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!