Upcoming Nuptials

My little (big) brother, James is getting married this coming Sunday. This makes me sound so old, but I remember the day he was born--I cried. And not with happiness. I was pissed that he wasn't a girl (I was only 10). I already had one brother I didn't want another one! But I quickly got over that and when I wasn't tormenting him and my other brother, Jake, we had fun! I moved out of the house when I was 18 and my younger brothers were only 8 and 6 so I missed a lot of their growing up years at home, but I am happy we still have a good relationship. James is marrying a great girl and I think he knows it, so I see this marriage being a long and happy one. We are very much looking forward to welcoming Aimee into the family.

The quality of the first two pictures isn't hot. I had to take them out of my scrapbook and scan. This first picture is of new baby James and big sister, Shelly, who by that point was over her snit because he wasn't a girl!

James and our brother Jacob. I crack up every time I look at this picture. This was probably taken in 1979.

James a few years later with our nephew, Jaxon (his dad is the baby in the picture above).

James and his future bride. They will make pretty babies.

Thunder From Down Under

Our friend, Crystal turned 21 and what better place to go than to a male revue? So, living in Vegas she had a few choices and she picked Thunder From Down Under.

There was about about 12 of us wild and crazy girls that met up pre-function at the bar. My aunt Jeanne is in town for a couple of weeks, so I drug her along as well (it didn't take much convincing). One word for the show "HAWT". Okay, so the choreography was fairly cheesy at times but who cares about that. Those guys are gorgeous and they know how to move. Next time I go (and yes, there will be a next time) I want to sit closer...like the front row. (Okay by you Katy?)

I wish that they would have allowed cameras in there because that would have made my post oh so much better but you will have to settle for a few pictures of us girls tarted up and also proof that I actually did go and it was an 11:00 pm show (way past my usual bedtime)!

Rainy, Crystal, Shelly
Vicky & Danielle

Hand-Off in Barstow

Never heard of Barstow? Well, there really is no reason to have heard of it or to ever go there again for that matter. BUT it was a convenient and about half way point between Las Vegas and Yorba Linda, CA to drop off two little dogs that needed to go home. It can't be that small of a town because we did meet at Starbucks. On Main Street. And you can see the Golden Arches in the background of the picture. Anyway, Sancho and Dakota were happy to go home to their "people" and Tug, Willy, and Lola were happy to get their house (and toys) back. Most importantly, I will be happy not to hear five dogs whining at 5:30 in the morning. My sister, Cheryl and family are settled into their new place and I see lots of trips to California in our future. We still have a lot of catching up to do! Plus I have a Park Hopper Pass for Disneyland that I need to use before January.

I didn't get our mother's small genes. Good thing I love Cheryl otherwise, I might have to hate her skinny self!

Sancho & Dakota

While my sister and her family move from Washington to California, we have been taking care of their two dogs. It's crazy having five dogs in the house, even though said dogs probably don't weigh 50 pounds total soaking wet. It's four boys and one girl and I still think our Chi, Lola is the queen boss over all of them. I would say Sancho, the other Chi, is a close second. He is a bad ass dog and does NOT back down to any of them. That makes for some interesting dynamics around the house. All the dogs are jealous of each other and they all follow me around the house constantly vying for my attention. I have been trying to dole out the love equally!

Here is Dakota, the Miniature Pincher. Not alpha at all. His goal in life is to eat as much as possible. My goal is to give him back to my sister without him gaining any weight!

Sancho, the Chihuahua. I love his ears. They didn't seem to quite develop properly.
Another side shot of Dakota.
Sancho loves all the toys and played fetch for about an hour with this bone.
Three-way fun. I finally had to put that obnoxious squeaky toy AWAY. Between all the dogs barking and that toy squeaking I was going even more crazy than I am. BTW, Jake or Rikki if you are reading this, yes that is Chase's toy that was left here at Easter and my dogs LOVE it!

Page Clips

I think these clips are the coolest things, and they work really well. No more dog-eared pages in the library books (pun intended)!

5 Dogs...2 Tails...9 Eyes

Six Random Things

I was tagged by Katy. The idea is to write six random things about yourself. It was harder than I thought it would be! I’m supposed to tag six people but I am lucky if six people read my blog,

1. I constantly talk baby talk to my dogs and it drives my husband crazy. Can’t help myself. They are little people to me.

2. I am obsessed with the Internet. I love my email, I love Facebook, I love my Crackberry, I love blogging. I can’t go long without checking out everything. If we ever had a major power outage I would be screwed.

3. I HATE being late. It really stresses me out. I am rarely late for work (maybe 5 minutes max). Never mind being late for an appointment or a meeting with a friend!

4. I have a habit of looking at everyone’s license plates and tabs. I don’t know why I do this, but I do. I have been checking it out for years. There are so many out-of-state plates here and I’m great at spotting them and knowing what state they are from by the license plate design.

5. I am addicted to trashy gossip websites. I go to Perez Hilton, The Superficial, TMZ, to name a few at least once a day!

6. At home, I am super picky about my ice and water. I won’t drink it out of the tap and I won’t drink it out of the Brita filter unless it’s going into my coffee or going to be boiled. I drink those environmentally unfriendly bottles of water from Costco. Oh and I only like Costco water. Not other brands. I can taste the difference. I also won’t use the ice out of the icemaker because the fridge in this house is 10 years old and it doesn’t have a filter we can change. The ice tastes nasty to me. So I buy bags of ice at the store. Actually, Sonic’s Drive-In has the best ice around but I’m not so crazy that I go there to buy it (yet).

Sand and Sun (were not in Vegas anymore)!

We have lived in Las Vegas almost 2 years now and have not gone to the California beaches! We keep saying we will but never do it. The opportunity came up this last weekend and we jumped on it. My sister, Cheryl and her family are moving from Washington to Cali, and I couldn't be more thrilled. They will only be about a 4 hour drive from us as opposed to the 19 hour drive before. My bro-in-law started his new job yesterday and came up early, so the dilema was what to do with their two dogs for a couple of weeks until everybody gets moved and settled. Well, Aunt Shelly to the rescue. I love their little dogs, Sancho and Dakota and besides what's two more dogs when you already have three of your own??? So, I will be posting some pictures of those cuties soon, but in the meantime here is California!

We stayed at a hotel in Redondo Beach. It was awesome to see the ocean after so long. We hung out there on Saturday night and walked the pier. We ate at a seafood restaurant. I can't tell you how much I miss good seafood. We took seafood for granted in Seattle. Now in Vegas, I don't really trust it and don't eat it very often. I mean really, we are in the middle of the desert. How fresh can it be????

Here is Hermosa Beach. I totally get the appeal of living along the coast in CA now. I didn't really get it before but after hanging out all day it made me want to move. Of course, you have to be a gazillionaire to afford the high cost of living, but this is my fantasy okay?
Sitting on the pier, drinking my Starbucks. Life doesn't get much better!
Continued our drive up the coast and stopped at Manhattan Beach. There was a huge volleyball tournament going on. Did a lot of walking that day. Good exercise to counteract all the delicious food and drink we had!
Alan checking out babes in bikinis. Life is rough!

California fun continued...

We had a little time to kill before meeting Michael, so we plugged "parks" in to the GPS and the "Sand Dune" park was nearby. This place was crazy. You have a normal looking residential neighborhood and a park with picnic tables and a place for kids to play and then all of a sudden this hill appears. And what was even more amazing is people were running up and down it in the middle of the day. Yeah, I totally get it's great exercise, but no thanks!

Really this sucker is super steep. One fool was even wearing a weighted down vest to run it!
Another thing I totally love about California is the foliage. Beautiful flowers, trees, shrubs and it's like that all year round. How many places can you find a flower in the middle of summer that is as big as your head??
I liked this big tree.
Self Portrait