Our 1st Christmas Tree!!

Yay!! We have our first Christmas tree!! The crazy people we are, decided to go out the night we drove back 10 hours from Amarillo TX to get our tree.  John did a great job with the lights and the tree absolutely glows.  It was fun going through all of his ornaments (mine are still back in NY) and hearing all the old stories. Our fireplace is another of our favorite Christmas decorations. There is a stocking there for each of the puppy dogs and you can see John's cowboy stocking on the right.  I had to get it for him!!  Despite the weather, we are trying our best here in San Diego to make it feel like Christmas.  This weekend we will put up our outdoors lights so I definitely will have some pictures of that up.  

Our Big VACATION!!

Ok, so I have to apologize for the long time between posts but we went on a well-needed vacation!!  It was BUSY!  First, we drove 17 hours to Amarillo, TX.  John's parents were awesome enough to watch our puppy dogs while we galavanted around the country.  While in Amarillo, I got to see John's childhood house and HS. We also went hiking with John's mom in Palo Duro Canyon.  Then we jetted off to NY to my family's home, where I showed John the obligatory "sights" of my childhood.  The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade,  a Thanksgiving dinner of our own, my 10 year HS reunion, and traveling New England kept us busy.  After all that, we headed back to Amarillo to spend some more time with John's family, collect the puppy dogs, and then drive back to SD. I think we need a vacation from our vacation!! We had a great time and it was great to see everyone!!

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

YES!! We were crazy enough to get up at 4:30 a.m. and head to the train station to get a good spot on the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  My parents and my sister and her boyfriend were all in tow also.  It was definitely an experience....packed together like sardines....NYer's elbowing and yelling at eachother.....the floats and balloons were cool....Well we can check that one off our life list and next year will gladly just enjoy the festivities from home on tv!!

Trine's 10 year old HS Reunion

Our 2 week long vacation actually started with the plan on going to my 10 yr HS reunion.  10 YEARS!!  That's crazy!  I had a great time catching up with everyone. The pictures are my 2 best friends from HS.  Can't wait to see you girls at Christmas!

Visiting John's Grampy and Nana in Maine

We stopped into John's grandparents house in central Maine.  It was so beautiful there with snow coating the ground.  We didn't get to stay long, but had a great time seeing them.

Coast Guard Academy

While we were traveling through New England, we had to stop at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, CT for John to show me around and tell me all the grueling details.

Lizzie and Drake

On our way back through Amarillo to pick up the puppy dogs, John's sister came with her daughter, Lizzie.  Lizzie loved her "Uncle Johnny"!!  And no we did not get a 4th dog.  That huge cute puppy is Theresa's (John's sister) 8 month old Great Dane named Drake.  He was sooo cute. We tried to convince Theresa to let us bring him back with us!

Just Us

Here are a few random pictures that I thought everyone would enjoy.  John was a little hungry as you can see half of his dinner of beefy ribs is all over his face.  I was lounging on the puppy dog's ottoman snuggling with them.  John and I actually fell asleep on the ottoman after all the dogs climbed  off!

Big Dorks!!

Yes, your eyes are not deceiving you.  John and I are just a little excited about the upcoming snowboarding season so.....we had a little fashion show of our all our new gear!!! Yes it's ok to laugh at us. We are self-admitting dorks.  Coming December we will have some real pics of us on the slopes. We are planning on going to Mammoth for entire weekend....so excited!

Farmers Market

Here is one of our favorite Sunday things to do....wandering around the local farmers market. It's so nice to be able to outside in November and enjoying awesome produce.  

 

Crazy Puppy Dogs

Here's some more pics of our crazy puppy dogs at the beach and lounging with us at home.

Happy Halloween!!  

John and I made a trip to the "pumpkin patch", hundreds of pumpkins and a petting zoo in the rented lot next to a car dealership....not quite what we are used to.  But what the heck...we got some beautiful pumpkins and spent an evening decorating.  They turned out pretty good. Check out our masterpieces...

Two weeks ago, John was sent to San Francisco to help the Fish and Wildlife Service with transporting equipment.  Yes, that is John in the right seat with the Golden Gate Bridge behind him! He was so excited!  

Here are some cute pictures of John trying to teach the pups to surf.  Only Emma would stay on long enough to let John swim around on the board. Jasper went for a short ride and Meesh wouldn't even try!  It was fun to watch!

It's fall time so of course we had to go apple picking. Let's just say that apple picking in Southern California is just a little different than back home in NY.  The apple trees were mini and it was at least 85 degrees in the high desert. We still had some really really good apple pie and picked lots of good apples for me to bake with!

Here a few pics of the puppy dogs.  They all love to stick their head out the window, as you can see in the picture of Meesh.  The picture with all three is in our tent after backpacking one weekend, definitely a little crowded.

Here a few pretty sunsets from the west coast. Just wanted to share them with all of you.