffee and eating all while enjoying the holiday ambiance (aka the tree and Christmas music). It was so nice to relax and enjoy the girls company for a short while - before rushing off to catch the 10pm showing of "The Show."

Tree Troubles

Here is installation two of stories from Phoenix:

Lindsey had pulled out all of the Christmas decorations for our arrival, all that was needed was a tree. Unfortunately for you I do not have a picture to accompany this tale – oh how I wish I did. I guess that just means I have to do a really really good job of describing it to you. Alright here we go. The five of us (Kevin, Lindsey, Reid, Nate and I) piled into the Camry and headed out to Home Depot to get a Christmas Tree. That in it of itself was probably a site – seeing all of us LARGE people pile out of the car probably looked something akin to a clown car.

Upon arrival the tree is picked out – and manicured, it needed to lose a few branches on the bottom. Now this is your average Christmas tree, not overly wide, on the thinner side not extremely heavy but probably about 6 feet tall. The man who trimmed the tree kindly gave us a piece of plastic twine to tie it to the roof of our car. Then he asked if we need another one. It was determined that yes we would indeed need two pieces of string to secure the tree properly.

While waiting in line we realize that the HD worker was so extremely generous in his string cutting. One piece was apprx. 2 feet long and the other may have been 4. Now please explain to me how a 2 foot long piece of string is going to help us tie a tree to the roof of a car? Yeah I don’t think it will. Did we go back and ask for more? Of course not the guys were determined that they could get the tree home without tying it down.

Now I know what you are thinking – your probably picturing a car loaded down with people traveling at oh 4.8 miles an hour trying not to loose the tree sitting loosely on their roof. As funny as that would have been, that is not the case here. With Nate in the front and Reid in the back they rolled down their windows reached out and held on to the tree. Thankfully the Holt home is very close to HD. As we exited the HD parking lot and started to venture across the street we see multiple police cars about a block down. Is it illegal to hold a Christmas tree on top of your car? Yeah we don’t know either. Instead of risking it we quickly diverted through the Albertsons parking lot only to be given many questioning looks as we cruised right through to the Holt home.

We arrived in record time with the tree and all appendages intact. The best part about this adventure was that it took aprox. 2 seconds to get the tree down from the car. No hassling with the cords or knots. Pretty sweet! Maybe you should give it a go next year.

Take Me To Your Leader

Ok so I have never been the type of girl who just drops everything or rearranges their schedule for a guy. Until now that is. Gavin is not even born yet (yes that is right – still after a trip to AZ not here) and I have been changing my schedule left and right to accommodate him. But in the end it is ok because I had a great weekend despite the fact that he has evidently decided to permanently retain residence in my sister.

I shall try to catch you up on all the happenings of the weekend – but it may happen in multiple posts, as I have many good stories to tell. Lets start with the drive over. As I said in the last post Lindsey and Kevin organized a lovely carpool, I met up with Nate and Reid and got the pleasure of being a backseat passenger for the entire trip. To me road trips are so much more enjoyable when I don’t have to drive. I hate driving.

So we have been on the road for a good couple of hours it is getting late and it is extremely dark. Then it happened. We were abducted by aliens. Ok maybe that is stretching it but we did see a UFO. All of the sudden out of nowhere there is this bright light straight in front of us just floating in the sky. All three of us tip our heads a little and sit staring trying to figure out what it is. After about 3.287 minutes of staring it gets dim. What is the world could it be? It is way to bright to be a star. It is not moving whatsoever so that rules out a plane and there is absolutely nothing else around us besides desert.

At this point we unanimously decided it is a UFO and watch it with a heightened intensity. What will it do? Where will it go? It just sat there in mid air for about five minutes and then all of the sudden it starts shooting straight up at light speed. We see it for another 2.8963 minutes and then it is out of our view for good.

It made for quite an exciting road trip probably my one and only UFO sighting in my life.

My Second Home

This evening I am headed back out to Arizona. Thankfully Kevin and Lindsey were able to round up a carpool for me, so I don’t have to drive myself (since Jake and I did that last weekend). At this point Lindsey is not actually in Labor, but the signs are showing that it could be anytime now. So I am not taking any chances on missing Gavin’s grand entrance into the world. And it sounds like there will be a pretty big crew there to welcome him.

I will be sure to put some great photos up if and when he is born. Because I know you are all dying to see him pretty much just as much as I am. I actually know that is why you are reading this blog, you have no interest in me or my life what so ever – it is all about Gavin. It’s ok I don’t blame you he is a lot more interesting than I.

Crazy Cards

Three weeks later I am almost finished with my Christmas cards. And boy did they change from original plan. After spending 3 hours (no exaggeration here) cutting out Christmas trees I discovered that it was not going to work out how I wanted. But of course at this point I had invested so much time into the trees I did not want to completely scrap them; I had to figure out a new way to use them.

Many trials and many errors later I reached an alternative design. And I am pleased with the way the turned out. Although they are a lot smaller in size than I had intended the look pretty good. Now I just have to write in them and send them off. Hhhmmm it may take some doing to find all of the necessary addresses – I should get organized and write them all down in an address book, but no. Every year I email my mom and have her give them too me. Ha she must love it.

Sorry the photo quality is not very great here - I promise they look better in person. Who knows you may be on my list, and getting one of your very own. If your Lucky.

Next project: shower invitations.
I have decided that simple is good, hopefully avoiding the issues I had with the Christmas cards.
But no worries Lindsey just because they are going to be simple does not mean they will not look AMAZING!

Tis the Season

Now that Thanksgiving has passed it is time to get ready for Christmas. Last night we dug out the great green bin from the bottom of our storage closet. This bin held all of our Christmas decoration – the best part about decorating for Christmas is that you forget all of the great decorations that you have. Or in our case we forgot what we had because we purchased most of them at the after Christmas sales last year and have never used them. We have a miniature tree.

And lots of other festive things, that have brought quite a glow to our little apartment.

It is now time to enjoy all Christmas music all the time……………….well until Dec. 26th that is.

The Morning After

Today I was faced with the harsh reality of going back to work. Not a dream come true. Besides having to wake up early and go to work I realized that I had very little edible food available in my apartment. That made making lunch somewhat of a challenge, but after a quick scavenger hunt through my cupboards, the fridge and the freezer I was able to pull together something somewhat edible looking.

But all those unpleasantries were well worth the four fun days I got to spend in Phoenix. I was however unable to sweet talk Gavin out of his warm watery home. He has evidently decided that he does not want to listen to his Auntie Mandy.

You probably all already read Lindsey's blog about the weekend - for once she beat me to the punch. I guess me sitting in traffic for 10 hours with no Internet gave her a bit of a head start. Therefore this may be old news for you all, with that in mind I will just give a brief recap of some of our amazing activities followed by none other than and AMAZING photo slide show.

1. Jake and Mandy arrive in Phoenix (everyone goes to bed)

2. We lounge, drink coffee with peppermint mocha creamer, watch tv and paint picture frames

3. Head to the Schells' house - it was basically like walking into a Pottery Barn catalog

4. Eat far too much and of course miss Grandma Floch's AMAZING mashed potatoes

5. Watch Home alone

6. Lindsey and I decided to head out at 11pm to the outlet mall (it opened at 11pm) but quickly turned around when we saw that the freeway was backed up due to traffic into said mall. We were not that ambitious.

7. Drink more coffee -watch more TV-paint another layer on the frames

8. Go shopping

9. Have a mexican feast, as is our family tradition to eat mexican food day after Thanksgiving

10. Watch Elf and knit

11. Drink coffee yet again, bust many a myths, head out to Frontier Land

12. Enjoy the Glendale Glitter Spectacular

13. Eat really good pizza

14. Rearrange the Holts furniture

15. Go to Church (yes I drank coffee again)

16. Have lunch with Kathy at her new favorite restaurant

17. Endure 10 agonizing hours of traffic home.