The Perfect Storm

On Saturday afternoon Joey and I hopped in the car with Shan, Kev, and Myles and headed down to the Home Depot Center (which was great!) in Carson to watch our alma mater play in the High School State Championship game. The game was really exciting and there were a ton of Rocklin fans that drove down, or now live in the area. We saw lots of old teachers, people we went to school with, neighbors from Rocklin, and all the kids who are now in high school but were in preschool when shannon was in high school :)

We were all supporting the Thunder with our blue and black (even little myles) and cheered along with the rest of the fans. Overall, it was a great game and fun to do with the family! Here are some pictures from our evening.




We went to Souplantation after the game and Myles was a big fan of the soft serve ice cream :)


We are looking forward to Christmas and heading up to the Bay area later this week.

Pray Pray Pray!

"GOVERNMENT CAMP -- Searchers found the body Saturday of a missing 26-year-old climber in a treacherous area near the 9,000-foot level of Mount Hood, and two others remain missing after failing to return from a climb Friday."
"The other missing climbers were identified as Kattie Nolan, 29, of Southeast Portland and Anthony Vietti, 24, of Longview, Wash."

We just learned of the news tonight and cant stop thinking about the Vietti family (as well as the others affected). Please pray for these two and their families who I'm sure are anxiously waiting to hear any news.
(Steve Vietti, brother of Anthony, was Joey's roommate at APU and a is good friend of ours).

Here is the story that Steve posted on his Facebook.

B.H.E.

I have the Best Husband Ever! This is what he handed me tonight when he walked in from work to congratulate me on being done with my quarter. :) Love him!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in Rocklin this year was wonderful. Although we missed our extended family, we had some wonderful friends join us for the weekend.
Myles loves when his Grandma reads to him.
A chef! Mom taught Joey how to make the gravy, and i must say that it was wonderful!

Dad and Kev did a great job with our barbecued turkey, it might even be one of the best yet!
Myles and Grandpa spent quite a bit of time exploring the backyard together.
This little guy is so precious. He loved playing with the leaves in the backyard.
Thanksgiving with the Dunlops. They were a wonderful addition to the Baker/Olsen/Lewis family holiday.

Yum, rolled tacos. Schmitkes...are you jealous?
Myles thinks everyone and everything is a jungle gym!


We were roll making machines!

Hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving as much as we did! Bring on the holiday season!

Halloween and a Wedding

We drove up and spent Halloween weekend weekend in San Luis Obispo with some good friends. Audrey and Josh drove down to meet us, and we had a wonderful few days with our amazing friends.

Joey and I were contestants on Legends of the Hidden Temple! :) If you have no idea what that is...think back to the awesome Nickelodeon Game shows about 15 years ago. If you are still lost check out this video....
Legends of the Hidden Temple




We celebrated with a pregnant lady and her OBGYN, a farmer and her corn, and a cute little birdie.


And...to finish off the already great weekend...we attended a beautiful wedding in Ventura. I lived with Holly during the year before Joey and I got married, and the four of us have had some great times together.


They have recently moved closer to us and we are looking forward to spending even more time with them!

Fall Family Fun

Mom came into town this weekend and we had a great time with the family! We went to the Harvest Festival at Fuller on Friday night with our cute little fireman.
Saturday Joanna came up to visit and see our new place. We gave her a walking tour of Pasadena and had lunch together. Then back over to Shannon and Kev's for some family dinner and playing with Myles of course.
On Sunday we decided to head to a pumpkin patch and celebrate the season. After researching pumpkin patches in the area I realized how spoiled we were growing up going to Bishop's Pumpkin Farm. (See website....its awesome!)
We headed over to a nearby patch to choose our perfect pumpkins, play in the bounce house and wander around. Myles loved it!




We then headed home to carve our pumpkins into masterpieces :)


We are taking off tomorrow to head up to San Luis Obispo for the weeked. We are meeting Josh and Audrey and staying with our friends Scott and Carly (we just celebrated their wedding in August!). I am looking forward to spending some good time with Courtney while we are in town for the weekend. And...we get to celebrate another wedding of our friends Pete and Holly in Ventura on Sunday. A VERY FUN filled weekend coming up. Lots of pictures to come I hope!

Catch Up

Okay, I am determined to catch up on our blog so that it isnt so hard jump on and do a quick update. This time around I am REALLY going to try hard to keep up with it.
Quick overview of what we have been doing since Portland (see below post). Things have been busy for us. We have moved to Pasadena, which has been a great change for us! We love being able to walk everywhere! (Trader Joes is three blocks one way and Target is two blocks the other, so I am a happy camper!) Pictures will come later.
Shannon, Kevin, and Myles live in walking distance as well so we have been able to spend a little more time with them which
has been fun.
We celebrated Joey's birthday by going to the Laguna Art Museum to experience the WOW (world of warcraft) exhibit. Thankfully Dan came up for the weekend to help us move and to join us for the museum so that Joey would have someone else who knew what they were looking at :)...thanks Dan!
Joey shares his birthday week with his sister Joanna, so we went out to celebrate her 21st birthday with the family at Yardhouse.

The WHOLE Higerd family was out visiting California for a few days and we were happily able to spend some time with them while they were here. We joined them at APU for a football game (Joey's first APU football game at APU ever) and then stole Mari and Gabe away for the night to come stay at our apartment. It was so much fun to be able to catch up with the two of them and to see the family back together again!
And, finally we headed up North for the weekend to see Joey's family and spend some time with friends (and of course Max). It was our first time visiting since Jim and Renee sold their house, so we joined them in their new apartment! We were able to connect with a lot of friends while we were in town and had a great time with everyone.
While we were in town, we headed to San Francisco to Warlock Tattoos to see Joey's friend Carlos, and he did a really good job with the tattoo that Joey has been anxiously awaiting. (I wasnt quite sure how a duck head would look on his thigh, but Carlos worked his magic and made it happen).

...okay, i believe that we are now up to date. Promise you wont have to wait as long next time!

Portland!

In the beginning of September we flew up to Portland to be with the whole family for the weekend for cousin Kristin and Benji's wedding! We were there for the entire Labor day weekend (plus some) and loved every minute of it.
It was an amazing weekend. Great location. Great weather. Great family. Beautiful wedding (and bride & groom of course).
Here are some fun pictures from our time there. The Forestry center was decorated beautifully for the big day.

The blushing bride and her sister before the ceremony.

AJ played and sang an amazing song that he had written for the Kristin and Benji while she walked down the isle.

Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Erdmann!

I made them dance with me while my wonderful husband rested his tired feet. :)

Off to Maui!

The Fam.

The rest of our time there was filled with walking through Portland, Powell's Books, wonderful meals with the family, and relaxing!
Deschutes Brewery for some good cousin time.



At the end of our trip, Joey and I "sacrificed" our seats on our plane home for $600 dollars from Alaksa Airlines and a flight home the next morning along with an extra free night in Portland. Thanks Alaska! We were able to connect with dear friends
Maia and Jeff (Lindsey worked at camp with Maia five years ago and has only seen her once since!) for some frozen yogurt which made our extra time in Portland even more worth it.
Overall, we LOVED it and can't wait to go back and visit sometime!