My Family Has Turned On Me

So this Christmas was my first not spending Christmas Eve with my Mom and the Italian family. It was kinda weird not being there, but cool to be a part of Jake's family's celebration. Two days later Jake and I got together with Mom and the gang to exchange gifts. As I was washing a dish after our traditional Cinnabon breakfast, a notepad by the phone caught my eye. What was written down perked my interested because it didn't make sense like, "Pick up milk at the store" or "Call your mother back". I kept reading it over and over trying to figure out what the writer had jotted down, until it hit me...

I took the pic with my camera phone so it's kinda fuzzy but I wanted to document this betrayal (jk). Here's what it says line by line...

Chris by Christmas 2009
Ken (my uncle) - January 2010
Nancy - May 2010

Ummm yeah... While I was at Jake's family's Christmas, MY family was making bets with each other about when I will have a baby. And this wasn't just a nonchalant conversation over dinner... they had it written down and everything! Sheesh, you get married and people are on to expecting what's next! I am however willing (for a generous fee) to help tip the scales if anyone's interested. LOL JK

A Jake & Bri Christmas!

I can officially say without a doubt this year's Christmas has been the best and most relaxing Jake and I have had in about 5 years. How come? Well, because Jake has a job where I see him nights and weekends now. It's incredible. We definitely took advantage of the time together and got "Christmasy".

Jake put lights on the house... (we've never done that before) We bought those old-fashioned large bulbs. Aren't they cute? We keep getting compliments. The rest of the house was too high for Jake to get to and we ran out of lights, so that's why it might look half done. Hey, it's our first time. :)



Every year we buy a Christmas ornament that represents the year together. How apropos is this?

Then, with all of the extra time on my hands from having my husband around I decided to re-live my childhood and bake and decorate cookies. I didn't realize that this really wasn't Jake's thing, so I ended up decorating about 4 dozen cookies. Whoops. :) It still was pretty fun, but after a while I felt like I Love Lucy in the candy shop, "Speeder up!" Jake and I adopted a family this Christmas so I gave them some cookies and I also brought some to 2 different Christmas parties. They were a hit!

Oh yeah, and then there was Elf Night... the youth group's annual party event where we get all of the kids together for a nightly showing of the movie "Elf". We have hot chocolate and cookies and everyone dresses up. It was actually pretty fun. The kids LOVED Jake. This picture was taken by my mother-in-law Shari - her and her friends stayed over for a conference in Phoenix and they arrived just as we were out the door. So embarrassing but pretty funny!

And that's it! We'll be back in SoCal on Christmas Eve and have 4 family Christmas parties to attend. We're really excited to see everyone. Hopefully we can get together with friends too.

Welcome to The Wild, Wild, West

Before I start my blog, can I just say that I am so incredibly giddy and joyful that today it's raining (like normal Fall/Winter weather) in AZ! :)

Ok, so yesterday, I was kinda a creepster and snapped a shot of this guy with my camera phone. Let me know if you notice anything silly about the fact that he's at Starbucks, in his early 20's, and oh, not a cop... (the bright orange arrow is for those who are "What's Wrong with this Picture" challenged).

Yeah! This guy is packing a glock! Ok, maybe I said that so white and wrong but my point is... This guy is wearing a gun! In daylight! And he's not a cop! And he's not robbing the Starbucks! And he's obviously not in a place to be hunting! In AZ apparently you can have a gun on you as long as it's not concealed. What if this guy was having a bad day, huh? Like Dirty Harry, "Go ahead, make my day!" That's for my Dad. :)

I'm seriously floored.

Women of Faith

Last weekend I went to the Women of Faith conference. I haven't been in like 7 or 8 years - it's been a while since I've done something for me... On a whim I decided to go.

What's kinda funny is that our church has been doing this series called "For Love or Money" on finances, so everyone I asked to go with me was "watching their spending" or "trying to save" or "cutting back". I decided to go anyway. My mom said, "You'll make friends with the ladies around you."

I felt adventurous.

The first night I'm there I took a walk around the arena, found some dinner, found my seat, and began to read my program. Out of the blue an old lady came flying down the stairs (literally) and knocked me over with her purse and arm on the way down the steps. It's so funny to think about now. And sad. Those stairs are steep. She took a dive but caught the railing just past me so she didn't fall all the way down the aisle. "Are you ok?" I asked. No answer. Her friends came and got her and they ended up sitting in the seats right behind me. I had to text my friends and Mom about it --- without laughing. But I seriously couldn't help myself.

The next day I arrived back at the arena. I should have gotten a hotel room out there. It was a 2-hour drive the first night (because of traffic), an hour home, and then about an hour and 1/2 the next morning. I had to get up early. Ugh. I'm so not a morning person.

Same kind of drill. I got to the arena, found my seat, and sat down. The old ladies were behind me again. I had no one to befriend in my row because it was empty about 10 seats down from me. As worship started, I got a tap on my shoulder. "Hey girl, do you want to join us? It can't be fun sitting there alone. Come up to our row." And I joined Dorothy, Laurie, and Mary for the entire day. They even invited me to eat lunch with them. See Mom? I did make friends. :)

I was seriously blessed by them just reaching out. Who would have thought that it all started with a HUGE fall by Dorothy. It was really really sweet, and nice to have someone to chat with there. I'm calling the weekend -- "Sisters Unite". I hope us women can always be like that, reaching out to each other anywhere and everywhere. I'll probably never see Dorothy, Laurie, and Mary again, but they really made my weekend. :)

Jesus and Weiner Poopie

Come on, this is hilarious. For those of you who can't see, click here.

Umm... Scary

So I was looking for a picture of Jennifer Hudson for this post - because I was going to write about how I have this weird tendency to pray for celebrities. I don't know why. It's not like they are my friends or anything. It's just that when I see them on TV struggling through something I feel compelled to pray for them. Does anyone else do this?

Anyway, the whole Jennifer Hudson thing has been weighing heavy on my heart so I thought I'd post about her. I still cannot believe the type of agony she has to be going through right now. I don't know what I would do if I lost my mom, brother, and nephew all in one swoop.

So the scary part about my post is... I of course got distracted searching around in Google Images for a picture of her and my curiosity led me to Google Image my own name. I thought it would be completely innocent being that I've only had my current name for a little over a year. But guess what I found??? The 2nd picture of the search was of me! Ahhhh! The Internet is so scary. Anyone can find anyone.

If any of you experiment and Google Image your name, comment me back. I'd love to know if your pic comes up! It's that whole 7 steps to Kevin Bacon thing but scarier. JK Nothing is private.

I Took Feedburner Off

Bummer in the winter. Feedburner did not work. I think it wasn't working because my blog is private - probably can't access my posts because it's password protected. Thanks so much Becky for working so hard to help me get it to work. You are such a sweet friend. Everyone else, sorry that that didn't work out. Unfortunately, you'll have to sign on to read stuff. I've been thinking about making my blog public, but I'm still not 100% comfortable with it. There are weirdies out there! JK Mostly just want to be able to monitor who can read this and who can't (like students and parents and stuff). And I don't feel so confined to censor everything I want to say when it's private. It's a control thing I'm sure. LOL

For those of you with private blogs (or even not private) who want to send out emails of your blog posts, blogspot offers you 10 email addresses you can enter in yourself. I have my huge family (of parents and step-parents) and some siblings able to get my posts right now. All you have to do is go to "Customize" and "Settings" and then click on "Email". There's a window there where you can enter in 10 addresses so that everytime you post, they get an email of it. I mostly use it for the blog challenged. :)