Ok, ok, I'm baaaaaaaaaack...

I've had several people tell me I have been slacking on blogging. Nice to know that people do read this. We've been staying busy and then by the end of the day I am exhausted. Plus there hasn't been too much to write about. I'll give a few updates.

Christmas was spent at the in-laws. Two days after we all (8 adults and 3 kids) went up to Mammoth for a week of skiing and snow boarding. I skied 2 days and another day the pilot & I went cross country skiing. That was a work out, but also a relaxing day. Next time we go cross country we will pack a picnic lunch and rent sleds to pull the kids behind us. Tootie LOVED the snow. Princess stayed in for most of the trip. It snowed the first day we were there for a little bit. The day we left they were to be dumped on.

The pilot & I celebrated our 4 year anniversary a few days early. I managed to snag a couple free tickets to the Nutcracker. I've been asking the pilot to take me every Christmas. He couldn't say "No" this time!! It was nice & the seats were great. We were on the first floor, towards the back (but not too far back) & a little off the center. Afterwards we went to dinner at the Melting Pot. Super delicious & I am beyond excited that they are building one closer to us. We had a 4 course meal. The first one is a cheese fondue. We tried the fiesta cheese fondue. It came with bread, tortilla chips, apples, & a few raw veggies for dipping. Next course was a salad. I had the California Salad & the pilot had his usual Caesar salad. Third course is the main course. We went with the Signature Selection with the Coq au Vin cooking style. Lastly is dessert(which we got free). We chose the Chocolate S'mores fondue. You get cheesecake, bananas, marshmallows, rice crispies, pound cake & brownies to dip into the yummy chocolate. I think it's the best restaurant we have been to in a looooong time (right up there with my love for Japanese steak houses). Then again, we haven't tried anything new in a while. We have our "usuals".

Princess had her 6 month appointment over the holidays, too. She's a whopping 15lbs now and 26" tall. She can sit by herself now and is working on trying to figure out how to crawl. She gets up on her knees, rocks & sometimes she can launch herself forward from that position.

Tootie is starting to talk more. He's going through a hot dog & cheese phase. If he was allowed, he would eat it 3 times a day. We're also in the "mine" & "no" phase. I'm teaching him to share.
The pilot is a year away from being an old man. His birthday was yesterday. We had a nice night planned out. We'd drop the kids off at a friends house at 4:30, catch a 5pm movie, meet up with friends for dinner at 7:30 & then all of us come back to our house to play games. Well the night was nice, but didn't exactly go as planned. There was no 5pm movie (he looked at the old times). So we went and car "window" shopped to kill time. I think we have agreed on what we should get when he gets back from his deployment. Speaking of deployment, he leaves soon. Soon is all I can & will say. It sucks, but I am ready to get it over with. The rest of the night did go as planned.

Oh!! I must share with you all what the pilot got me for Christmas. He got me the Garmin Nuvi 650. He swears he got it on super sale. I think everyone I call when I need directions from the car is excited for me because now I don't have to bother them anymore, lol.

I use it even if I know where I am going (testing out it's knowledge). I'm just waiting for a little person to come out & bop me on the head because it's tired of saying "recalculating" when I don't go the way it tells me to go. I like that it tells me where to turn before hand and then again when I come up to the turn. I've used it to find locations locally, but I can't wait to use it for a long trip.

Well I think that's about it for now. It's late here & I need to go kick the dogs out of the guest bed so I can change the sheets. Our room is currently under construction (looks for updates soon in Home Sweet Home in Temecula), so we're moving into the guest room.