Random Photo Tuesday #1

Felt like randomly pulling a photo from our collection today. My mouse landed on a photo from March this year, when we were up at Chris' parent's house for his mom's birthday. We were yard sale-ing it up that particular morning, when Chris' mom decided to bust out the baby blanket she'd been working on. For our first child. Whenever that may be.

(This was about five months into our marriage, in case you were wondering. Also, four years and seven months before the time Chris keeps his fingers crossed that we'll actually be having our first child. In case anyone was wondering that, too.)

(Don't worry, though, I think I'm worn him down to just three years. Wink.) 

Surprisingly, Chris was not too perturbed by this nearly finished baby blanket. He even posed for pictures. For about a second. Then he was over it, and we were no longer allowed to talk about babies for the remainder of the trip.

Isn't that blanket adorable?!

And this commences the first installment of Random Photo Tuesday.

Palm Springs.

So we had a splendid Thanksgiving break. We shot a wedding in Palm Springs last Saturday, then we both had the whole week off for the holiday. Since we were already in Palm Springs, we decided to make a real vacation out of it, especially considering we hadn't really done much for our one year anniversary in September.

This first day we didn't do much but relocate from Palm Desert (where the wedding had been the day before) to actual Palm Springs, about a half hour drive down Highway 111, have lunch at the Fisherman's Grill with Chris' parents who came down from Redlands to meet us, and have a dinner of appetizers at Morton's with Kris and Becky, who also came from Redlands to meet us. 

The next day, Monday, we toured downtown Palm Springs and discovered there really isn't much to do there anymore. Apparently it was hopping in the 50's and prior. Not so much now. But we made do with the quaint town. We ate lunch at Lulu's, then set out down Palm Canyon (aka Highway 111) in search of a Christmas ornament to commemorate our trip. Unfortunately, no non-gaudy ornament could be found, so I'll be looking online for a cool ornament to remind us of our trip. We decided while at the Palm Desert Target the day before, in the Christmas aisles, we would try to get an ornament any time we went to a new place. (This idea may or may not have sparked from a tradition Kris and Becky currently have...)

Mostly we just took pictures in cool places when we could find them. Once it got dark, we tried to find fun things to do, but like I said, Palm Springs just ain't what it used to be. We tried to be the cool green smoothie drinking hipsters that we are and tried to check out this juice bar down the street from our hotel... but it was completely closed down. As were many other things we tried to check out. Closed down or closed on Mondays. Almost always one or the other. But we had fun just being with each other,  not working, relaxing, not working, enjoying the sunshine, and most importantly not working. 

Did I mention that I had put Chris on a strict no-working regimen for our week off?

And did I also mention that I woke up one morning to find him typing up a new blog post for Next to Me Studios? He even had the audacity to brag that he was working while I was asleep.

Chris thinks the bird above is a roadrunner. I had no idea roadrunners just ran around posing for pictures!

This is the time Chris stuck his hand right into my picture.

The Living Desert is a small zoo in Palm Desert. We hung out here for a couple of hours on Tuesday before our drive back home. It was pretty cool to see leopards and bald eagles and giraffes for just $14!

The Living Desert also had this crazy huge train set. It was bigger than our house and had a replica of the Grand Canyon and Mount Rushmore, among other little scenes of small town Americana. I think Chris is hailing the train in the pic above.

Thankful

for my favorite person.

The Road to Palm Springs

"The road to Palm Springs"

The Big 2-8

Not for me, though! I'm staying 27 for awhile. But Chris hit the 2-8 mark a couple of weeks ago. We celebrated with a impromptu surprise party (thanks Ry and Jesse for making it over for impromptu red velvet cake!), Chris' favorite beer (which I had to hide behind Costco-sized bags of spinach and carrots in the fridge), Mexican-style appetizers, and fun conversation. Good times. The next day we went to Redlands to celebrate Chris' birthday, as well as his dad's and grandpa's, which are all within two weeks of each other. I won't promise those pictures will be up anytime soon (I've learned my lesson with picture promises), but hopefully over the upcoming Thanksgiving break I'll have some free time to sort and organize and upload some photos.

Happy birthday, babe! I love your 28-year-old hotness!

Pumpkin pancakes

Pancake recipe found on Pinterest

Curiosity soaked the cat.

So our cats really like water. I think I've established this before.

Today, I was taking a shower. And as usual, Jack had snuck in the bathroom and was trying to play with the water pooling in the tub. Now generally, he doesn't actually play in the tub when the shower head is on. Generally. He'll totally jump in occasionally.)

Jack decided today that he needed some cuddling, like right that second. I happened to be trying to shave my legs. And apparently my raised knee looked like a perfect step in the direction of getting closer to my face for cuddling.

So Jack jumped.

And he didn't even mind that he was getting wet, or that I had to grab his little cat behind with my shaving cream filled hand to keep him from slipping off. He just stared at me with those half-closed eyes, which everyone knows is the universal cat sign for "this is just the greatest moment of my life."

Weirdo.

11.11.11 @ 11:11pm

Post wedding shoot snuggle on the couch. The laptop whirled as it backed up all our discs. And Chris was too tired to protest the taking of another picture.

11.11.11 @ 11:11

"11.11.11 at 11:11am: On our way to shoot a lovely wedding in Poway!" 

Can't say no to that face.

I had great aspirations today when I got home from work to get so. much. done. Instead, I had two very needy kittens who took turns insisting I use one of my arms to hold them. Usually the right one. Which has my mouse hand.

Going to try to let them sleep in our room all night tonight. We'll see how it goes. Cold, wet noses in the middle of the night are not pleasant, and if you know Jack at all, he does not take 'no cuddling right now' for an answer. When he says it's cuddle time, it's cuddle time.

Hot.

I LOVE this guy.

This was toward the end of Zoey's two-year photo shoot at Mast Park. Chris was up on the newfangled swing-step thing, and I had to snap a picture. Then he made that face, and I snapped another. And I picked the funny faced second picture to post, of course!

Anyway. I really like that guy.

(And if you're reading this, Chris, I mean 'like' like love and infatuation and I want to mack all over your face all the time, not 'like' like 'I like music.') ;)

New kid on the block.

Possibly my new favorite picture. (Not sure yet, because Zoey's 2-year shots consist of a vintage tea party in the park with balloons.) But this one is definitely in the running.

Thanks to Jess and Mike, for letting me take their six-day-old outside in October. You guys rock! And welcome to the world, baby Ethan!