It's a tradition

Two years ago, my closest girlfriends and our moms, started a tradition that every Christmas we would all get together and have a mother-daughter lunch at the Tea House in Old Town Clovis. Girls, if you haven't gone before, add it to your to-do list. They have great food and the atmosphere is girly and fun. The first year that we did this was really to get together to celebrate the first baby into the bunch..... Miss Brighton Grimes. This year, Breena and Mama DeeDee couldn't come because Breena lives in Virginia (which is beautiful by the way!). They were missed, but Marnie, Karen, and I, along with our wonderful moms went and had a great time together. It is so awesome having friends that I have had basically all my life, and we are so lucky to have such amazing moms.

RC Jones Potography

Our good friend, Ryan Jones, is an amazing photographer! He offered to do some pics for us this year for our Christmas card. If anyone ever needs a photographer for engagements, weddings, family portraits, senior pictures, baby portraits... you name it, he's the one to call. So thanks Ry for such a great day with you, as always, and for the awesome pictures. We love you! Everyone else, here are a few samples from the day, enjoy!

It was only a year ago...

I was looking through some old pics and realized that it was exactly a year ago last year that Nate, Marnie, Aaron, and I went on our trip to Washington DC and New York. If you haven't had the chance to visit either of these places, put it on your list of "things to do before I die". It was awesome. Here are some of my favorite memories from the trip!

Breena, Mitch, Brighton and Zoomer: Wish we were there with you again!

N8oween 2008

Once again, N8oween was a huge hit! The theme this year was movie characters. Every year the costumes get better and more elaborate! Nate and I look forward to this night all year because no one ever disappoints, and this year was no exception. The house was decked out and everyone came in a costume that went along with the theme. The Oscars for best costumes went to Troy Jarret as Dorothy and Aubrey Michael as Barf. Thanks to everyone who showed up and for the great memories that were created. We love you all and look forward to next year! SPEAKING OF NEXT YEAR... please leave a comment after the slideshow below and let us know of your ideas for next years' theme! Enjoy the pics!!!



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Rose Bowl

Well, Nate and I ventured off down south to go to the Rose Bowl Game last month... UCLA vs. Fresno State. I am sure by now, considering it was almost a month ago, that you have all heard that the Bulldogs won. It was probably one of the hottest days that Southern Cali has ever experienced. Considering that we are supposedly "immune" to the heat, we shouldn't have had any problems. Let me put it this way, I have never sweat so much in my life. And I am sure I can speak for our close group of friends who were there with us, that they feel the same way. Seriously, the game could've been in Fresno and it probably would've been cooler. All I have to say is if the Bulldogs hadn't pulled away with the win, I'd be pretty pissed that we went all the way down there. All in all, it was a great time, even with the heat. Any time that we can hang out with friends is a great time. And YES, our shirts say "Bruins like it Doggie Style"!!! Awesome!

Aloha from Maui!!!

Well, we just got back from Maui two days ago and we are already wanting to go back! The weather was perfect, the condo was awesome, and the water was gorgeous, so warm and clear that you could jump right in. This is something we are not use to considering that the norm for us is putting on our wetsuits to go boogie boarding, and even then we have to get completely numb before we are somewhat comfortable. We went surfing almost everyday. It took us a day or two to find a beach that had both good waves and minimal amounts of corral, even then Aaron still stepped on a sea urchin and cut up his feet completely. On Tuesday night we got to go to a luau. The food there was great and the entertainment was amazing! On Friday we went to a recommended snorkeling spot, and it was totally worth the 30 minute drive. The reason??? We swam with sea turtles! They were so close we could have touched them and they even posed for many underwater pictures for us. Overall, the trip was fantastic.... thanks to Mama and Papa Dodd! We are so thankful that we were able to share this wonderful vacation with them! Enjoy the slide show of our tropical paradise get away!



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Chicago & James

Shortly after school was let out for summer we packed our bags for Chicago to go visit one of our best friends' James Elsea. We really didn't know what we were going to do, and frankly we didn't care, because anytime we are with James we know we are going to have a blast! We got to meet his serious girlfriend Molly, the four of us got along great, and we had an awesome time together. The first day we headed into Downtown Chicago to try and catch a Cubs game at the infamous Wrigley Field. Unfortunately, for us, the Cubs were in 1st place and tickets were almost impossible to get. We took in as much of Wrigleyville as we could, which was sweet, but then headed to the Lincoln Park Zoo. We met up with Molly and looked at the animals for a long time...especially the Flankamangos...it was a lot of fun. The next day, we stayed in the suburbs for a BBQ that James and Molly threw for us! We learned a fun new game which had no name, so I call it Frispole, and hung out with a lot of cool people. Day #3 was another trip into the city, this time for all four of us. We took in as much of the city as we could this day and went on an architectural boat tour along the Chicago River and out into Lake Michigan. By the end of the day we were so tired that we chilled at the end of Navy Pier and talked for about a half an hour! Day #4 was a quite uneventful day as far as planning goes, but we were pleasantly surprised by the WEATHER! It was stormy off and on all day and was really cool to watch the thunderstorm roll through later that evening...which woke us up twice that night, once at 3:30am! For our last day in Chicago we headed downtown to do some tourist stuff with James and Molly. Our first stop was the Planetarium, which was okay. We then went to the aquarium down the street, which was pretty cool. We saw a lot of neat things in there. All in all we had a great time, and were very glad to have made the trip out to see James and meet his lovely girlfriend Molly. Thanks to them for being such good hosts! Check out the slide show below to see some of our trip, and stay tuned for MAUI!!!!



Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.