The house is ready for Christmas!

I love to decorate for Christmas!! Lights have to be every where. I don't care if it's tacky. It makes the house feel warm and inviting.

Here is the piano and our plant stand decorated for the holidays.




Living room




Here it is, our Christmas tree that Pat cut down.

The front of the house. Pat and I made the wreath and in the left window is our Christmas tree. We have a little bit of snow that fell today. More to come :( YUCK!

Griswold/Clouse Christmas Tree

For the past 2 years Pat and I have decorated our 60 some foot Christmas tree with lights in our front yard. National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation gave us the drive to do it. That is why we named the tree The Griswold/Clouse Christmas tree. Its a landmark! Our neighbors have even made comments and ask us if we are going to do it again next year. We take that as a compliment but it could be there way of saying Don't Do It!!

Above is Pat connecting the weight to throw over the top of the tree. He connects fishing line to it and then we pull the lights up with the fishing line. Don't mind his 80's ski ear warmer :)


Pat being a boy of course had to break out the sling shot he bought just for the occasion. Of course it didn't work and he ended up having to throw the line up there by hand. At least he had fun using it for a little while.


Pat up in the tree. He accidentally lost the weight and had to climb the tree. He climbed up that tree so many times! At least he had fun. I stood down below with my cell phone in hand ready to call 911 if he fell.



There it is. I know isn't it beautiful! I cant help but laugh when I look at it because it's a little odd looking. My mom said by the description over the phone that it could be a tree decorated by a Pollock, Pat said that Helen Keller could have done a better job then we did.

Thanksgiving, Black Friday, & Cutting Down Our Christmas Tree

Yesterday was Thanksgiving! Ryan was able to come home after working over 60 straight days and flew in Tuesday night. Pat, Ryan, and I went over to mom & Dicks for Thanksgiving dinner. We sat around and looked through the ads for Black Friday after we ate and planned our route out. This was my 4th straight Black Friday and Pat was going to go with me for the first time!

Black Friday morning went really good. We got front row parking spots for all but one of the stores we went to. Pat even got into the holiday spirit with another lady in line when they decided to tell us we had to apply for a charge card if we were in line...long story but we ended up getting a friendly smile at the counter and were out the door with all of our stuff without a new credit card.

Later that afternoon we went to a local tree farm to get our Christmas tree. Its a tree farm where we can pick it out and cut it down ourselves. We went there 2 years ago and had a blast. This year we took Emma & Turbo. They had so much fun! Emma pulled Pat and the wagon, while Turbo grunted at everyone that walked by us. She thought they were in her yard!


Pat, Emma, & our tree



I asked Emma if she had fun...this was the face I got!





Here it is! We decided to only put 2 ornaments on the tree for now. I don't really trust the dogs or the cats since this is the first tree without them being crated. I know Im going to come home from work one of these days and they will greet me at the front door covered in sap smelling like pine for a month!

Since the house is decorated for Christmas, tomorrow we are going to decorate our "Griswold Family Christmas Tree". Its a huge tree in our front yard that we decorate with lights. You can see this tree miles away!! Pics to come!!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!!!

One Year Anniversary Pictures

December 1st, 2008 it will be 1 year since Pat and I got married. To mark this special anniversary we thought we would get our pictures taken. Im so happy we had them done.

Our friend Lin who is going to school for photography came out to our house and took the pictures. Poor Pat was sick and wasn't feeling the greatest but he was such a trooper. It was freezing cold outside but we bundled up and got them done.

I love all of the pictures Lin took. Not just because they were for our anniversary but because each picture was done at our house and in each picture we can pick out something in it that holds a funny or special memory to us.

We have water & ice!!

Our first ice cube that the fridge made!!!



Pat trying out the water



We have ice!

When Pat and I moved into the house we didn't have a water line hooked up for the fridge. It took several trips to the hardware store, Pat hitting his head a few times on some beams in the crawl space, a few new pipes, and a couple nasty spider webs in the face later, its working. It was such a pain to not have it working because when ever we had company over they would walk over to the fridge and try to get ice or water out of it. Just a horrible noise would come out as well as a dust bunny or two. Then the dreaded period of having to explain why we didn't have it up and running.

Well those days are over!! Thank you Pat! Today was a cold snowy Sunday and the last thing I knew he wanted to do was go into that crawl space again. But he did it and we are both so happy.

I just heard another ice cube drop into the cold empty tray in the fridge just now! The dogs are freaked, Emma just got up out of deep sleep and ran into the kitchen to see what it was.

It's going to be an exciting morning to see how much ice is in the tray tomorrow!!! Boy do we sound old, excited over some water and ice. Pat was right when he said this morning that we just took the first step towards old age when we had lunch at McDonalds and looked through the Sunday paper searching for coupons! :)

Birthday

(Bobby - left, Ben - Right)


So last weekend tons of friends got together to celebrate two special guy's 30th Birthdays. Bobby & Ben. Pat grew up with Ben and are as close as two guys can be without being related. Guess you could say they are brothers from another mother.






I don't think it's possible to get a normal picture at all when it involves these two!






Good times, good friends!






Group pic, holding up the birthday boy





I guess I was the only one looking at the camera

During the party, Ben got up and made a toast to thank everyone for coming and helping him and Bobby have a great time ringing in their 30's. Ben added a special toast for his mom, Vivian. Vivian passed away a couple years ago after a long battle with cancer. She was not only a beautiful, kind hearted person but a second mom to many. She was a member & boss of the pie club, a club that you had to have special rights to join. When Vivian...aka Momma, passed away she took a piece of each and everyone of our hearts with her. She is truly missed. Even though she wasn't physically at the birthday celebration we knew her spirit was and she filled the room with love.

Below is a link of the toast. (my computer wouldn't upload the video for some crazy reason. Im going to blame it on the weather :)

http://s164.photobucket.com/albums/u5/laurakee/?action=view&current=febbcb59.flv

Snow!

No that isn't dust on the camera lens, its Snow! Our first snow fall for the Season. We were pretty lucky this time, but Im sure one of these mornings we will wake up and the ground will be covered.

Emma loves the snow and I know it's not the best picture of her but I wanted everyone to be able to see the snow on her. She would spend the whole day out in the snow if she could. Turbo on the other hand is a different story. We have to put her winter coat and boots on her before she will step foot in the fluffy white stuff. It takes a good 10-15 minutes to get her dressed and she spends a whole 5 minutes outside.

Im not looking forward to the snow because snow = 5:30am sitting on the kitchen floor dressing a chihuahua!

I Voted

From Laura:

This past Tuesday was very important to both Pat & me. We as Citizens of the United States of America were able to vote for a new President. Tuesday was even more memorable because this was Pat's first time voting. Since it was Pat's first time voting he asked me if I would wait and go with him after he got out of work. Around 6:30 pm we got in the car and drove to the Baptist Church around the corner from our house. We pulled up and the parking lot was packed! I thought we would have to wait in line for a while but to my surprise we walked in and the crowd had passed! We were able to walk right up to the tables. We each gave them our drivers license and filled out our info. We were handed our voting ballots and away we voted.

I'm so happy Pat was able to cast his first vote with me!

From Pat:

Yep, this was my first time voting. This was the first time in my life that I was honestly interested in voting. I was really excited to cast my vote. As I drove to work the morning of the election, all the polling stations were absolutely packed. Most of the time when I see a line form, I'm not the kind of person to get excited to be a part of it. This event on the the other hand, was quite to the contrary. I listened to all of the drama on the news. At work I sat back and watched my coworkers argue all day over the presidents and proposals. Needless to say it was quite entertaining.

I left work at 6pm, went right home and gave Laura her daily "I love you" and "gimme a kiss" routine that could possibly be more accurate than any atomic clock. We gathered out things and headed out. Laura described the voting experience perfectly, short of a few embarassing moments.

First off, I decided to mess the first ballot up. It took 5 to 7 minutes to get another. During my wait for the ever elusive second chance ballot, I looked over at Laura and she was already at the door, done. I can't put socks on as fast as she votes. We caught each others eyes and I whispered "I messed this one up" as I pointed at my ballot. Without hesitation, Laura decided to announce to the general population of the Baptist Church "are you serious????". Needless to say, there were some heads turning. I think the window of one car actually blew out.

So, I got the second ballot after that event, did my duty and that was that. It was everything I expected voting for the first time. Excitement, tension, humiliation and laughter...all wrapped up in one soft taco.

Pat out.