New Years Eve

Happy New Years Eve!

When Angela left for Christmas, she left behind a pretty package with a card saying this:

After  a phone conversation to confirm....the small typo it was confirmed that I get to open it today, December 31st. Last week I moved it to under the tree and forgot about it. Until this morning when I walked to the kitchen to get my coffee, I caught a glimpse of the pink tissue paper and remember. Today, I could open it today, yay! So open it I did.

YUMMY!!! So tomorrow I will be starting out the new year 10 pounds heavier. Thanks Ang!!

Today's funny story comes to you by way of Birch Street. Elizabeth and I met up earlier today to have lunch and see a movie. When we headed into the theater, we quickly noticed that we were the only people under the age of oh say 50-60. And it was a full theater, were not talking like we were two of 10 people. It was funny. And so was the movie. The King's Speech. It was fantastic, but really parts of it were really really funny, so we laughed. Hard. Out loud (other people did too). I don't think the man in front of us appreciated it. Either that or he just thought it was strange that we were there. When we walked in straight up until the previews began, and while we walked out he gave us the stare down. Like  turned around in his seat, intense, squinted eye stare down. Very strange.

pam in the yellow can

I like to bake. I do it somewhat often. Especially mint brownies, they are a personal and family fav. Often times they are my contribution to Christmas dessert. This year was no different. Christmas morning, post delicious Christmas sweet roll, and stocking time I set out to make them. I had the brownies made, had the stone out to bake them in, I was ready to go, all that I needed was the Pam.

Mom has changed many things around the house, especially the kitchen since I left years ago for college, but the cooking spray is still located in the same spot. Under the sink. I opened the cupboard, grabbed the yellow can, and sprayed the stone. I was set. Until, I smelled it. The sweet smell of lemon. I looked down at the can hand and what did I see? Not the Pam..........but the Pledge? GROSS! I am pretty sure Furniture polish and cooking spray are not interchangeable.

Now enter the real problem, you are not supposed to use soap to clean the stone, just water. How in the world was I going to get rid of the generous layer of lemony fresh pledge that I had just coated the pan in with just water? Many scribblings, soakings, and sniffing later the lemon sent was gone. I had the ok from the fam that it was probably alright to cook in. Mom was kind enough to put away the pledge and get out the Pam for me, just to make sure I used the right yellow can this time.

As it turns out it was one of my best batches of mint brownies, ever. Extra gooey. I hardly think it had anything to do with the pledge, but who knows, maybe it gave it just that little something extra :)

you've got mail

While I was away I had our mail held at the post office.......so it didn't build up and shout "rob us we are not home." It was to resume normal service Tuesday. I figured we would have a lot of mail, well maybe not a lot a lot, but a few days worth. What I did not expect was this:

FIVE packages on our doorstep, and another small one in the mail box. Now tell me who doesn't get excited over packages? I rarely get any, usually when they arrive they are for Rachel. But with six, I still held out a small hope that maybe one was for me. Could it be a late Christmas gift? pretty please!!

HA! No such luck. The only thing waiting for me was a bill, wheres the fun in that?

In fact Nathan, who does not technically live in this state yet, is now officially getting more mail at our house than me.

Some of those puppies were really quite heavy, I count bringing them inside as my strength training for the day.

*Lucky you Ang one of the packages is yours!!

early early, too early

I have had my fair share of early morning flights. It's always one of those things that totally sucks, but in the long run is worth it. No one wants to get up at 3:45am, but why sleep when you could be spending time with the fam.........in the snow? So the first flight out it is. Of course I had my morning cup of coffee as I was running around the house getting ready, cramming all the last minute things into my suitcase, triple checking that all the doors were locked, giving the tree one last gulp of water, and making sure the heat was turned off. But alas it was not enough to fully wake me up. Or it's caffinated effects only lasted until about 7am.

At which point I was on the plane, mid air from John Wayne to Portland (gotta love no direct flights to Spokane). It was time for beverage service. Of course I wanted coffee.......who wouldn't. The flight attendant kindly handed me my cup and grabbed it moved to put it in the tiny little dented area designated for cups. But alas I missed, perhaps my lack of sleep was causing a problems with my depth perception, I can't really blame it on the plane sadly because we were cruisin smooth. About half of my cup landed in the divot and the other half up and out, so of course it toppled over when I touched the tray. And my oh so smooth reflexes tried to pick it up quickly and only made it spill out the last 1/4 inch of coffee that was left inside.

My tray table was covered, my right thigh was soaking wet, and the worst part was that I spilled it all over the man next to me. Geez Luise! His left leg had some really nice wet splotches on it. Strangely he did not feel them, nor see my making a complete mess [he had headphones on and was maybe sleeping]. I did my best to mop up my tray table and leg with the stack of miniature napkins they gave me, but then what about man next to me? Should I wake him up and tell him I spilled on him, or should I let him wake on his own two hours later and wonder where the brown spots on his leg came from?

The situations I find myself in! Thankfully he woke up a minute later and I was able to tell him. He was kind, but not thrilled of course. Where I had on dark jeans, that allowed the spill to go unnoticed, he had on khaki pants, that showed all the spots. We of course did not become best friends, and I was happy to see that he was not on my connecting flight. Can you imagine if we had been seated next to each other again? He probably would have run for the hills, begging to be seated next to anyone else.

On a funny note, on that same flight there was a women who came out of the bathroom with toilet paper attached to her shoe, and it was still attached to the roll. As she walked from the back of the plane up to the front half a long strand dutifully followed her down the aisle. All the heads popped out of their seats into the aisle to watch, and wait to see if she would notice. She didn't, I don't think. She sat down, and a minute later the flight attendant picked up all up.

AND this was the first time minus one flight in the last three years that I checked baggage and they didn't get lost and or broken. YAY!

reminder

Every time I open the fridge I am greeted with this slightly pathetic sight. It is the sad reminder that I will be the only one home until next year.

Would anyone care for some coffee creamer? It looks that it about all I have to offer you. It is pretty sad that both of those are mine.....but I had to stock up because I didn't know how long the lovely holiday editions would be around.

the celebrations begin

This weekend I had the pleasure of celebrating Christmas TWICE! And it's not even Christmas yet, I have at least two more celebrations this year. Saturday afternoon, we had our first ever house Christmas....FINALLY. I have had my presents out and wrapped for a good few weeks now, and have pretty much been DIEING for Rachel and Angela to open them.

Rachel showing off her new pillowcase.

Me trying to figure out what I can put under my new cheese dome.

Angela showing off all of her new goods.....map, sheets and candy oh my!

Then we ran off to a dinner party.......unfortunately about half of crew was not able to attend. So this was quite a small but fun gathering. Tim made a FEAST for us to eat. Seriously there was SO much food, ham, asparagus, broccoli casserole, rolls, potatoes

After the gifts were opened, we tried to break out the mexican train dominoes. Let's just the directions were a little beyond us. I mean really can you see the concentration in this picture? This is about 20 minutes into the reading, and the second person attempting. Eventually we got the hang of it.....although I am still mystified as to why the train pieces had holes in them, and when you are to push the button that makes the train noises?

young again

On a normal/average day I go to bed on the earlier side. Some people would say it is quite early or that I am an old lady like that. But you know I am ok with that. I like sleep, I like my bed, I enjoy being well rested -early to bed early to rise. Well this week it has gotten even more extreme. In my defense I have been a little under the weather, having come down with my yearly visit of "the cold." Tuesday I went to bed in the hour of nine. Yes brothers go ahead and make fun, even for me that was pretty early. OLD WOMEN, that is me, I am sure mom you were up later than that.

So now to the point. Last night I did something I would consider to be CRAZY, that made me feel young again. I, with friends of course, went out to see West Side Story at the Pantages........on a weeknight!

The streets were full of people, not people seeing our show, but at the Adam Lambert concert the next block over. Lines of people all around the block.

FUN FUN FUN! The show was great, so much fantastic dancing.....and snapping. Neither Angela or Tim were very familiar with the story of the West Side, so I think that their end feelings were that it was pretty mushy (in Angela's words) and sad, but still enjoyment was had by all.

After the show Angela got to fulfil her life long dream (that no one knew about) of touching the Capital Records building. Here is the proof.

made my day

Clearly by this point you know that I love me a good/cheesy Christmas movie. There isn't much better. A couple of weeks ago Angela and I were discussing our favorite childhood Christmas movies, hers was A Very Brady Christmas and mine was "It Nearly Wasn't Christmas." Naturally no one else has ever heard of it because I am pretty certain it was a made for TV movie we recorded, gotta love the old Christmas commercials that are on the VHS. But really I watched it ALL the time, mom can attest to that. It has santa, mall piano players, a runaway child, a giant elf and a hot air balloon race, what more could you ask for out of a Christmas movie? After this discussion a couple of weeks ago I searched high and low online to try to get my hands on this movie. Much to my dismay it was no where to be found. Not on netflix, and not even on any sketchy probably illegal websites. I was saddened. But then I forgot about it, until today. I went on hulu and decided to check out what Christmas movies were available and what did I find? You guessed it "It Nearly Wasn't Christmas."

You should probably watch it.

little man

Cars, the chipmunks, and Justin Beiber all wanted to say:
HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY GAVIN!!!!

a moment of awesomeness

Yesterday on my way home from work I was stopped at a red light, when I noticed the man in the car next to me signaling me to roll down my window. I did. He needed directions. Yikes! I have encountered a few situations like this in the past, but being an ofter loster/directionally challenged person I am never able to actually ofter any help. But yesterday, yesterday it was different. I actually knew where he wanted to go, and I knew the road names between here and there. SHOCKING I know. I the person who manages to get lost when going anywhere besides home, work, church and target was able to give someone directions. And boy did it feel good.

traditions

Usually our Monday night tradition is for Elizabeth and David to come over and we all watch Chuck and eat yummy snacks. But being December and all Chuck has gone on a hiatus until January 17th. YIKES! Naturally we didn't want to forgo our usual Monday hangout, so we had to come up with something else fun to do. In the holiday spirit we partook in a Ouimette family tradition, we made caramel corn.

The popcorn was popped, and the caramel sauce prepared. The next step was to butter every ones hands, so that they could make popcorn balls with ease. Elizabeth, is showing off her shiny butter covered hand, and David is just SO excited to have his picture taken.

This would be me pretending to make the caramel sauce, because  no photos were taken when it was actually on the stove, woops.

The first round was created into these lovely popcorn balls, and then the second round went into the oven and came out as caramel corn.

The Christmas elf version of Angela, showing off her holiday socks.

SWEET!

Saturday evening Angela and I found ourselves in downtown Fullerton, just a quick trip to pick up something Ang had left on hold earlier in the day. When we parked, far off in the distance I spotted a food truck, with a cupcake on the side of it. I only hoped it was a cupcake truck, and not just a catering van.

It was! In fact it is Orange County's only mobile cupcakery, or so their sign claimed. With unique flavors such as sweet potato and maple Bacon, I opted for a more tradition flavor of Chocolate Peanut butter.

It did not disappoint. It was really really good, even had a surprise cream filling. Probably the highlight of my day.

oh Christmas tree

Two Christmas's ago we unknowingly started a little tradition, helping Ashleyann decorate her Christmas tree. Really it is quite fantastic, we decorate and she feeds us. This year it was a brunch of french toast and quiche, which was SO GOOD! Is there a better way to spend your Saturday morning? I think not.

After we finished, Angela and I did a little reminiscing of the past years. Two years ago it was just Angela, Tori and myself who went, and can you believe that we had barely just met Tori. Crazy how time flies. Then last year Rachel was added to the crew, and this year Elizabeth. Who's gonna be added next year????

like DISNEYland

For the second year in a row we hit up the Biola Christmas Tree lighting. This year we managed to end up standing in the "family" section as we were surrounded by loud talking/singing children. But technically we did have the best view of the tree as we were right under it.

I think, based on my deductions that we can easily say that the Christmas tree lighting is THE biggest event Biola puts on all year. Because I mean really why else would there have been a minimum of 80972 photographers running around snapping photos left and right. Seriously at any given time there would be 4-5 photographers standing around the tree snapping photos of the crowd.

As nice as the tree looks these days it is a little sad to see that all of the really horrible ornaments that were supposed to look like candy have been replaced.

They stepped it up a notch not only in the ornaments, but also in the atmosphere. There was fake SNOW!. hehe I thought it was pretty fun, a little cheesy but fun!

When the ceremony ended Angela and I were discussing how we hadn't seen anyone we knew, which was a little surprising, but after a visit to the beverage stand and a lap around the book store we righted that situation. In the end we saw quite a few people from Hart Hall.

DECEMBER!!

It's December 1st and our Christmas tree is up and the house is decorated. Last night we ventured out to Home Depot to pick out our pretty little tree. There were oh about zero other people there getting trees, which was nice, that meant we didn't have to lay the smack down on any others who may have had their eye on our tree.

The worker tried to up sell us to a nicer looking aka more expensive tree, but we were not fooled.

And just so yall know Home Depot is a way better place to purchase your trees than Walmart. Same prices, but here the cut the bottom for us (hehe last year we had quite the adventure with that) and the put a net around it for easy transport.

Here she is in all her glory.

Thanks for the new ornaments mom, they were a lovely [PINK] addition.

black friday

We're not really all about the black Friday sales. Well, maybe that's not true we all LOVE a good sale, just not as much the whole getting up before the sun, waiting outside, and mass amounts of people aspect of it. We did of course scour the adds and determine there was nothing worth enduring all that pain for. I did have a small urge to go purchase the $2 crock pot that was available, since Angela has decided in the last couple of months that I really need one. But alas a $2 purchase was just not enough to get me out of bed.

We instead took to the crafting table on Friday. Then men (if you look real hard in the background) were watching back to back to back football games, while the women went to town mess, I mean wreath making.

When we were finished the whole table and surrounding area was covered with a thick blanket of paper scraps...and hot glue drippings.

We used book pages to make some pretty decorations. It was fun to see how the progressed with six of us, some even making the same type of wreath they all came out looking very different. And it was quite entertaining to read random lines from the books as we went along. They were all purchased from the dollar store, so naturally the were the MOST quality writing ever.

My beauty made from paper flowers. Oh my talk about dedication, this baby took SO many hours to finish......I think it was probably worth it in the end, but there were times when I nearly gave up.

Mom and her finished product, nice and ruffly looking!

Hannah opted for the color version and made hers out of magazine pages instead of book pages.

And finally Lindsey's monster (monster meaning large, not ugly).

Cameron dubbed our adventures EXTREME crafting, as Monique and I ended it with rather large blisters. I like to think that makes my wreath all the more valuable, I suffered a great amount of pain to finish that puppy.

{oh look Lindsey and I have matching chairs....it looks like I am sitting in my room, I am not - this photo was taken and Lindsey's house.......although my blister is still here, making typing a bit difficult}

gobble gobble

This the was the first Thanksgiving in probably about 10 years that all of the Floch's have been together. We're making history here. Out of fourteen people, five cameras and who knows how many camera phones we didn't take any photos of everyone at dinner (I don't think). Slightly tragic, as the spread was superb. We had SO much food, and surprisingly not a humongous amount of left overs. Here we are the day after and we have eaten up nearly everything that was left.

The rolls that may have been the overall favorite food of the day took some double muscle to roll out. One to hold down the cutting-board and one to do the rolling. There was some great sadness from all when we discovered the last one had been eaten.

The lovely ladies spend the morning in the kitchen, cooking up tons of goodness, all I can say is we were all thankful for Lindsey and Kevin's new house, I can not imagine what it would have been like to have us trying to cook in their previous ity bity kitchen.

Kevin with his masterpiece. The famous BBQ Dr. Pepper turkey.

DELICIOUS! Kevin was great and ran out the store late Wednesday evening to pick up some more potatoes, after I presented everyone with my [legitimate] concerns that the mere 5lbs bag that they had purchased previously would not suffice.

Cameron told us he didn't care what his place card said......so you know we gave him a new one. Because really,  what Thanksgiving meal would be complete without a guest appearance by Buddy The Elf? 

Turkey Trot

A couple of months ago I convinced dad and Lindsey to participate in a little Thanksgiving day Turkey Trot 5k. It all sounded so good and fun when it was far off in the future, then 6:45am on Thanksgiving it was no longer looking quite as great. But up we went, out to check in and pick up our race packets. Now when I packed for this trip I packed with heat in mind. We are in Arizona after all, but oh boy was it cold out. The shorts and T shirt that I brought to run in were just NOT cutting it. I know that Spokane is under a couple feet of snow and Yosemite too so to say it was cold sounds quite silly, but this wind that was happening, well lets just say it had to be coming in from the far off caverns of the Arctic because it was absolutely FRIGID!

All the racers were checking in and then climbing back into their cars to wait for the start because it was just too cold to be outside. As it was I do believe I got frost bite on my left foot just from the 10 minute wait at the starting line.

We got to wear these uber classy ankle bands that kept out time for us. At first I thought it was silly, and a little annoying, but after a few cold blasts of wind I realized that my left ankle was by far the warmest part of my body.

Lindsey and I decided to run the race together........dad when asked if he was going to run with us replied with this: "If you keep up with me, sure we can run together." Yeah he beat us by a good ten minutes.

FINISH LINE!!!! We made it.......no I did not get first place, that #1 I am holding up represents the 168th place.

Mashed Potatoes

Kirspy Kreme and I have had quite the relationship. It was love at first bite, and from there, well I was a goner. I may have written a persuasive letter to the company when I thought I would die because there were no stores in our fine city. Then I may have taken said letter, and a hat with me to my job interview when they did build one in Spokane..........and I may have eaten more doughnuts in the two years that I worked their than most families eat in a lifetime. The only downfall of working there was that my car ALWAYS smelled like doughnuts......and myself for that matter.

Anyways, yesterday a coworker brought in a dozen original glazed. I died. Maybe  I should have become a police man because really there is not much better to me than a cup of coffee and a doughnut. So I got my coffee, picked up my doughnut and headed back to my desk. In my excitement to eat the yummy goodness in my hand I just could not wait the 47 seconds that it would take me to walk back to my desk. I dug right in. Taking a bite while walking.

I am no multi tasker, usually I have a hard time simply carrying my coffee back to my desk without spilling, so why I thought I could walk, carry coffee and eat at the same time, I don't know. I ended up getting a nice bite of paper towel with my doughnut. Gross! Not quite the taste and texture I remembered.

On a different although food related note. I am SO excited to eat mashed potatoes tomorrow. Oh my, I love Mashed Potatoes probably even more than I love Krispy Kreme, where ever the potatoes are placed on the table is where I will be sitting, don't even try to stop me. I took RADS, don't mess.

changed

Something has happened to me this year, I have gone soft. I am already in Christmas mode, and LOVING it. Usually I am a firm believer in not enjoying Christmas until after Thanksgiving, no music, no wrapping gifts, no decorations. So much so that I freaked out when I saw other people with their trees up before turkey day.

As part of embracing the holidays early Angela and I have begun watching lots of Christmas movies. There are of course our favorites that we watch every year [The Holiday, While You Were Sleeping, Elf and many more] but we also, call us crazy, are total suckers for cheesy (also known as made for TV) holiday films. Usually they do not involve the best acting, or plots, but they have Christmas music, pretty decorations, and usually some pretty sappy/cheesy romance. Yep that is why we love them.

Last year however we had a string of exceptionally bad movie choices. Many of them were extra boring, lacking in the love story and really not Christmasy at all except maybe a tree in the background. It was quite tragic. We learned the important lesson that when a movie being sold for $5, it is for a good reason, don't buy it.

Now that we have the sweet luxury of cable we can enjoy the 25 days of Christmas on ABC Family, which is chalk full of holiday movies, but in the mean time we had to take matters into our own hands. We have to find some great movies this year, to make up for all the disappointments of last year. Off to the redbox we went, in search of Mrs. Miracle. Of course it was such a popular title that it was not available, we opted instead for The Christmas Clause. No Christmas movie would be complete without a holiday beverage from Starbucks (which we walked to, my idea, but let me tell you I thought we lived a WHOLE lot closer than we actually do, whew I barely survived).

It is safe to say that The Christmas Clause is definitely not an instant holiday classic, but it was also no Christmas Child. The search for our new favorite Christmas movie continues...........

*And I should probably warn any and all people that may stop by our house any time in the next month or so, you may be subjected to short viewings of our favorite moments from bad Christmas movies, just because we like to torture people with scenes we think are funny and no one else does.

something there that wasn't there before

That would be of course my fav Beauty and the Beast song. Which I/we got to see on Saturday night. Uh can you say FUN FUN FUN? Because yeah that's what it was. And really what would an evening out with Mandy and Angela without a moment or 10 of misdirection while driving? Not complete that's what. Only a car load of girls could get lost in a mall parking lot. hehe Angela actually got part of it on video, we found it quite entertaining.

So anyways enough about our misdirection. Before we left Rachel kindly took our photo in front of the fireplace, which made me feel like we were going to prom. Which is strange since I never posed in front of a fireplace with a prom date.........but still growing up the fireplace was the photo backdrop of choice. And as you can see it is such a good backdrop [......right because you can see it and all]

After taking a completely unnecessary U-Turn, doing two McDonald's drive by's, a tour of the left half of the South Coast Plaza parking lot, the lower level of a parking structure and a phone call later we made it to Maggianos for dinner.

Tasty!

Dinner took a little long/it took a while to wind around to the complete upper most back corner of the parking garage and walk down to the box office and get in to our seats. So we unfortunately missed the first song. Sorry Tori I know it was one of your favs. But once allowed to enter it was so lovely.

[did you happen to notice that Elizabeth and I are nearly twins? we just have such exceptional taste.]