Canadian Thanksgiving!

We celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with David's side of the family this year. This isn't an annual celebration, but since my sister-in-law is having her baby right around Thanksgiving, she didn't want to miss out on the meal, so we celebrated it early. David and I are excited because this year we will get 2 Thanksgiving meals. We had a lot of fun visiting and playing with the kids. We had an American Idol contest on the Wii, Lexi won first with me coming in second place...and we all got to rock out on Rock Band. Me and David learned an important lesson, you can't leave ANYTHING in reach when there are little kids around...and that our little nieces LOVE make-up. :)

All the food was amazing!

My mother & sister-in-law made trifle. It was soooo good! I was sad that I didn't get anymore than a scoop full, but now I know how to make it :)

All the kids were excited for dessert. There is my pumpkin cheesecake - it was delicious!

Jenna took us to this really yummy ice cream place called Pink Berry. Its fresh frozen yogurt and all the toppings are fresh cut fruit. It was REALLY good! I am sad that there isn't one out here in Fresno.

Appendicitis!

We had a good scare on Tuesday, well - I guess I had a good scare. David went to the doctors because Monday night he had horrible abdominal pains and didn't sleep all night long. A friend was nice enough to take him to Kaiser Tuesday morning and stay with him all day, and it turned out that David needed an emergency surgery to get his appendix removed. I was in Southern California training for work, so I drove back home once it was confirmed he was going under the knife.


Even though this was a routine procedure, I was still worried. Everything turned went well and I was able to bring him home Wednesday afternoon. He is in a lot of pain and it is hard for him to move around, but he will be alright. He isn't a needy sick person, I think I keep bugging him more asking if there is anything I can do for him. He should be back on his feet by next week. Thanks to everyone who called and came by the hospital to visit...we appreciate your concerns!

Our First Harvest

In Madera the Church owns an 80 acre vineyard, and once a year everyone comes out to help for the Harvest. What is interesting is that these grapes are used to make raisins that are shipped all over the world for the needy, and what is left over is sold to Sun Maid and the profit is put back into maintain the vineyard. We went out Saturday morning to start picking. It was actually really fun, minus seeing all the spiders.

We didn't know that the grapes were really "sun dried", but found out that they really are. They are laid out, and in a week someone goes out and turns them to make sure all of them dry out, then they put all the dried vines in bins and take them to get washed and whatever else they do to them to get the raisins we eat.

Here is my adorable husband picking grapes under the shady vine. He was very sweet, he let me choose the spots with less spider webs and spiders so I could pick in peace.

We got down and dirty, sweaty, and I even cut myself, but it was a different thing to do on a Saturday morning. In January they go through again and tie up the vines on all the wires, but I think I'll let David take care of that -- it pretty cold here in the winter from what everyone tells us. I'll stick to helping out in the nice summer mornings.

Our Vegas Vacation

We decided to take a vacation to Las Vegas for Labor Day weekend and also in celebration of David's 24th birthday. We left Thursday morning and drove to Vegas, the drive wasn't so bad, we stopped a couple times on the way at some outlet malls. We stopped at the Tulare Outlets, David bought some shirts and I came out empty handed. It wasn't a bad 6 hour drive... I got in a pretty nice nap :p

This is my friend Delica and her adorable family! Delicia was one of my good friends from the 8th grade, and then moved her Freshman year to Manteca, CA. We lost touch after that and then years later found each other on Myspace (who would have thought!). She lives in Henderson, NV - which is only 15 from Las Vegas. Our first night in we went to her place to visit and got to spend time and meet her husband and adorable little girls. Regan, the older one LOVED David, she ran to him almost right away to pick her up. Delicia says she loves tall men, but I love how children just flock to David all the time, he'll make a great Daddy one day!

We stayed at Planet Hollywood, we got an awesome deal on a Suite facing the Strip. It had a round bath tub in the middle of the bathroom that was so big I could lay lengthwise inside. There were 2 big flat screen TV's, on by the bed and the other in the sitting area. The best part was the view, we had an amazing view where we could see the fountain show at the Bellagio perfectly. When we came back from our first day walking the strip, we were surprised with a delicious fruit tray, and a cheese tray with an assortment of all kinds of cheeses and crackers, and some chocolate covered strawberries. We definitely were treated well.

Our first day we walked around the Strip, it's SOOO much longer than it looks! The hotels are so huge and elaborate. I couldn't imagine working in a hotel similar to these.



The fountain show at the Bellagio was by far my favorite part of visiting Vegas. I could sit and watch the show forever. Since our hotel room had a perfect view of the show, at night we just sat by the window and watched, a different one played every 15 minutes... it was so amazing watching it at night with the lights.

The main highlight of our trip was we went to see The Phantom of the Opera, in the theatre built especially for this performance. It was amazing! I had seen it before in San Francisco and it was David's first time. I have to say this show was way better, the feel of the theatre and the stunts in the place were unbelievable. To make it worth seeing, this is the place to see it at.

Our last night we met up with Delicia and John and they treated us to dinner at a really nice seafood restaurant.
We really enjoyed the time we were able to spend with them, we are so glad we were able to see them twice on our trip! Even though Delicia and I lost touch after Jr. High, we seemed to pick up right where we left off, it's a shame we don't live closer to each other. We are excited that they might come and visit us on their way up to the Bay Area to visit family.

Before we left Vegas for good we had to take a trip to see the Las Vegas Temple. It was beautiful as they always are.

David's sister Jenna's house is halfway between Vegas and home, so we stopped to spend the night on Sunday night and BBQ for Labor Day. We had a lot of fun visiting them as we always do and getting to spend some time with the kids.

Calvin is getting so big!

My Last Day at the Sheraton...

On Thursday, August 21st was my official last day at the Sheraton Pleasanton. I am going to start working for the Fairfield Inn by Marriott in Clovis. I had worked at the Sheraton hotel a little over 7 years! I started right when I turned 17 as a Junior in High School. I started working the Front Desk on weekends, to the Sales Admin, to the Revenue Manager. My last day happened to be on the Annual Kick Off Party for the Goodguys Car Show, the best time of year to work.

This is my amazing team (missing a couple people...) but many people here have seen me graduate high school, graduate college & get married. You can say I grew up here and some of these people have been there the whole time. I am truly going to miss being with these people on a daily basis!

We were graced with the presence of Elvis, my boss got a special song dedicated to her... she loves Elvis and is always singing his songs.

David stayed for my last day, I love him so much!! He was even helping out making and serving some popcorn to the guests.

This is the most amazing boss in the world! Debbie has taught me so much, and is the one who gave me the opportunity to get where I am today. She has such a big heart and leaving her is the hardest part of leaving the hotel.

Aunt Sandy's 60th Birthday

We had a great weekend visiting the Bay Area. On Sunday we went to our old ward in Dublin and got to see some old friends and faces. After that, we got ready to celebrate my Aunt Sandy's 60th birthday! There were a ton of family and friends that came, it was good to see everyone there. We were missing some key players, but we still enjoyed the time we spent with everyone.

My Aunt Sandy, Uncle Bob and Uncle Eloy with us kids :)

We missed my Mom, Aunt Kathy, Elizabeth, Jill and Donna and her kids - who weren't able to make it.

Grandma Lena, Karrie and Marissa. (3 generations in this picture)

Auntie Mimi and little Marissa - she is a little over 1 month old now. She is starting to fling her head around as she is getting curious to what's going on around her. She is so adorable!

Adam looks forward to going to Aunt Sandy's house every year for her birthday. She lives in the Castro Valley hills and there are tons of lizards. His thrill is to catch one, well, at least to have someone catch one.....Neil caught it for him this time. This is a picture of Adam with his new friend Fireball. (Don't worry - Fireball survives)

Uncle David and Adam horsing around, as usual. :)

Celebration for Janelle & Steve's Wedding

On Saturday, August 9th we had the opportunity to celebrate Janelle & Steve's marriage! They got married last year right before they moved to Texas, so they decided to do a reception in the nice weather. It was a lot of fun to see many old faces and to spend some time with our friends (now that we have moved!). It's rare that all of us get together so it made it a little more special.

The Greenes

All my girls together (minus Nikki).

We both owe lots to Janelle ~ she is the one who introduced the two of us almost 10 years ago!

After the reception everyone was going out, since Janelle had a babysitter she took full advantage of everyone being together. We went to this place in downtown Hayward and it turned out to be karaoke night. Being that we all used to be in the Mt. Eden Choir we rocked the place.

Molly sang to "White Wedding" in dedication to Janelle & Steve. Molly is so awesome, I love how she just goes for it! (And that she reads our blog!) It came out pretty dark, but I wanted to keep it up here anyway!

David and I sang a song for Sarah that she picked out. This was a first for the both of us to karaoke, we didn't do too bad!