Holiday Floormat

Festive and cute little floormat at the entrance to the GoToCafe. 'Tis the season... Happy New Year!

Energy Efficiency Kit

Got this package in the mail from SCE: various energy-efficient light bulbs, low-flow showerhead, and faucet aerators. I remembered I took a survey from SCE a while back, and this was my "reward". Nice way to go green and save some energy around the house!

G-Man at Old Town Tavern

Karaoke Wednesday again! Unusually large crowds considering it's the holidays. Ah well-- got some good songs in, and got a picture with Gary, aka G-Man, the DJ. Photo taken with Kartik's iPhone.

Allan in a German Hat

Took a couple friends to Brummi's for dinner tonight. Veronika put one of her hats on Allan's head, where it stayed the entire night. A bit too small, as you can see:

And this is what he looked like after he took it off and she rumpled his hair:

Yes, I lent him my comb when he went to the bathroom! :-)

Quick Snooze

First day back at work after over a week off. After lunch, this is what I *wish* I could've really been doing! :-P

Movie Day

Lazy Sunday today, spent vegging out on the couch and watching some of our favorite movies: "Liar Liar", "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" and "Hitch". Love Jim Carrey, Will Smith and Kevin James!

Merry Christmas

Todd wears Grandpa's Santa hat while posing in front of the North Pole decorations that adorn the lawn of Ron and Debbie's house. Merry Christmas!

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Fashion Scarves

Scarf bonanza at the 99-cent store! Been searching for ages for a light, thin scarf-- everything I find is always too big and bulky. When I spied these, I grabbed as large a variety of colors as I could-- and the total price is still cheaper than ONE big/bulky scarf from K-Mart! :-)

White Elephant Gifts

Had a party for the Sunday morning crew at church today, which included a White Elephant gift exchange. This is what we wound up with: several scented lotions and a packets of spiced drink mixes: creamy eggnog and hot butter rum. Yum! :-9

Clouds at Eye Level

View of the clouds as we emerged from the Cajon summit on our way back from Vegas today. Notice the rain clouds (with breaks) above us, and more clouds covering the mountaintops-- eye level from where we were!

Jacuzzi in the cold

Nothing quite like enjoying a bubbling, hot jacuzzi when it's 50 degrees out and drizzling. You can make out the H2O bar in the background, too.

Shark Tank

Sharks and their fishy friends swim in the pool at the Golden Nugget. Note the plastic "tube" running through the middle of the tank-- that's the slide. You can swim with sharks! :-)

View from the Firefly

View of Fremont Street in downtown Vegas, from the Firefly tapas restaurant in the Plaza hotel. Photo snapped right from our booth!

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Happy Hour at home

Who wants to go out in this rain? Perfect weather to stay home, warm and cozy. So we made our own happy hour (appetizers already eaten and not pictured). Watch those Trader Joe's PB cups, though... they are addictive!

Snowman Decoration at GoToCafe

We took my parents and Todd to GoToCafe today. It was decked out in festive holiday decorations. In addition to the Christmas tree, this snowman on the utensils/spices table ranked among my favorite decorations:

Christmas Concert

Todd and some of his classmates perform some keyboard, recorder and choral pieces at their school's Christmas concert tonight. Here they are on the recorder.

Whiteboard Drawing

Todd doodled this on Allan's whiteboard while waiting for us to finish work and go home. It started out as a drawing of the sun, and evolved to a drawing of Allan, complete with detailed labels so there's no question what this drawing is about ;-)  

(click to enlarge for full detail)

Paper Poinsettia

Todd made this in school today. Perfect little bit of festivity with which to decorate the house. And made of sturdy, lifeless construction paper so our black thumbs won't kill any innocent plants ;-)

Chocolate Fountain

Remember the invitation to the Chocolate Cocktail Party at our apartment's clubhouse? Here's the chocolate fountain, ready to be used to coat all kinds of things: cake, strawberries, marshmallows... yum! :-9

Fiery Face Paint

Todd opted to have hot flames painted on his face during the Chocolate Holiday Party our apartment complex hosted on Friday. Hot stuff!

Happy Birthday, Mackenzie!

Our friends' little girl Mackenzie turned 1 this week, and we celebrated this weekend. The house was full of babies! :-) Here she is enjoying a cupcake and being especially neat about it :-)

Model Trains

Huge, fancy model train set with all kinds of trains for the kids to play with and enjoy watching-- see how fast the big ones go, they are a blur in the pic. It's at the Goleta Library all weekend!

New Sweaters

New green short-sleeve sweater from JC Penney + red turtleneck discovered in a box of clothes at my parents' house = festive colors for a holiday dinner, and warmth against the cold wind!

GoToCafe Christmas Tree

A tall, festive tree and some poinsettias decorate the GoToCafe, our company cafeteria. 'Tis the season!

Hair Products Galore

Can you say experiment much? The various leave-in products I've experimented with (missing is a big bottle of Garnier Fructis, which smelled wonderful but didn't work so well-- gave it to a friend). The aerosol can on the far right is my favorite-- but it's only sold in Germany :-(

Recorders

I managed to find a nice recorder at Michael's for $3 (the orange one on the right). It's as nice and sturdy as Todd's recorder from school (left), and now I have my own to use when I help Todd practice his school music pieces at home!

Snow Day at the Zoo

Annual snow and sledding event at the SB Zoo today! Fun with "imported" snow and sledding down a makeshift hill. Here's Todd taking aim with a snowball. Good times!

Company Holiday Party at the Granada

Our annual company holiday party was held at the Granada Theater in downtown SB this year, with an old-fashioned Hollywood theme. Here's a view of part of it-- a band, buffets, and lounge area (complete with professional dancers-- you can see "Marilyn Monroe" twirling) on the first floor.

Cheese and Crackers

Crackers, cheeses (Gouda, Swiss, Pepper Jack), grapes, strawberries and tapenade. They make a yummy addition to lunch at the GoToCafe :-9

Chocolate Cocktail Party Invitation

Got this in the door of our apartment today. Our apartment complex is pretty cool-- they frequently organize fun little events with free food and drink and fun for the residents. A chocolate cocktail party sounds delightful! Can't wait to go :-)

Watch your head!

More testament to the fact that Allan is a tall freak. Here he is carrying Todd on his shoulders. I can't imagine why he's having trouble going through that doorway!

Target Practice

Here is Allan after Todd got some target practice with his new Nerf gun. Okay, not really. This shot is totally staged-- but who can resist posting a pic of that totally sad face? ;-)

Garden Frog

A cute garden frog adorns Ron and Debbie's backyard. I like him a lot better than your stereotypical garden gnomes ;-)

Nerf gun

Got this for Todd at Ross yesterday. Most of the darts stick to smooth surfaces with their suction tips. The one with the black tip whistles like fireworks-- really cool!

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Play Doh Snowman

Todd created this snowman (including its carrot nose and branch arms) entirely out of Play Doh on a lazy weekend afternoon.

Onion pancakes

Yummy onion pancakes at the Red Pepper in Old Town Goleta :-9

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Winston

This is Winston, Ron and Debbie's Havanese/Shih-Tzu mix. Isn't he cute? We got to visit him while gathering with Allan's family at their house for Thanksgiving today. Arf, arf!

Giant Phone

This is the new Samsung Galaxy Tab that Allan got for work. It's like a mini iPad, but it does have telephone capabilities. Still, something tells me that this is not the way to answer it when it rings :-P

Christmas Playlist

This one I blame on Tabitha, who recently wrote about listening to Christmas tunes. That inspired me to break out my own customized playlist with my favorite renditions of my favorite Christmas songs. Hey-- if stores can put out Christmas merchandise right after Halloween, I can listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving! :-D

Turtwig in the fedora

Just like the turtle pile, we blame this one on Aunt Debbie, too. She and Uncle Ron got Todd the small, adorable Turtwig on the left a few years ago, so when I spied the large Turtwig at Rite Aid last week, I couldn't resist! His name is Olive, as in "Olive the other Turtwig"... get it? ;-) Anyway, here he is trying on the fedora I got last week --fits him perfectly!

You want YOUR country back!?

Today's picture is a snapshot of Lalo Alcaraz's comic strip, "La Cucaracha", from today's Sunday paper. I thought it was too funny not to share :-)

Wall-E : plush and desktop background

We got this small plush Wall-E from Disneyland this year, and here he is sitting against our desktop computer screen, which, in my account, features a background photo of Wall-E and my favorite character in the movie, MO! No, I haven't seen this movie more than a dozen times this past couple years... who me? Of course not...

Turtle Pile!

Stack of stuffed turtles. We blame this one on Todd's Aunt Debbie. Why? Well, she and Uncle Ron were the ones who came back from Hawaii, bearing Geronimo (the middle turtle) as a gift for Todd. He was so cute that I promptly fell in love with him, and Allan bought me Pistachio (underneath Geronimo) for Christmas that year. During our last trip to Las Vegas, we stopped by a Hawaiian store, where we picked up the two small turtles on top of Geronimo-- they are named Pinto (the smallest) and Cilantro. And the big pillow pet on the bottom? Also a present from Aunt Debbie and Uncle Ron. His name is Cuscino, which is Italian for pillow. Yes, we named the turtles to follow the "ends with O" pattern on purpose, and yes, we actually do have more stuffed turtles in the house-- they just aren't pictured here ;-)

Pudding Dessert

Yummy cookies & chocolate pudding dessert at GoToCafe during lunch today-- and at a discounted price, too! :-9

Android Squishable looks very dapper

App(le) the Android Squishable tries on my new fedora that was featured yesterday. Doesn't he look dapper and even more squishable? I could almost rename him "Dapp" ;-)

New Fedora

Here I am, modeling the new hat I got from Payless today. Oh, and Priyanka (and Amir), if you see this, we have to get together some day and get a pic of both of us together in our fedoras :-)

Equiptment?

Amusing little typo spotted on a bin in the doctor's office today.

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Sick boy

Poor little man, curled up on the couch with a fever, watching some TV.

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Twilight Sweethearts

I am not a Twilight fan. I am, however, a Sweethearts candy fan. So when I saw these at Ralphs marked at 2 for 75 cents, I grabbed a couple of boxes. After all, who cares what the box says on the outside. It's the good, sweet, sugary confection inside that matters. And what a bargain! :-)