N'awlins

Dave and I celebrated our 15th anniversary with a trip to New Orleans this month. What a blast! A fabulous city with amazing, crazy food. We ate and drank way too much, but had a great time, despite the freeeezing weather (in the 20s!). We'll be back!

Everyone told us to eat at Commander's Palace, which we did and loved it...especially the

25-cent martinis at lunch! The French Quarter.
The French Market, in the French Quarter, of course.
Dave eating an alligator kabob. He also ate turtle soup, seafood gumbo, and jambalaya. I just watched and ate "regular" food.

Happy Holidays!

Below are a few photos from Christmas Eve, when Kelley's Dad visited. Christopher played the piano at the children's service at church (notice the dapper tie). He is also learning to play the violin, and our living room has become the music room of the house.

Christmas morning brought more music...
And Shayla was just a little bit excited to see the presents under the tree.
On Dec. 29, we went to Los Angeles to visit Griffith Park (notice the Hollywood sign in the hills above us) with Kelley's mom and Aunt Peg.
Later that day, we were able to visit a Rose Bowl float-making company, thanks to Uncle Arpad's Disney connections, and Christopher LOVED helping out. It was a sight to see!
We saw the Oregon and Ohio State floats, the Jack in the Box float, and the China Airlines float. What an unforgettable experience!

The next day, Kelley's best friend Helen and her four children visited from San Diego for a rainy day cookie decorating adventure. The kids made the cutest Christmas trees out of ice cream cones...yummy!

December Awards Ceremony

Christopher received an "outstanding character" award for his 4th grade class, and Shayla received a "conscientious work habits, responsible attitude and enthusiasm for learning" award for her 2nd grade class. Yay!

Thanksgiving Week

Here is Shayla's second grade class "Reader's Theatre" Thanksgiving performance. She is the cute pilgrim at the bottom.

Dave's mom was here visiting for Thanksgiving, and helped us pick out our new car! Very exciting news for us, since it had been a decade since we purchased our Odyssey. This is a more updated version of the same old faithful.

On Thanksgiving, we drove to San Diego in the new car and did some sightseeing at Balboa Park before heading over to John & Irma's for a gourmet feast, complete with three turkeys!

The California cousins, Jessica and Bryan (he is holding Santa's sleigh in his hand).

And their parents, Peg and Arpad.

Pat and the new skinny Herbert.

John, Irma, Maegan and Shelby -- the Thanksgiving hosts.

Here we are visiting the huge tree at South Coast Plaza (this is only the top half -- we are on the second level!) and below visiting Julian for some yummy apple pie.

Happy Halloween!

A first for us this year...all dressing up! Halloween on a Saturday made for a weekend of fun. We had a neighborhood party, and then went to San Diego for a party at Kelley's brother John's house. Lots of hilarious costumes! Yabba dabba doo!

Disney Day

Christopher and Shayla had a couple of days off from school last week for parent-teacher conferences, so we spent one of the days at Disneyland and California Adventure, thanks to Kelley's uncle Arpad, who works for Disney. Thanks, Arpad! We were there for 10 hours and saw both parks, and the kids were verrrrry tired the next day.

Fall Fun

October has arrived, and we took a trip to our local Pumpkin Patch to have some fun. We have been coming here since the kids were babies, and always get a few cute pix.

Christopher participated in an art contest at school this year, and took some cool photos of a sunset and a moonrise. Now he is always borrowing my camera!

And here is Shayla rocking out before bedtime. She usually dances around and gets a little crazy before crashing for the night. Never a dull moment...