Tree hunting and other pursuits

Now that December is here, there might actually be more for me to write about in the next few weeks. So here we go...
Last Saturday my mom and dad and Logan and I drove up in our truck to cut down our Christmas trees. We have gone to the same Christmas tree farm up on Skyline ever since I can remember. (At least since Katie was a baby, since we have pictures of her trying to eat the Christmas trees when she was eight months old!) Logan decided that Steve- yes, the truck has a name- needed to be dressed up for the occasion. So, here is a picture of Logan and Steve just before we took off up the mountain:
I didn't take many photos of our tree hunt this year. It was rather uneventful without Katie or Bailey along for the trip. I'm looking forward to next year when Katie will be local, and that pesky thing called "college" will no longer be in the way of her joining us for family outings. At least it didn't rain on us this year. It was COLD, but a gorgeous day. Here are the Santa Cruz mountains in all their fall glory:
And trying to tie the trees into the bed of the truck:
Logan and I picked a HUGE one (by accident- it didn't look that big until we had cut it down and tried to carry it up the hill!)
It took forever to cut the tree down because, as Logan said, the saws they had for us to use were so dull he would have had better luck using a spoon.
Once we got the tree home we cut off the bottom third of it- I am not joking, it was giant- and got it inside and decked out with lights. Logan also got the outside house lights strung up last weekend, but I haven't been out to take any photos of them yet. We still haven't added ornaments to the tree. I have been sick this week, so I haven't been in any mood for holiday decorating. But I'm sure we'll get to it this weekend.
A few more photos:
The beautifully lit tree:The cute train Logan got to run around the base of the tree:One of my most prized possessions- the tree skirt my grandma made for me:
The original tree skirt was made for my parents years ago. Maybe when they first got married, which would make it almost 35 years old. It has scenes following the song of the Twelve Days of Christmas all around it. A few years ago, my mom decided that the old tree skirt had seen better days. It was made of felt, and had pine needles and dog hair from three consecutive dogs embedded in it. She bought a new tree skirt and never told me what she did with the old one.
It turns out she saved it and gave it to my grandma. My grandma cut the figures out of the old skirt and sewed them onto a new skirt she made for Logan and me. This was our Christmas present from her the first year we were in our new house. What a treasure!
By the way, if you have tried to post comments before and found that you needed to log in with a Google account to post a comment, I have disabled that function now. I didn't realize that was the default setting. Now, anyone can post and won't have to sign in.

Family, Football and Fresno

Today is unfortunately the last day of a much-needed five day weekend. It has been a busy weekend with us hosting Thanksgiving again, but a lot of fun.
Wednesday and Thursday morning we cleaned the house and got ready for company. This Thanksgiving was special because my aunt, uncle, and cousins from Colorado (hi Aunt Cindy!) came out to spend the day with us. We had a very nice dinner, with good conversation and lots of food. And, of course, the required group photo:
On Friday we did a little bit of shopping, although we didn't brave the malls. Getting up at 4am to shop isn't my idea of fun. Then Friday evening we left to drive down to Fresno and stayed the night at Katie's apartment. The reason why my Colorado relatives came out this year is because my youngest cousin, Corey, is a long-snapper on the Kansas State Football team.
On Saturday we got to see his team play against the Fresno State Bulldogs. I had never been in such a big college football stadium before. We had fun watching the cheerleaders perform their formations.
The whole experience was a lot of fun. Even Grandma had a great time! We didn't get to see Corey for long after the game, but we did manage to get a few group photos of the cousins.
We're looking forward to our next visit with the Adams family, which will be next August in Colorado when Meghan and AJ are married. It'll be here before we know it!
(In case the family is interested in getting copies of the pictures I took this weekend, they are available for printing or download at: www.dropshots.com/melanne)

Weekend Warriors!

At our house, there is no sitting around relaxing on three-day holiday weekends. We don't take our precious vacation time to actually go on vacation. And going to see a movie? That would be too much fun. No, on our three day weekends we work on the house! And this three-day Veteran's Day Weekend was no exception.

Logan's dad and stepmom arrived on Friday evening and stayed with us for the weekend. It was so nice to see them, and fun to have houseguests. But we worked!

Logan and his dad (with minor help from Sue and me) built a new front porch for us this weekend. Poor Logan is already looking forward to Thanksgiving break so that he can rest for a while, and I'm sure his dad is too! But the finished project is absolutely gorgeous- it just needs some paint. We can't wait to string it with Christmas lights. Here are some photos (before and after), along with a shot of our new driveway:

Halloween and a driveway

We had a fun Halloween this year. I took the day off and went with Logan's class to trick-or-treat at a convalescent home near his school. The kids were so cute, especially little Bradley who dressed as a shark! Logan dressed as a Nascar pit-crew chief, and looked very official with his headset and jacket.In the evening we went over to my mom and dad's house to carve pumpkins and pass out candy to trick-or-treaters. We don't get any kids at our house since it's on a busy street.Logan and I (successfully) attempted to change the oil for the first time in the Volkswagen this afternoon. The dealer was going to charge an exorbitant amount to do it, so Logan thought we should try ourselves. It was a little messy, but now that we know how it's done it'll be a fast job next time. And the car is running great.

In other news, we have a new driveway now that is big enough to fit both of our cars. The pictures below show the demolition of our old driveway and the readied site before the cement was poured. It was poured and finished this morning, but it was dark by the time we got home tonight, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow morning to take a photo of the finished product. It's beautiful!Next on the home improvement agenda is remodeling the front porch, which will happen next weekend. We're looking forward to Logan's dad and stepmom visiting us to help with the project.
By the way, if you're reading this, leave a comment sometime so that I know I'm not just talking to myself!

October musings

It's been a month now since I have added a new post. Maybe no one is reading this anymore! Life gets busy and the weeks fly by. But somehow there's never much interesting that happens during the busy-ness.
However, we've had some exciting events during the past month. Here's a recap:
We can grow watermelons! I decided to buy some watermelon seedlings last spring to grow in our garden because Logan loves watermelon. We harvested two cute watermelons- 7 and 8 lbs. Here they are with the gardener:
The highlight of this past month for me was getting to see our friends a few times in the last couple of weeks. We often don't get to see our friends for months at a time, but this month was different. We all got together for our tenth high school reunion at Gordon Biersch Brewery in San Jose. Then, this past weekend we got together again- this time at the Tied House in Mountain View- to see our good friends Sam and Harmony who were making a rare California visit. It was a really fun evening, and I made sure to get the requisite group photo:
Our final fun event of the past few weeks was Logan, Mandi and Geoffrey becoming members of our church. When Mandi and Geoffrey said they wanted to join, Logan jumped at the opportunity to have friends to go to the New Member's class with. So they went to five weeks of classes, stood in front of the church on Sunday morning, and are now officially members. Here are a few pictures I took after the service on Sunday morning:

The Big 1

For those of you who don't know, Logan and I are the proud godparents of a lovely little girl named Chloe. Chloe just turned 1 last week, and her parents threw a party for her on Saturday. Although it was a rare rainy September day, we all had a great time. And, as you can see from the picture, Chloe REALLY enjoyed her cake!

Duh nah nah nah nah nah nah....

Okay, so I have finally taken some time to get some pictures uploaded to my new Dropshots account so that I can include them on this blog. Now that the Library 2.0 summer school is over (see all previous blog postings if you don't know what I'm talking about, or http://www.go2web20.net/) I plan to use this blog to keep everyone up to date with what we're doing. Sometimes exciting, sometimes not so exciting!

So for my first "fun" post, I'll show you what we did today. Every year, Logan's students perform the Chicken Dance at Cupertino's fall festival. Today was the day for that this year, and as usual the kids were super cute, and so was their teacher.

After watching the Chicken Dance, we went for lunch to Armadillo Willy's BBQ with our friends Heather, Sierra, and Charles. Sierra lives in San Diego and we don't get to see her often, so it was great to catch up a bit. It was a short visit, but we'll see one another again next month at our 10 year high school reunion. Has it really been that long already?!

Back at home, Logan spent the afternoon tearing down the brick fireplace/BBQ pit we had in our backyard. It was at least 50 years old, and leaning toward the fence, so Logan decided to take it down in preparation for the landscaping we'll be doing this fall. It was a big job, and took all afternoon both yesterday and today. Being a homeowner is hard work.