San Diego Humane Society

Nate and I went to the SDHS's Tots and Tales program. This day, they learned about bunnies (read a book, did an art project, and met a bunny). After that, we walked around the beautiful building to meet some other animals...dogs, cats, rabbits, rats, etc. What a great place!

cheap entertainment for the kids....our driveway construction project. all the neighborhood kids come out at night when the the workers go home.
Sadie finds her way to the sofa when we are away. She loves to snuggle with blankets.
our mess

making the most out of our little kitchen

new cabinets, counters, and appliances...hooray!

Nate amazes me how detail oriented he is even with such an active personality. He really loves projects. I picked up a few of these model sets at Michaels and I thought it would be a little advanced for him but he LOVED it.

Nate's weekend

Nate and I went to San Dieguito Park for a picnic. Monster trucks go pretty much wherever we go. We collected some things from under the trees to build obstacles for his trucks.
Collecting dirt to bring back to our picnic spot

Running away from a squirrel we saw
Nate and his friends at the kidtoons movie (My Little Pony and Chuck the truck)
Nate with his buddies in the movie theater
We have so much fun building towers. He wanted to make it as tall as possible so he went to get his stool to finish. He was so excited I was taking a picture of the final building (he called it "downtown")

January wasn't very eventful for us (minus our kitchen remodel and having the flu) but here are a couple of cute pictures. Nate was so tired this day, he fell of the sofa while still sleeping and nestled into an even cozier spot.
Nate loves our new oven because he can watch the progress. We were making muffins this time. He got so excited seeing them rise up.

New Years

My parents were still in town for New Years. We had a blast in the Rock Star suite at the Hard Rock Hotel in downtown San Diego. We had the best view of the party from the balcony. Nate spent the night with our next door neighbors-his good friend, Brady and his little baby brother Finn.
This is the "after" picture after the party. Some staging was done before the picture (dad!) but it really was a mess.
Midnight toast. (p.s. I have no good explanation for the hair, you'll have to ask John.)
Mom and I
Judy, Janet, and John having too much fun on the balcony
View from mom and dad's rock star suite (best view of the party for sure!)
Judy and Bob
Dave and I
The Hard Rock sent up some party supplies which included sunglasses and gold party glasses


the "before" party shot

Week after Christmas

San Diego Balloon Parade. Mr. Potato Head and Bob the Builder
Some of the gang watching the parade. Janet, Judy, Paul, Hunter, Bob, My grandmother, Dave, and Nate
Here comes Nate's favorite character, Thomas the train!
watching the 5k before the balloon parade
Mom, Judy, and Dad riding the trolley to the parade
family! We actually have a lot of extended family in San Diego but we don't get to see them very often.
Day trip to Newport Beach
View of the historic Hotel Del Coronado from my grandma's condo
lunch at the Fish Market downtown
on the Skyfari at the San Diego Zoo

Merry Christmas

Christmas wouldn't be the same without watching "ELF"
Braised short ribs, Heavenly potatoes, and glazed carrots for dinner. (and pumpkin cheesecake and blueberry tart with ice cream for dessert). food coma.
Nate loved all the gingerbread projects he got to do this year. My mom and Nate had fun making this gingerbread man.
"cheeeeeeese!"
We are still wondering how the reindeer got down the chimney to munch on this carrot.

We were lucky to have Happy, the elf on the shelf, come to visit our house this year. One of his favorite spots to sit and watch Nate was on the wine cork wreath I made. He reported to Santa each night if Nate was good or bad and then returned to our house each morning.

Sadie got a haircut for Christmas, lol. She looks younger, don't you think?