Brace Face....

Emily got some great news at the orthodontist yesterday....her braces are ready to come off!

Here she is not quite two years ago the day she got them put on.

We go back on Feb 10th for them to come off!

She is so excited!! Equally exciting....maybe only for me they are all paid off! Can i get a yippeeee!

I'll have lots of pretty toothy smiles to post in a couple weeks!

Just for my brother and Bill

A classic! Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Mom

We Love you!!!

It's a blanket with sleeves

We had a fun Christmas this year! The gift of the year had to be the Sunggie! How did we live without these!!! Thanks Houston MacDonalds! They are warm and if you wear it backwards you can pretend it's a cape!

We spent Christmas Eve at my parent's house with my my brother's family and had such a good time watching all the kiddos open gifts.

It looks like Emily is holding a glass of wine but pretty sure it's really Pepaw.

Ryan giving us his best mountain man with his new Logchain knife and bear claw necklace.

Christmas morning we were at home and my parents came over and had breakfast with us and opened gifts.

They stayed most of the day and we had a yummy lasagna dinner and played some hilarious songs on Wii Music. The other fun gift this year was webcams all across the country! We were able to Skype to Houston on Christmas morning so fun to get to see and talk to everyone!

Here we are talking to Jerry and Tricia in Houston.

For New Years day we have made it our tradition to spend the day with Bill and Jon and there is always lots of FUN! This year was no different! We look forward to Bill's famous sauerkraut balls, ham biscuits and this year there was a killer blueberry pie!

The iconic Coon Skin Rock ON pose! Made famous by Bill at the Fess Parker Vineyard in Santa Barbara. Now we each have our own coon skin cap for taking pictures everywhere we go!

Em's favorite gift of the year a New Moon Jacob treasure chest. Thanks Bill and Jon!

Hope 2010 is treating everyone well so far!

Happy New Year!

Need to post some pics and things from Christmas and New Years but just doing some house cleaning and trying to get motivated for 2010! Decided to participate in the House of 3 Simply Amaizng project and need to get my binder put together, but first have a Circle Journal to put togehter but have spent the morning working on blog stuff instead, becasue the computer desk is clean and the scrap desk is NOT....procrastinate much... ;)

Also working on PILES of laundry but have a super fun new front load washer and dryer that was a Christmas gift from my parents, and got installed this week, so this weekend laundry seems fun! Thanks m&d love you!

Will try to get Christmas pictures posted this week.

Japanese Friendship Garden

My friends Bill and Jon invited me to join them at the Japanese Friendship Garden for a traditional Japanese tea ceremony and tour of the gardens. My mom and great friend Shannon were able to come along too! It was a beautiful day for visiting the garden, that is tucked in the middle of downtown Phoenix! Once inside you have no idea you are practically the top of the deck park tunnel of the I-10 freeway.

















We had a brief tour leading us back to the authentic Japanese tea house where we were served matcha the traditional green tea, lets just say it's an acquired taste, but the ceremony was beautiful!.

Before entering the tea house we all took turns washing our hands, which is part of the ritual, at stone fountain outside.

















































Once inside there is more to learn about the ritual






























Then we are seated for the ceremony

Like I said it's an acquired taste, you are to slurp your tea if you like it....not everyone was slurping.

It was a great day to spend with great friends.

And yes Bill and I look fantastic in our matching aubergine but no we did not plan this...it must just be our impeccable fashion taste knowing how great it would make us look against the beautiful backdrop of the garden.

If you get the chance to visit here it is a wonderful place to see!

Winter Choir Concert

Emily has been singing with her school's girls choir this semester. They practice one day a week before school, and tonight was their winter concert. Several music classes also performed and the high school choir performed as well.
It was a beautiful show an Em did so well!

Kind of hard to see her in the video...sorry...she is in the back row middle.
The song is called The Sleigh.