Rachel's Birthday Party!

We had dinner with the family last night to celebrate Rachel turning 7! She's such a funny kid ... I can't believe she is 7 already. I got a lot of great photos. Asher is working on teeth so he was doing funny things with his mouth all night. This isn't a great photo of Asher but I had to post it because holy cow - how much do I look like my dad?! I've always said I look like him but to see us sitting side by side and compare our facial structure, I can really see it in this shot. I love my dad, I'm just glad I didn't get his hairline!

This was the sweetest thing. Keira had just woken up and was being shy and cuddly with Natalie. Asher wanted his cousin and snuggled right in to give Keira loves. It was precious.

Asher was really cute with his Great Grandma Evans. He sat on her lap and bounced on her legs. I think she had fun holding him.

My gorgeous Livi is looking so grown up. She has red and pink bands on her braces for Valentine's Day.

Keira was cute with Liv while they watched "America's Funniest Home Videos"

Funny Keira

Olivia, Keira, Harrison and Maddie

Dave and his girls

The birthday girl shows off her Spiderman cake. It was tasty - chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting.

Her Indiana Jones lego set from Grandpa and Grandma gets a thumbs up from the birthday girl

Harrison had Rachel's name for the birthdays. He gave her this tool box with a gift card to Build-a-Bear and some fruit snacks.

Cute Maddie snuggling with her Aunt Deb

Megan with her darling boy. He had little white tennis shoes with green stripes that match his sweater. He just got another haircut yesterday.

Sweet Asher and Maddie

Images of San Diego

Brief Respite from Reality

After nearly 18 years together, Ed still manages to surprise me from time to time. I didn't know how serious he was a couple of weeks ago as we both sat on the couch, exhausted from long hours at work and tired of the cold weather, when he looked at me and said "We should go away somewhere, just the two of us." Playing along, I said "It has to be somewhere warm" and thus began the frenzy of planning that led to us spending 4 wonderful days in San Diego. We stayed one block from the beach in Mission Bay. The weather was perfect and we made the most of the time that we had. We walked the beach each sunset, visited Coronado, Horton Plaza and Balboa Park, ate breakfast at a local haunt overlooking the shore, lazed poolside, ate fabulous carnitas in Old Town and fresh seafood in La Jolla. It was tough to come home!

Snowboarding at Brighton

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pq9aH4R22c&fmt=18

Here is a link to a video clip of the girls on their last run of the day at Brighton this afternoon. Ed wanted to use some of his Christmas cash to take the girls boarding for the first time this season. Despite having to wait for temps to rise so the resort could open (they don't open the lifts unless it's above 0 degrees F) and despite the frigid temps all day (thank heaven for hand and foot warmers) they had a lot of fun. Both girls report being sore from falling down but they were trying intermediate runs by the end of the day and were both doing great!

Ringing in the New Year

We kept to our now annual tradition of celebrating the New Year with our neighbors. We had a fabulous evening starting with dinner at the Bonacci's, moved up the street to continue the party at the LeMonnier's and ultimately counted down to midnight at our house. We had a fun night with our kids and friends, scrumptious food and drink and lots of confetti from the poppers. We enjoyed the fireworks being shot off around the neighborhood and wish everyone a healthy, happy and prosperous 2009.