Kickin' Off the Holidays!

After enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving and stuffing ourselves silly, we headed out the next day to enjoy a Trans Siberian Concert! They had a great military offer so we decided to take advantage and kick start our holiday season with some live Christmas music! What better way to get in the holiday spirit?!? Once we arrived, it got even better because we found out some of our military friends were in the seats right next to us! It started with a narrated Christmas story (which I wasn't sure about) but once that was over, they really rocked out. I've never seen guitarists fling their hair around so much nor have I seen so much (indoor) pyro technics...I was maybe a little scared for our lives. Three hours later, the concert came to a close and we headed out to get some dinner downtown.

After dinner we went home and...you guessed it, decorated!! We mixed up some hot cocoa, cranked the Christmas music, and got to work putting up the tree and garland. The next day David hung the Christmas lights while I "supervised." We are now fully decorated and enjoying every second of it!!



Love from SD!

Happy Turkey Day!

This year was the first year that David and I did our own Thanksgiving. In years past we have always been home with family but this year, with flights being so ridiculously expensive, we decided to whip up a Thanksgiving feast right here in San Diego. I must say that everything turned out flawlessly and tasted amazing!! We fixed our very first turkey (of course), sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, homemade stuffing, rolls, waldorf salad, cranberry, gravy and topped it all off with warm apple pie over vanilla ice cream and pumpkin pie with homemade whip topping! It couldn't have turned out better, I think our sailor guests would even agree :)

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was a memorable one with lots of yummy food and great company!

Shutterfly Holiday Cards!

If you haven’t already heard about Shutterfly, now is the perfect time to check them out and see all they have to offer! For the past several years, David has been our “designated Christmas card designer.” It often took hours of of staging, lots of shots, and a bit of Photoshop to get our card looking just right. Each and every year they turned out absolutely amazing; however, now we’ve discovered Shutterfly and they do all the hard work for us.

So this year, Shutterfly is offering this amazing deal where bloggers can get 50 free holiday cards just for spreading the word! Having already scoped out their holiday card selection, I was super excited to discover this offer (thanks to an awesome friend)! So now the tough part is deciding which card to go with… Here are three that I particularly enjoy…see what you think!

There’s this Elegant Damask Noir Christmas Card. I really love the simple design and color scheme! Click HERE.

Then there’s this card, the With Love Blue card…gotta love the color scheme on this one and it is designed to display multiple photos! Click HERE.

Lastly, there is this card…the Merry Blossoms... We really like the color scheme of this card as it would go nicely with the photo we’re thinking of using.
I’m confident that whatever card we decide to go with, Shutterfly will make it look fantastic!

If you are a blogger and would like to take advantage of this great offer and get 50 Free Holiday Cards from Shutterfly, check out this website!

If you're not a blogger, you should still check out Shutterfly's website - I guarantee you there will be something on there you'll love!

Happy Shopping!!

Vegas Baby!!

Once we found out that David got Thursday and Friday off for Veteran's Day, we figured we had better take full advantage of this and decided very last minute (Wednesday night) that we should drive out Thursday and head to Vegas for the weekend! So we booked our hotel, booked a show, and packed our bags that night! After a short five hour drive, we arrived at our hotel, the Monte Carlo. It was perfectly located right in the middle of the Vegas strip so we were able to walk wherever we wanted to go. Here are some pics of the hotel...



After checking in to our hotel, we decided to get ready and hit the strip for some dinner and gambling! We have always heard that eating at one of the casino buffets is a must do so after doing a little research we decided the the Bellagio Buffet was where we needed to be. After waiting in a line forever long, we were finally seated and started to dig in! They had anything and everything you could ever imagine and the desserts were AMAZING! Here we are enjoying the yummy desserts...





After dinner we walked around the Bellagio and checked out their awesome decor! Here is a picture of their lobby and their conservatory...amazing!!!




And you can't go to the Bellagio and not see their fountains...


After stuffing ourselves silly, we decided to walk it off a bit and explored the strip and some of the casinos. We didn't win any big money but sure had a lot of fun playing the slots!





We decided to head back Saturday but before we did, we checked out Hash House A Go-Go for some delicious breakfast! They are known for their large portions and well...that's not joke. Here are my biscuits and gravy and David's gigantic pancake!



We had a really great time in Vegas and are already planning a trip back!
Love from SD!

Trick-or-Treat!

Well I must say that Halloween was so much better this year because David was here to enjoy it with me instead of being deployed! We decided to carve a pumpkins a tad early so we popped in "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and started carving away! Here are our pumpkins, with the help of a stencil packet :)





We were excited with the outcome of our jack-o-lanterns but quickly learned that carving them early was not such a great idea. Within a day there was some lovely green and black mold forming on the inside and within a couple of days they were really soft and mushy. We put them outside hoping they'd make it till Halloween but by that night...here's what they looked like.

After we got a good laugh at our situation, we headed out and purchased round two of our pumpkins. This time we waited until Halloween day and finished the carving right before our street filled with the sounds of little Avatar's and Princesses. Here are the final results of our "round 2" pumpkins, pretty neat right?

Our neighborhood has a tradition of sitting in the driveway to pass out candy so we set up shop at the bottom of our driveway and passed out tons of candy. We didn't even let the cool weather stop us...we just sipped hot cocoa and snuggled under a blanket while David took the opportunity to scare our "older" trick-or-treaters...pretty classic actually. Here we are ready for our trick-or-treaters :)

Now our Halloween decorations are packed away and the turkeys have taken over...to be honest, what I'm most looking forward to this Thanksgiving is not the turkey on Thanksgiving day, but the Creamed Turkey made with the leftovers :)

Love from a warmer-than-usual San Diego!

Happy Campers!

If there's one thing David and I love to do, it's camp. It has been wayyy too many years since we last camped and we finally got to go this last weekend! We dusted off the good ole' camping gear, loaded up the SUV and headed ourselves towards Pinezanita Campgrounds!

Here is a link if you'd like to check out where we stayed...
http://www.pinezanita.com/camping.html

The drive took a little over an hour but was a very beautiful (and curvy) route. There was a big fire a couple of years ago that left much of the land destroyed. You could still see the damaged trees and fences along our drive. It was sad to see the damage but at the same time, neat to see the new green peeking through the burnt brown. One of these days it will be what it once was.



Needless to say, we had a fantastic time...even without electricity. We set up camp Friday night and stayed till Sunday morning. Friday night we had the area to ourselves which was great but by Saturday afternoon, three other groups had joined the area. It was actually kind of nice to see other tent campers...we started to feel a little out of place with all the fancy RV's surrounding us. Is there anything better than hot dogs and smores over a campfire??




We definitely did our fair share of roasting smores and grilling burgers! Saturday we drove four miles into a cute little town, Julian. They are known world-wide for their apples and homemade apple pies! We of course had to check this out! We were not disappointed, it was a small little country town with lots of little shops, horse carriage rides, and yummmmmmy apple pie!






After Julian, we decided to head back to the campgrounds and do some much overdue fishing! While the fish weren't really biting, we had a great time. I caught a little bitty blue gill and David caught a little catfish.



Sunday morning we woke up, fixed some breakfast then packed up our things to head home. The weather was beautiful in Julian but quickly discovered the weather was not so beautiful back home in San Diego. We were greeted with gloomy, rainy skies but it was perfect for coming home and taking a much needed nap in!!

Enjoy the pics from our weekend!
Lisa

SWO Pinning...Official Pics!

We're just now getting the official pictures of David's SWO pinning...better late than never right? Is he handsome or what?! He was able to select who pinned him so he chose his department head (at the time) to do the honors. Enjoy the pics!
Love,
Lisa

Where the Surf Meets the Turf!

This past Saturday, David and I decided to check out the Del Mar horse races. It was followed by a free ZZ Top concert so we figured, why not! My teaching partner-in-crime, Mandy, came along with us! We got there and realized we had no clue how to even go about placing a bet so we started by going with the most obvious...the horse names we liked the best. As each race passed, we learned a little more about how to place a bet. Mandy won $7.80 on her very first bet and David and I ended up winning $8.00 on our third bet. The races were definitely a great time...lots of horses, a Beerfest, yummy kettle corn and beautiful weather! After the last race, ZZ Top took the stage. It was standing room only and jammed pack full of crazy people. After about ten minutes of being bumped into non-stop and seeing an old lady pick a fight with some young chick, we decided we'd had our fill of this concert and headed out to get some dinner.

The day was a really great time, I'd go back and bet on horses in a heartbeat! As for ZZ Top and their crazy beards...I think I'll pass next time ;)

Lots of love from SD!
Lisa