Sunday, January 1, 2012

Merry Christmas, 25th Golden Birthday, and a Happy New Year!



We had a wonderful holiday this year! Full of family and friends! So many people to see and so little time.
Here is our humble abode decorated for Christmas. I was so excited to have a house to put Christmas lights up then we found out they had broke....maybe next year. :( I loved putting out my passed down It's A Wonderful Life Christmas House Collection! We watched the movie with family as our usual tradition goes.

A few weeks ago we went to a cool place with Devin and Julianne full of trampolines and foam pits.


Since I am now 24 weeks along I couldn't join in on the jumping but became the honorary picture taker. Sheehan was dressed for the part flying ("jumping") around in his Superman shirt.
It was Sheehan's golden birthday this year, 25 years old on the 25th of December! Before we left for our trip to California we went out to eat at one of our favorite restaurants, Tucanos! We loved it and stuffed ourselves as usual! By the end of the night we realized we both did not have our wallets with us so I stayed at the table while Sheehan raced home and back in a record 20 minutes to get some money. That was awkward but it was still a great night...definitely memorable.
We started Christmas off by leaving after work on Thursday, the 22nd and driving straight to Sheridan's in Vegas. We stayed up until 2:00 in the morning hanging out with everyone including Sheehan's mom, Colleen. The next morning we made breakfast and Seth and his family came over to join us. A little before noon we took off for Hesperia, California to visit Sheehan's Grandma Patty, Shena (sister), and Payne (nephew). We had lunch there then drove to Silver Lakes and had a wonderful dinner together with Sheehan's sister, Shanette and Grandparents Pat and Marilyn Hinman. His Dad, David Thomson, was also able to join us for dinner and a couple games of pool! We stayed the night at Shanette's out in Silver Lakes then Saturday morning we drove out to Barstow to spend Christmas Eve morning brunch with Scott and Terri. Sheehan taught them how to make cake pops which were delicious, as is expected. From Barstow (ARE YOU TIRED YET??? We were...) we traveled to Lancaster to visit with my Dad's side of the family at Grandpa Haub's house. It was nice to hear Grandpa play the piano again and we are fortunate to be able to spend time with him when we can. He is 90 years old now but is still very active and healthy. He is losing his hearing a little but that hasn't affected his ability to play the piano with amazing skill and talent. When we finally made it to my parents after Grandpa Haub's on Christmas Eve we decided to start Christmas morning (Sheehan's birthday) with birthday presents first. Sheehan had party favors for all the men in my family which were individually monogrammed white collared shirts. Thanks to my Mom. :)

Sheehan got a lot of great gifts from all of our families and we are so grateful for the generosity and love. My Mom bought Sheehan a gold shirt to wear with a huge "It's My Birthday" badge and a gold arm band all for his Golden Birthday. It was awesome! We had to embarrass him just a little. After all you only get one Golden Birthday. :)

Dad getting his new wedding ring from Mom for Christmas.Kiley girl opening her presents from Gigi and Papi.One of Sheehan's Christmas presents from my family. Tehachapi represent!
Lys and I in our most recent sister's belly shot. :)
We came home on the 28th so that I could get back to work the next day. We fit a ton of stuff in our little Honda Civic. It was amazing! Sheehan should get an award for his origami, Tetris work.
This is what the living room looked like after we unloaded the Civic. It was unbelievable how much we fit. It all barely fit in the living room!! We were happy to be home! Then at around 1:00 am in the morning I heard water running. I knew the tenants down stairs were still out of town and nothing was running in our part of the house so Sheehan ran down to the tenant's unit and found a minor flood. A pipe had disconnected from the tank of the toilet and flooded part of the unit. It took 3-4 hours that night to suck up the water with 2 vacuums. Here is the wonderful, Saint of a man Brother Tippetts helping us vacuum up water from 1:30-4:00 in the morning. He has been amazing helping in our emergency and helping us install the kitchen counters several weeks ago. He is a wonderful example of true service.
We used a dehumidifier, high power fans for several days, and replaced the carpet padding to fix our little natural disaster. We are grateful it happened just hours after we got home. We don't even want to imagine the damage and mess that could have been caused had the pipe been broken for several hours or days before we found it. So fortunate. We know this was not a coincidence and are counting our blessings!
For New Years we spent the evening with Devin and Julianne. We went out to Iggy's Sports bar restaurant for drinks and appetizers while we watched the Spurs-Jazz game. Then we headed back to the house and played Acquire and Bananagrams until midnight.

Mmmm....Sparkling Cider....Love this stuff!!

We were so busy trying to plan all these pictures that we missed the countdown by a minute... Devin and I were supposed to be watching it and we misunderstood the time....we had one job....next year someone else is in charge of the countdown.... Then there were cops and a tow truck outside, for some reason, so we didn't want to set off our car alarms ceremoniously for the new year with several police men right next to our cars....another memorable holiday. haha
Here's a little clip of Sheehan jumping off the climbing wall into the foam pit then getting stuck in the foam.

Kiersten and Sheehan's Wedding Day! March 21st, 2009