Epic Rollertainment

The kids were so excited to learn that Epic Rollertainment finally opened in Murrieta!  

 Zoey spent the night last night, so she joined us for the afternoon.

 We met Jenna there to help celebrate her 14th birthday.

The place was packed, but the girls had a fun time skating, competing in the games and playing at the arcade.  I think this place will do quite well!

Charlie is 40!!

 Matt and I "rocked" the 80's for Charlie's 40th birthday party tonight!  The theme was 70's, 80's or 90's.

 Scary, I know! The pants said "pants fit most" on the package.  It was a close call, but I think he pulled  it off.  Oh my!

Charlie is always the life of the party and we couldn't wait to help him celebrate his big 4-0!  He even made is own pants for this lovely ensemble!

Mary sported some pretty awesome pants as well!

Aaron, Frankie, Charlie and Matt

Most party goers couldn't recognize either of these rockers!

 Jeff and Chris spreading some 70's peace and love.  The only guy I know who wears a portable amp to play music throughout the night!

The party got a little crazy when several people attempted the tight rope across the pool.  Aaron made it look easy, but Charlie took a nice dip (big splash) in and so did Cara!

You know its a party when Mary does a shot of Fireball!!

 Halfway through the party, Charlie sported his second costume of the night.  I'm not sure what decade this is, but he proudly wore a goat shirt, neon tights, Homer Simpson boxers and a lovely Stevie Wonder-like wig!

Their friend Jeff is the craziest, most amazing cake decorator and created this one-of-a-kind cake to celebrate his good buddy…it was truly gorgeous!

Katie, Julie and Mary…sisters and the creative geniuses behind the party prep! 

 There was beer pong, fusbal, music, dancing, a fire pit and lots of laughs!

The final costume of the night…Ron Burgundy onesie pajamas that were tight in all of the wrong places, but truly hilarious!!

Happy 40th Charlie!  I hope you feel ok tomorrow...

Meet Kaia

For the last few weeks, we have been actively looking for a puppy to complete our family again.  Since Max died, there has been a real void in the house.  I spotted a dog named Misty on a rescue site, have been talking with her foster family by phone and set up a meeting for today.  While Matt taught this morning, the girls, my parents and I all went to Petco to purchase some items in case we were going to bring her home.  We then spent the morning in SD having lunch on the water and touring the Hilton BayFront and Gaslamp.

When Matt got off of work, we all met in Santee at the foster family's home to meet Misty.  We fell in love immediately!!

 This 3 1/2 month old seemed perfect for our family!  She loves to play ball, loves to cuddle and couldn't be any cuter!  We spent about an hour with her and knew we had to bring her home.  We signed all of the paperwork to make it official, thanked her wonderful foster family for taking such good care of her and then brought her to her forever home!

 She has become the perfect addition and is doing so well.  She sleeps through the night in her crate, hasn't had a single accident in the house and loves to play and cuddle!

 She has mastered "sit" and "fetch" and is doing pretty well with "down" and "shake".

 We aren't sure of the cause, but she appears to have some nerve damage on the left side of her face.  Her ear won't stay up, her eye won't blink and her face droops slightly.  The vet isn't concerned by it and we think its pretty darn cute!

We have officially named her KAIA (means "the sea" in Hawaiian) and she has fulfilled all of our expectations and we love her so much!  We will always miss Max and Bailey, but are grateful to have a new addition to the family!

Merry Christmas

 The girls woke up to overflowing stockings!

 While they waited for Grandma and Papa to arrive, they scratched all of their lottery tickets, sorted through candy, gift cards, socks and hair stuff.

Then they helped Matt prep the turkey (just slightly grossed out!) and helped me get the breakfast casserole ready before opening presents.

I sort of forgot to take photos while we spent the morning unwrapping, but we were all blessed with some fantastic gifts.  Taylor loved all of her clothes, gift cards, phone accessories, beauty supplies and soccer stuff.

Allison was thrilled with her new bedding, soccer stuff, TOMS, Uggs and gift cards.

Just when they thought we were all done, we surprised them with one more…

A NEW MACBOOK AIR!

 They will get so much use out of this, I'm sure, and they couldn't have been more excited. 

We spent the afternoon playing games and prepping dinner.  

We had turkey with all of the fixings and pie and cookies for dessert.  It was a relaxing day spent with family and a wonderful way to wind down after the hustle and bustle of the season.

Christmas Eve

 The shopping is done, the decorations are up, the gifts are wrapped and we are ready to celebrate the Christmas.

We started the celebration with the 4:30 candlelight service at Rancho. It was a lovely message and a beautiful ceremony and my favorite part of the holiday.

 Then we went to Francesca's for a delicious dinner.  The food was fantastic and the hospitality was wonderful!

 The girls continued the tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve.  Taylor opened up her Nike Pros from Grandma and Papa and Allison opened up her PINK products from Auntie Lisa.

Time for Glasses

For several weeks, Taylor has been complaining of eye pain while at school or reading.  Our doctor sent in a referral for an Ophthalmologist, but it took almost 2 weeks to finally get in.

After a dozen or so tests in his office, he found the root of the problem.  She isn't necessarily near-sided or far-sided, but her eyes often "over-converge", causing the muscles to strain.  I'm not really sure what that all means, but even though her vision is 20/20, she requires glasses for school, reading and while using the computer.  She had a fun time picking out her frames and we will pick them up in another week or so.  Sure wish we had signed the kids up for Vision insurance during open enrollment…oh well, lesson learned...next year!  

P.S.  Taylor wasn't at all happy that I went to the eye doctor the following day and don't need glasses.  He doesn't even want to see me for 3 more years!!  With 40 right around the corner, that was a very welcome report!

So Over School Projects

I hate school projects (except the ones completed in class)!  It always seems the parents end up doing most of the work or have to spend a fortune on supplies.  Allison had two due within a week after returning from Thanksgiving Break.

 Luckily, she had all of the research done for her Social Studies project prior to vacation and she picked a relatively painless exhibit.  Her class was learning about Ancient Egypt.  She had to do a 3-5 minute presentation and a travel brochure on Thebes.

 She documented Thebes' location, monuments, how it originated and used several maps and pictures to display.  I only had to help fold the card stock and mount the papers.  She gave a great in-class presentation (forgot to take a picture) and it was interesting to tour the classroom and look at all of the other displays.  One project down!

 I was really kicking myself about this project.  Taylor had the same one for the same Science teacher when she was in 6th grade.  Why didn't we just keep it??  Ugh! After spending another $20 on a styrofoam ball, paints and supplies for Matt to build a stand, we recreated Taylor's model.  Allison drew the 4 layers of the Earth's crust,

pinned on the continents and displayed several of the plates and their movement.  She actually got 200 out of 150!!  Now I'm just hoping thats the end of projects for a while.