happy new year 2011!! *edited since blogger didn't save my entire post

Decided to ring in the new year at one of our favorite places, Big Bear!! A recent storm left Big Bear with a fresh blanket of snow so we were really excited. I'm not a big fan of freezing my rear off but I still love it up there. NYE was pretty low key since we had the kids. We made tacos and headed to the ski lodge to watch the torch light parade down the mountain. Guess they have skiers and snowboarders carry lit torches down the hill. It was kinda anticlimactic after waiting in the frigid weather. I think it would have been better if we had been watching from the street and not so close. We hung out in the cabin for the rest of the night and watched the countdown to the new year on tv. We toasted the new year with our free bottle of sparkling cider that is left in every cabin. Saturday started with a french toast breakfast and a walk to the village to see a movie. We took pizza home for dinner and then it was night tubing time!! It is so much fun!

Big Bear in the distance!! We had to take another route up there since the main road is closed. It took almost 2 hours and KK got car sick. Blech!

We must have a billion of these shots.

Keeping themselves entertained on the drive up. Drew didn't go with us, of course. He had a NYE party to go to but unfortunately it got cancelled. Instead, he played 3rd wheel to his friend and his girlfriend at our house. They played Scrabble and watched tv. At least that was the version I got. The hubs made sure to count his beers before we left. LOL

Snow!! Kaelyn needed some alone time so she stayed back at the cabin while we took a walk around the property. It's beautiful out there.

Cool icicles. We saw some killer ones on our walk to the village.

The hubby's lame joke-"look, it's a snow cone!!" Groan.

The creek between the cabins and the motel was completely frozen.

Here we are all bundled up to go tubing. I was afraid I wouldn't make it since I froze watching the parade but with tubing you are walking around a lot and it's quite a workout so we were never cold. I kinda felt like little Randy from A Christmas Story.

These next photos are from my new point and shoot. Love this one.

So glad the hubs made me buy this warm hat. There's no way I would have bought myself a $30 beanie.

Trying not to freeze to death waiting for the torch light parade to start.

Texting with bare fingers....no wonder he complained he was cold!!

At this point, I needed a ski mask. But we had a great time!

Once again, we were sad to leave the cabin. We had breakfast at Boo Bear's Den before we made the almost 2 hour trip home. Until next time Big Bear....

the girls

Hayley's cheer had their end of the year awards/banquet at Pharaoh's Adventure Park in Redlands. We were expecting something a little more ceremony-ish but we basically ate dinner at the crappy buffet and the coaches said thanks for coming and gave the girls their tote bags with their awards and goodies. Thought they were going to have a slide show of the year and talk about each girl but they didn't. Kinda lame but it was good seeing the kids even thought they act so strange when their mom and her husband are around. Too bad it has to be like that. Maybe some day we'll be able to have joint birthday parties and holidays but for now we get to deal with all this tension and awkwardness. But anywho, photos!!

This is as close to Egypt as the hubs is going to get. He's dying to see the pyramids.

The little cheerleader with her trophy. It's hard to tell from this photo but the round thing holding up the cheerleader looks odd. The picture is of pom-poms but they look like they are being held up by someone's fingers. Kinda icky looking.

Brandon getting killed playing air hockey with Kaelyn. She always beats him.

Me, as the Queen.

Don't I wear that crown well?

My goofy husband.

I'm thankful he keeps me laughing.

Getting ready for DDR.

They weren't as good as these guys.

Hayley getting in on the DDR action. (in case anyone is wondering, that's their mom and her husband in the pictures.) It was a bit awkward all standing around watching the kids and felt even more awkward taking pics.

Our fancy tree in the living room using my cell phone camera. It needs more ornaments, or ordamints as Kaelyn says. Really kid, can't you speak correctly by now??

Since we don't have a fireplace, this is the next best spot for our stockings.

Mom and daughter at Kaelyn's choir performance at Victoria Gardens.

It was very festive in the courtyard where the tree and Santa's workshop were. We didn't get to see the big guy unfortunately.

We tried to take this picture like 8 times. I can't seem to take it without our heads being cut off. Think this was the best one.

See what I mean??

Ahhhh the gorgeous Christmas tree. Wish ours looked like that!!

Scrooge!! Actually he wasn't, he just enjoys pretending to be a badass.

There are the carolers. They did pretty good considering the sound wasn't all that great. Wait, I don't mean that they sounded terrible. I mean that the volume on the speakers sucked. No really.

She's smack dab in the middle, wearing a white sweatshirt, Santa hat and glasses. Can you see her?

We grabbed Panda Express and Quiznos in the food court before her performance. It was a chilly night so of course a stop at the 'bucks was in order for a yummy hot drink and a goodie. Her next performance is next week at the school. Guess they are singing the same songs plus a couple more. Don't worry Mom, you'll get your chance to see the show of the year! ;-)

holidaze

Wow, how did it get to be Christmas time already?? Seriously, this year has gone by the fastest. Is it like this then you wake up one day as a 93 year old woman?? If so, I want no part of that train ride. We hosted Thanksgiving again this year. It's so much easier doing it that way. Less dragging the kids around and both sides of the family can join in on the fun. No one has to miss out on seeing the kids (although I'm sure my mom is thinking twice after the fart fest after Thanksgiving) and no one has to pick one side of the family over the other.

We cooked a ginormous turkey this year. It was over 23lbs!! It was so yummy!! Had a little scare that it was cooked in a couple hours but thank god we checked it all over and didn't trust the thermometer since it wasn't done. Put Tom back in the oven and cooked him some more. He was tender, juicy and so flavorful. We (I really should say the hubs but I helped by standing by and watching) injected him with butter, lime juice, garlic and other spices/seasonings. Sooooo good!! Had the other usual dishes-mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, pineapple salad, fruit salad, peas and cottage cheese (with gravy "accidentally" spilled over it-Blech!!) cranberry sauce, yams and rolls. Mom brings the gravy, stuffing and pineapple salad. My mother-in-law brings the peas, cottage cheese and rolls and we do the rest. My brother-in-law's girlfriend brought us coffee from the 'bucks and cookies. Just what this family needs, a Starbucks barista! Ok, let's see some pics!!

Working on the table the hubby made for us. We've been looking at tables for our kitchen but just couldn't pay hundreds of dollars for a set. We knew at some point we would have to. I stumbled across this website and told the hubby about it and a wood working freak was born. He decided to get it done for Thanksgiving. He's got several projects he wants to do. He looks at drills online and youtube videos on woodworking. When he gets an idea....

Kaelyn working on the Oreo pie. Decided to go all out and get real Oreos!!

My brownie pecan pie ready to go in the oven. You can get the recipe here. Yum.

Looks nice kid!

Mine doesn't look too shabby either.

The girls working on the fruit salad. The boys didn't do any cooking. They suck.

Removing the insides. Yes, we didn't have a repeat of this.

Isn't he cute?

Looks kinda gross raw. Blech! Get in the oven pronto!

Injecting the butter and seasoning. The turkey was soooooo good!!

Fruit salad.

Our table. Now we just need real chairs instead of folding card table chairs. The hubs is thinking about making them. The table cost us under $200. Our next project shouldn't be as much since we had to get start up supplies.

We have way more room in the new place.

Making the cranberry sauce. It's an easy recipe-open can of sauce, dump into bowl, eat. MMMMMM

Turkey! Turkey! Turkey!

Yeah the chairs look ghetto but we had to make due.

LOL The kids are thrilled with their seats.

Digesting our dinner while watching football. The hubby and I were planning our Black Friday attack. I did a little pre-Black Friday shopping online at Kohls.com.

Speaking of Black Friday, it was exhausting and thrilling at the same time. Basically, we were in the store from about 730pm-ish to 630am-ish. We got everything we wanted but it was really tiring with all the standing in line and worrying if we were gonna get everything we wanted. We actually did some online shopping while we were in the store. Ha! It's kinda cool that everyone helped their fellow shoppers. People were pointing out where items were to other people in the store. Why can't people be like that all the time?? Now onto some Christmas photos!!

Our annual trip to the Mission Inn in Riverside to see the Christmas lights.

This was taken from the top of the parking garage across the street from the hotel. The stairwells smell like urine. Klassy.

Kaelyn took this artsy photo by mistake.

Real reindeer!! Dunno why they weren't at the North Pole helping Santa get ready for the big day. Maybe they got shipped here since the one was missing an antler.

Yummy treats from Coffee Bean. I like the 'bucks better.

The "face." Why do couples do this?

They are all getting so big.

Some nice lady took our picture and actually knew how to operate the SLR. Poor thing was even standing in the rain for us.

Creepy elves at the Mission Inn.

Brandon jumped in front of Hayley. She wanted to throat punch him after I took the picture since he was blocking her. Funny stuff.

Look how big they've gotten.

Sigh....wish our house looked as beautiful as the Mission Inn's Christmas decorations.

Kinda creepy Santa.

Brandon was all emo here since he got a "talking to" for insisting he liked coffee and then didn't want to drink his coffee. He only chugged it because he thought we were gonna make him do chores to pay us back for his drink. Kids...

Me with my not so little girl. She doesn't like to be called a little girl.

They are all turds but I love them.

Chowing down on a bucket o' donuts. They were scrumptious.

Awww they made up!

We are almost done with our shopping. Just have a few more things to buy then we can just sit back, relax and enjoy the season without running around like crazy people. I have lots of goodies I want to bake. Hopefully I don't screw them up so I can blog about my yummy treats. Merry Christmas!