Secret Santa, Ice Skating, and Christmas Tree Lane

Last Friday night we hung out with our usual group of friends and celebrated Christmas. We had picked secret santas about a month before and it was time to reveal! We started out by meeting at our apartment and went to drive down F street in Oxnard. As a kid that was where we went every year to see great Christmas lights. This year was a bit disappointing (I don't remember seeing the giant camels), but it's still part of a Christmas tradition. Next year I want to see Camarillo's lights cause I hear it's much better. Many of the houses were definitely decked out in lights, but it wasn't as impressive as I remember

Our group's so big that we had to take two cars. Allison and Elyse came with me and Doug

Don't worry, he kept his eyes on the road!

This huge santa looming over the manager cracked me up!

After stopping at Jack in the Box for some food we went to the Channel Islands Ice Skating Rink. We all got our skates and hit the ice (except for Allison and Sammy who decided they didn't want to skate). They took the camera and were our own paparazzi. 

Not quite sure what he's doing...

We kept trying to get group photos

Many of the group

Us with our fur lined hoods!

The guys that were currently present (James and Kaity had to find an ATM)

The present girls

Allison in the scarf that she got from Doug

Candid

A lot of the pictures were blurry. Allison was having a bit of a hard time getting good pictures. What is it with me and digital cameras?

 Kaity

Kaity and James

Allison and Sammy

Skating!

Hahaha

Elyse and Allison 

Sammy, Allison, and me

We finally got a group shot. The first one we got was blurry so we had to do it again

Then we came home and had hot chocolate and cider, ate cookies, and read Luke 2. Then we exchanged gifts and watched Charlie Brown Christmas. It was a lot of fun. I'm so thankful for such great friends!

The next day there was a really pretty sunset. It had been partly cloudy all day long and then toward the end the clouds started taking over, pushing in to the horizon

I love our view! Only 4 days till Christmas. We're excited to spend Christmas Day with Doug's sister and her family and Doug's mom too. We're having Christmas with my family the day after Christmas when everyone is in town and rested. Sometimes it's really hard to keep things in perspective of what we are celebrating since it's easy for me to get caught up with all the activities surrounding this season. The music, the baking, the presents, the movies, the hot drinks and sweaters that get to be worn. And then there's the busyness of working in retail. I'm excited to get to go to the Christmas Eve Service on Saturday. And I'm not doing floorset this year so I'm not using all of my free time to sleep. Thank you God for sending your Son as a sweet little baby to save us from our sins. May we always keep that at the front of our minds and our hearts during this special time of year!

She really is part dog

She did this at least 10 times in a row...many more times than Edelweiss ever would...

And I love how at 4s you can see her toss the mouse up lol

Chargers Game

This past Sunday I got to go to my first football game ever! Since marrying Doug, I've become a Charger's fan. My family is predominantly a Packer's fan, but it's okay because they only play each other once every four years or so. So now the Chargers are my team!

We got tickets at the beginning of the season and have been looking forward to going ever since. The Chargers aren't doing their best this season, but oh well. We went with our friends Allison (who is an avid chargers fan) and Sammy (it was also his first football game).

We drove down that morning to San Diego in our Chargers jerseys and shirts. We got there pretty early so Doug and I took them on a trip down our childhoods. First we stopped by my old house in Oceanside. After we had lived there, my nana and papa lived there, and then my aunt and uncle. So I have lots of memories there.

Then we drove to Fallbrook to see Doug's house. He also pointed out the coffee shop that he had worked at, Pedro's Tacos (a nostalgic eatery, since I've had it and it's super talked up), the church he attended and worked at, and his high school.

Then we continued on our way to Qualcomm stadium. We parked at a shopping center and then took the trolley to the stadium. We found our seats right in front of some Buffalo Bills fans (the team that we were playing). We enjoyed the National Anthem and the military fly over.

The plane that they used for the flyover was huge! I would have taken pictures when it was closer, but I didn't have my camera out

Go Chargers! We ended up winning 37-10. The game was decided in the 3rd quarter so a lot of people stated leaving. We decided to stay till the end and just deal with the line at the trolley

It got pretty cold there, especially with the wind. We were glad that we had our jackets, gloves, scarves, and blankets to keep warm.

Afterwards Allison really wanted to go to a Vietnamese restaurant that she used to frequent when she lived down there. We just had to get Pho, a rice noodle soup with chicken and vegetables. This is what it looked like! It was really good too!

Doug drove the whole time so on the way home he needed a caffeinated drink. We stopped at a CVS and there was a Golden Spoon frozen yogurt store in the same shopping center. So we got some of that too! We sampled a gingerbread frozen yogurt and it was really good, but I didn't end up getting it.

Vanilla with blackberries and brownie pieces. Yum!

We got home not too late, but we were exhausted, so we went to bed pretty quick. It was a lot of fun and I can't wait to go to another game!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

I am so excited for our Christmas decorations! We finally hung out our wall stuff, so now it really feels like home. I love having a home to come home too. This morning we hung up our ornaments that we got in Europe (actually we hung up all of them, but we were extra excited about the Europe ones). It was fun naming all the places we went and the memories with the ornaments. We're so lucky that they all made it back in one piece! (And lucky that Luna doesn't seem interested in them)

Here are some pictures of our apartment "done"

Tomorrow is Saint Nick's day! Time to get Doug's stocking done :)

`

A Reagan day and Christmas beginnings

Last week I got to spend a day with Reagan while Devonna worked. They both came over in the morning so that Devonna could use our internet before she left. Reagan and I decided to make brownie cookies. He had fun mixing everything up, but wanted to eat everything! He had to wash his hands a couple times after licking his fingers haha

He did get to lick the beaters though. He loved the cookie dough!

Before they went in the oven. I didn't get a picture of after they came out. They tasted pretty good. They were from a box package. I think they'd taste even better if we got the ghiradelli brownie mix and then made the cookie dough from scratch!

Then it was time to go back to Mimi and Pappy's house for a nap. We stopped at the park on the way home though for about 20 minutes, since it'd be almost dark once he woke up from his nap

He loves going down the slide head first now. And we love what the static does to his hair!

"I did it!" He climbed up on the horse by himself

Climbing up the tower ladder

Smile! He does this smile if you tell him to smile and does a "normal" smile if you tell him to say "cheese". They're both cute.

Getting to the top...

Playing dragon, or jail, or something. He was "stuck" under the bridge and I was supposed to save him

After his nap, Mimi was home and we all made playdoh. Reagan wanted to make it yellow, his favorite color. We had a lot of fun playing with it, making houses and snowmen.

November was no-shave -november with the guys in our group. So Doug grew a beard. I hardly noticed it. One of my friends asked me about it about half way through the month and I realized that I didn't really see it when I looked at Doug (even though he definitely can grow one!). He was eager to get rid of it on December first though! But took a picture of it before he shaved it off:

Last night we got to go on a date. It had been a while since we were able to go out. We got all dressed up (didn't think to take a picture though), and drove out to Thousand Oaks to PF Changs. We had to wait an hour for a table because it was so busy. We enjoyed the view of the manmade lake there and the ice skating rink that they set up over part of it. We got our table and had some wonderful food. Honey crispy chicken, beef and broccoli, and lo mein. Plus we had the chicken salad wraps as an appetizer. We decided to go "all out."

After our meal we came home and started setting up our Christmas stuff. We had to rearrange some of the furniture to fit our tree. We are so thankful that we were given this tree, and love the lineage of it, but are thinking we might need to get a new one next year on Black Friday, cause this one is starting to show its years of use. We can't believe that this is already going to be our 3rd Christmas as a married couple!

We played Christmas music, go out all the decorations, and went to town on our apartment. We were even able to string some extra lights on our balcony. At our old place we weren't allowed to hang any. After we were done we made some hot drinks in our rediscovered Christmas mugs and watched an episode of How I Met Your Mother (we're excited it's on Netflix instant!)

It's finally starting to feel a little more like Christmas. I love this time of year and can't wait to be able to experience it without the daunting doom of finals and papers due!