Family Pictures

Hannah's gift to my mom for Christmas and her birthday was to have all of us take family pictures. We recruited Melissa White and her fabulous photography skills to help us out! On December 29th, we all got together at Cuesta Park and spent some time taking pictures. Thanks to my mom, it felt like senior pictures ALL OVER AGAIN! First it was pictures of the kid and their significant other. Then it was pictures of just the kid (what's she gonna do with those? I think she told me they were going to be for her new dart board........thanks Mom!!!) and then it was pictures of the five kids, then of the kids and Mom, then of everyone! Let me tell you, that was a LOOONG day! BUT it was also a long time coming; the last family pictures we took were in I think 2001! And before that was "the awkward years" pictures that have since been hidden (Hannah, we still have to destroy those!!!). So these should be really good this time around. We were just let known today that they are ready and Hannah will be getting us copies of the pictures by this weekend (fingers crossed that they turn out good!!!), so soon, I am going to be changing photos in frames!! I'm so excited! The things we do for our mother!!!

Love you momma!!!

Christmas and after...

I feel like I'm always posting a "catch-up" post...I feel like I just never have the time to post something!!! I'm going to try to remedy that this year, and post more about our lives! *The biggest problem I face is that we just aren't that cool...nothing fun really happens to us!* I guess that could be a good thing, in that nothing BAD every really happens. But I will try to find things that we are doing that are blog worthy...

That being said...

We spent Christmas with my family in SLO. Hannah had to the night before so we all showed up around noon to let her sleep in a bit. I only took two pictures at Christmas (I know, I suck). One was of my mom getting her special gift:

We all pitched in and got her an Ipod. It's the only thing that she wanted, and since we are good kids, we got her one! The only other picture I took was of Clint after he opened up his gift from Chase...I have to admit, it was pretty darn cute!I got this frame from my work where you can decorate it yourself (some of you parents will recognize it; my mom and I got them for our kids in our Primary class to decorate for their parents!) So I decorated it and Chase "gave" it to his Dad! Clint loves it (despite his face in the picture!) We spent the rest of the day just hanging out and playing games as a family; it was truly a wonderful Christmas season this year!

The next day (December 26), Clint's sister Karina got married! She was married out in Cayucos to a great guy, Jovanni (I think that's how you spell his name.) I was able to get out there JUST in time for the wedding; I literally ran inside and was sitting for maybe 3 minutes before the ceremony started! It was a very quick ceremony, but it was very touching. Karina looked so beautiful! I took a few pictures, so enjoy the people you probably don't know! :)

The other pictures I have are pretty dark and just not really of great quality...maybe a career in photography is not going to happen for me!

Giveaway

Thanks for the tip Leighanne...
Go here for a great giveaway - $100 to the store of your choice!!! :)
What a fantastic giveaway!

Catching up with the Erdmans

* Best friends*

So I know I haven't blogged in a while...I just really haven't had anything to say. I will just update you on whats been happening in our neck of the woods:

• Clint is now working for Charter Communications as a salesman. If any of you are interested in switching to Charter or upgrading in any way, let me know and I'll get him down to you as soon as he can. He just started last week and is enjoying it a lot. He also just finished a season of Men's Softball up here in Atascadero. He really likes getting out there and getting some exercise. Clint is a really good ball player and I loved when I was able to get out there and watch him play!
• I am still working as hard as ever at Bed Bath and Beyond. Like I mentioned in the last post, my direct superior is out on medical leave for an undetermined amount of time. I have heard she is trying to get back as soon as possible but I can't see that happening any time soon. So, in her absence, the responsibilities of the department have fallen on me, as the full time lead. Last week I was able to sit down with our district manager Dennis and discuss my options and future with the company. I left the meeting with no exactness as to what will happen, but a definite feeling of hope that things in the store will be changing for the better, and that I am not being overlooked as far as promotions go. The district staff is well aware of all my hard work and accomplishments and that's basically all I need at this point. I am still team teaching with my mom in Primary at church - we love it so much! We started out the year with 7 or 8 kids (I really have lost track!) and we are now down to 5. But they are such lively and crazy kids - I LOVE them all so much! They make teaching so much fun with all their little comments and questions and ideas!
• Chase is...well, still the same! He seems to be getting bigger, but I really think its just the fur. He spends his days being lazy around the house and his nights trying to get either Clint or myself to wrestle around with him (after we get home from work and just want to be lazy).

Clint and I were able to get down to Ventura at the beginning of October to visit with some friends of ours. It is a tradition for us to go to Universal Studios and do their "Halloween Horror Nights": it is AMAZING! Think about it - a movie studio putting on a Halloween party, complete with costumes and all kinds of great special effects. It is absolutely insane! This was the first year that Clint could come with us, so that was really neat! They have a couple mazes that are built after some of the classic scary movies (Halloween, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th, etc) and everything is SO real! They also have scare zones, where you just walk through and people jump out at you and scare the crap out of you!!! Its so much fun!

Other than that, everything is pretty boring. :) Just the way I like it - drama free!

And to leave you with a treat (since you read SO much already!!!), here's a picture of Chase dressed up for Halloween:

I thought he was cute...he didn't like us too much after the photo shoot was done. ;)

The other day I was getting ready to do the dishes, so I take off my rings and watch and turn on the water. I let it run for a few seconds to warm up while I arrange the dishes for easier washing and check back on the water - still cold. Move some more things around, open up the dishwasher, check back with the water - still cold, and it feels like its getting colder. This goes on for a little bit and I cannot for the life of me figure out what the heck is going on. Why won't my water heat up?!?!



I forgot to turn on the HOT water...that's what I call an epic fail.



On a brighter note, my manager at work is taking a leave of absence for illness. No one is sure exactly when she will be back, we just know it will be at least a month or longer. So this basically means...I am in charge of the front end at work! Yahoo! It's finally mine again!! :) I have two other leads that are fantastic; very hard workers and lovely girls to be around, so we are going to have a blast without Pauline (who everyone seems to greatly dislike...hopefully this will bring about a change in attitudes along the whole front end!) So yay, its been a pretty good week, despite the crazy weather and long hours I had to put in. Good karma is finally catching up to me! :)

Yummy Pumpkin Shaped Bread Bowls

The finished product...mmm

I've been totally loving checking out so many blogs because they give me so many ideas about fun things to do around the house and fun things to cook as well. I tried a great one from The Idea Room blog, it was for Pumpkin Shaped Bread Bowls for soup to go inside. If you click here, you will get the posting.

It was super simple and they came out really, really cute! They only thing I'd do differently (and this was my own fault) would be to before baking, make the balls flatter, like in the picture on the blog. That seemed to be the reason why mine came out so round and ball like...I think if they were flatter going into the oven, they would have been more like an actual bread bowl, more oval in shape. Next time, I'll try that.

Fresh out of the oven

They were super easy to make and totally delicious!

This weekend...

So Clint is gone this weekend in Tahoe with some friends (LUCKY!!!! This is the reason I hate WOW week at work/Poly sometimes...I never get to go with them) so I decided to have a sleepover (yes, a sleepover...be jealous!) with my best friend up here Michelle. Her boyfriend is leaving on Sunday to go to Ireland for at least 6 months to try it out. He's hoping he'll find a good job and stay, but I'm hoping he'll come back. Mostly because regardless of where he is, Michelle will end up with him there, and I want her to stay here! So anyway, we're doing it up right: girly movies, cookies, brownies, ice cream, and the inevitable sob fest I'm sure. She's supposed to be out of work RIGHT NOW, so I'm just getting the apartment ready for this awesome slumber party! I love being a girl at times like these - boys wouldn't do this. But we're gonna have the best time! I sure do wish all my girls could be here though...I miss our sleepovers sometimes. I wish we weren't so spread out and this could be a regular thing. Miss you ladies, love you!