Christmas Party!

I love parties! So Cassie and I decided to host a Christmas party at our apartment. We invited our several cousins who live here and also a couple of our friends.

Here are a few pictures from our joyous celebration!

- I was excited!

-Our theme was Silver, White and Teal.

- Parting gifts.

- Food!

- Dessert table! :)

- The hostesses! We bought sparkling shirts to match our decor.

- White elephant gifts. Boy, were there some interesting presents!

- Whitney and Kirk's presents are my favorite.

- More fun presents!

- Bryant with the dog poop art book. Valerie now has that book displayed at work on her desk. Nasty.

- Cameron with his new, sweet pirate gear!

- Shelby lookin' fly!

- Cassie and I playing Pictionary.

Check out our big pad of paper. We are official party-pictionary-players!

- Team "losers"...they tried to blame it on the fact they couldn't see the board. psh. Sore losers.

- The winners. We were amazing.

- Shelley and Kirk into the game.

I hope everyone had as much fun as I did! I love getting together with all my cousins. It's so fun that we all live here. We need to have more parties just for fun!

Oh, Christmas Tree

So, being here in Arizona everyone buys fake Christmas trees and that's lame. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest my family has always had a real one. Cassie and I were not going to settle for an artificial tree! There is nothing like that Christmas tree scent! At first we wanted to cut down our own...until we realized where we lived. There are no trees here. We had to settle for a tree stand off the freeway. Wouldn't ya know the trees were raised in Oregon (yes, we asked)?!


- Unfortunately, we couldn't get a beautiful Douglas...so we settled for whatever type this is. The worker insisted that we weren't "cheap"- we were just "frugal".



- Yes, Cassie is in shorts. That's Arizona for ya.


- The mostly finished product. We need a few more ornaments and something for the top.


I love Christmas!

Cabin Fever

This weekend Valerie invited Heather and I to her parent's cabin. The cabin was north of Payson somewhere. I never knew Arizona could be beautiful. There were so many trees, I felt like I was in Oregon again.

We had a great weekend. We played lots of games. I think we played Catch Phrase for 2 hours one night. I love Valerie and Heather. I also love to meet people's parents...is that weird?

:: Day 1 ::


- This is the puzzle that Valerie's dad said would take us the whole weekend to figure out, IF we could figure it out. We put it together in less then 2 minutes. Never underestimate us! We're the puzzle masters.


- Valerie's dad also didn't think we'd be able to flip coasters and then catch them. We proved him wrong yet again, we both flipped 8.


- Are these not the scariest animals you've ever seen? They are some kind of weird, wild pig. Not a wild boar, they corrected me several times when I called them that. I was so grossed out by these. Who would mount those? yuck.

They had so many mounted animals on the walls. Caribou, bears, "wild boar", elk and deer. I'm probably missing some...it was crazy. The are very into hunting. Valerie is a hardcore.

:: Day 2::


- Morning at the cabin.


- Us being cute, as usual.

We went on a Quad ride. Heather hadn't rode a 4-wheeler for a while and this was one you had to shift. It was quite a rough ride at the beginning. I almost fell off a couple times. I think Valerie's dad was worried. And man was it freezing!!


- Woo hoo!


- It was freezing. I have 2 sweatshirts, 3 shirts and a scarf on.






- The Trio.


- We decorated their Christmas tree!

:: Day 3 ::


- Valerie and I went on quad ride to drop off an Elk hide. We ate that Elk for breakfast in the most delicious breakfast burrito I've ever had in my life! Elk meat is good.


- In the woods.



- I LOVE Quads.


- Gettin' ready to leave. You can see some of the dead animals mounted on the walls.



- I love this picture. Even Bella (the dog) is looking @ the camera.

- They even kill the reindeer.

- On the way home I made them stop at all the antique shops in the little towns we passed thru. Outside of one of the shops there was this never ending "quarter horse". This thing lasted thru Valerie's photoshoot, mine, and Heather's. We eventually walked inside and the thing was still going. You really get your money's worth.

I now have a new appreciation towards Arizona. It's not all desert!