Real.

Real is my word for 2012.


(To be expounded on later.)

Christmas once again in Yucaipa

Happy Christmas, everyone! We're up at the Trementozzi's house to celebrate for a few days, but don't get any ideas of sneaking into our house- my sister's standing guard for us with a couple of ferocious(ly cute) kittens.

If you're new around here, Trementozzi Christmas is an all-day event. We're gearing up to have some breakfast and start the present unveiling soon here. Then some lunch, and more Christmas presents. Then some dinner, and more presents. There's a system here. For Chris' take on it, here's last year's blog entry, and here's the awesome video he made from setting his camera up on the china cabinet and using the remote to click throughout the day.

Fingers crossed I get an iphone!

(Just kidding. I have to wait till Jan 27 for that thing. Silly upgrade policy.)

Christmas (with Kittens)

The kittens love the new Christmas tree. You'll notice that there are no actual ornaments anywhere near the parts of the tree they can get to. Our tree is very top heavy with ornaments.

Sawyer has developed a thing for my socks. He loves pulling open my sock drawer and grabbing the closest sock. Then the next closest sock. And the next. Until he has a pile of socks outside of the sock drawer. But his favorite socks are these Christmas funky colored ones I got from my roommate Jen two Christmases ago. When he gets a hold of one of those, he tugs it around the house with him, and we end up finding it in the strangest places. As you can see, he also likes pulling it up to the bed and cuddling up for a good nap with it.

The kitchen pictures... really have nothing to do with Christmas. I just thought it was funny that I set myself up in the dining room to get pictures of Jack being bad by getting up on the counters. And other places. Have fun playing where's Jack with those pictures!

You'll also notice you're seeing a lot of Green Mouse in these photos. Green Mouse (as Chris calls him, not the green mouse), is the current favorite toy. This is actually the second green mouse. We got a two pack when we first got the kittens, and they liked them enough, but both were supposed to have little bells on their tails that were missing. Green Mouse 2.0 has a full functioning bell, and Sawyer especially carried that thing around with him everywhere he went the first day we brought it home. (Sawyer might be a hoarder, now that I think about it.)

Merry Christmas, from Jack and Sawyer!

What I did on my Christmas Break (Week 1)

Made green smoothies. (This one's got blueberries, which masks the green.)

 Got artsy with some paints

Had steaming hot bowls of chili that were oh so satisfying in our cold, cold house.

Made my awesome spicy chicken soup and added way more spinach than normal, just to get rid of it in my fridge. (You could tell there was way more, especially with the cilantro, and the additional fresh parsley, which I was also trying to get rid of. It looked like green soup until I added 8 more cups of water to balance it back out.)

 Was amused every time Jack sat in front of the kitchen sink and gave me this look. This is his, "please, sir, can I have another?" plead for more treats. Did I mention I taught my delightfully smart kittens to sit on command for treats? Now Jack just goes to the kitchen and sits, staring at us with that look, until we're so enamored with him that we cave in.

 Updated the audio books on my ipod. I've been going through the Harry Potter series while in my car. It's fantastic, because I love multi-tasking and I certainly have no time to sit and read lately. Next up: Order of the Phoenix.

This is Jack's "What is going on up there?" face, as I was chopping the spinach and carrots, and little pieces of carrot kept flying off the counter and on to the floor.

 Same sentiment as before, just trying to get a better view.

 This is what Sawyer does while I'm cooking. Sits on my feet in the corner. Sometimes he brings Green Mouse with him and flings himself and his toy around my ankles.

 This was a real, true green smoothie in every sense of the word. But we left it in the fridge for three days, and they're not even really good after one day, so cleaning all the stuff we'd left to sit in the fridge that we'd "eat later" was another one of my tasks this week.

 Chris has been in "come home from work, play video games" mode lately. It's his de-stresser. 

 Finished product. This was the first time I'd crock potted it, instead of cooking it over the stove. And it was a good thing I'd made a huge crock pot batch, because we had surprise visitors that night!

 Chris' new laptop/monitor setup. Dual screens. And there's our Christmas picture photo up on the laptop!

 Why is Chris smiling here?

 Because of our surprise guests!

 What I love about my old roommate Mandy is that she's totally willing to come over spontaneously at 10pm to make sure she gets in hang out time on her short trip out here. She'd been hanging with my sister Britt and their reunion small group party, heard Britt was stopping by to exchange gifts, and decided she'd come too! My phone was on silent when she called to inform me of this, but when we finally spoke she said, "I figured I'd just come over anyway!" That's what I love about favorite friends. They totally know they can stop by at any hour, because seeing them trumps sleep any day! 

Mandy came with baby Judah and husband David. And I had plenty of warm soup ready for them, just as a good hostess should.

Also of note: hearing someone will be arriving at your house in five minutes sets you in a whirlwind streak to clean up the house. Before I'd even gotten off the phone, Chris had made the bed and hidden the laundry. We got all the dishes done and took the recycling to the garage, and even had time to light warm pumpkin spice candles (as a good hostess should always have lit when guests are coming). 

Next time on the blog: The kittens meet a baby for the first time.

Thanks, Mandy, for giving me something to post about!

This look here? This is the, "Chris, don't you just totally want one of these adorable little guys?" look.

Just when I was lamenting that nothing exciting was happening around here, bam! Impromptu old roommate + husband + recent baby addition stopped by for a late night Christmas visit!

(And only about half the pictures we took of the visit consist of the kittens staring in awe at baby Judah.)

Cuddle time.

Don't hate because your cat is not nearly as cool as my cat. This is very representative of Jack's sleeping positions lately. He has learned that he LOVES the comforter, especially if he can wiggle in so just his head is out of it, like how we humans sleep. When it's bedtime, he comes to the top of the sheets, wiggles all the way down to my waist, does a 360, and comes back up to curl into my side with his head sticking it out. He's also begun reaching out to touch our faces at night, which is apparently something cats do to show affection sometimes. It's been a little frightening to see his clawed hand come at our faces (even if he does 'caress' he still snags us across the cheek sometimes), but we put the claw covers on again this week so it's much sweeter now.

Sawyer's the perfect bed cat: he sleeps at our feet and doesn't move all night long. Outside of bedtime, he has picked up this annoying habit of jumping on our backs whenever we bend over. As much as Jack LOVES the comforter and being near our faces, Sawyer LOVES being on our backs. As soon as he gets up there, he drapes his arms around our necks and starts purring and nuzzling our ears. It's really cute for a bit, then you realize you want to stand straight up and can't without getting lacerations down your back, because he does NOT want to be slid off. Usually we need to call each other for kitten removal to carry on with whatever we were doing. 

And now, after writing two long paragraphs about the antics of our kittens, I have to ask myself if I'm turning into one of those people. But really, I don't have a ton else to post about right now. Same old, same old at the Trementozzi condo. Chris is doing studio work. I'm doing a variety of projects on my laptop. I can't post about the many, many photos shoots we've just finished up this season (not until the husband gives me the okay- we've got our studio blog to pump our photography antics to first). The cats are our only source of entertainment currently. 

So stories about our lovely kittens it shall be.

At the Trementozzi house...

It's Christmas break time! Woo-hoo! Had our work party on Friday, and discovered The Best Holiday Cookies Ever. Pepperidge Farm Holiday edition at Target. They're the package with three different kinds of cookies, but you'll just want the little chessmen dipped in dark chocolate on one side.  Go get 'em people. They're only here for a limited time.

Chris' work party is tomorrow, and lucky him he gets to go late and come home early (hopefully). They're taking a cooking class in some schnazzy place in Hillcrest.

What have we been up to around here this weekend? Cleaning and organizing and finishing up a couple shoot edits. Cleaning happened because we had a little cat incident Friday morning, which doesn't need to go into more detail here... Organizing happened because Chris can't work in an unorganized environment. We're currently working on getting rid of my smaller desk in the office, condensing my craft stuff (hope to scrapbook some this week to "condense" further), getting rid of things we don't use (CD's! Why did we ever buy CD's!), and wrapping up the presents that have been slowly growing to take over one corner of the room. 

This picture is... weird. As I thought about the fact that I hadn't written a blog lately, I began storing things in my head to write about. And then I realized I needed a photo to go with the story. So as soon as Chris left the room, I grabbed his iphone to take a quick pic to send to myself. But he walked right back in then, and I tried to get him in the shot. He dived behind me and started tickling me so I couldn't get him. Punk! 

All I want for Christmas is my own iphone! Blasted January 27th can't come soon enough!

Meeting Prince Charming

My husband's 'like' of my last reminiscent-themed post has spurred me to look through the old photo files. I was looking specifically for the first photo I ever took of him, or the first one of both of us together. Haven't found it yet, but I did find this little gem in the Picture of the Day archives of really early 2009:

This was part of our first conversation, where I had just told him we should be friends because I thought he was awesome because he made a book for Ryan for Christmas (that's the 365 he's referencing), which Ryan then showed me because he knew I'd appreciate it, and of course I did. (Chris now highly recommends creating books for Christmas gifts, because you never know, it just might score you a spouse.)

On further search, I think this may be the first picture I ever took of Chris. This was in January 2009, on a day that Ryan and Chris had invited me out after church to go picture taking and exploring. I didn't want to go. But then I remembered that my Word of the Year was fun, which was an attempt to force myself to get out of the house and talk to people. (My apartment was just so darn comfortable!) So I went, and I remember we went to La Jolla to check out the Museum of Contemporary Art, then to Mount Soledad, where these pictures were taken- our first shots of each other.

2009 turned out to be a good year. Turns out making FUN my word of the year had its benefits, since I met my future husband 16 days later.

And that, my friends, is why you should make New Year's Resolutions.

If our lives were an episode of 24.

December 3, 2:30pm- We throw our overnight bag and camera gear in the car and head to Alpine.

December 3, 2:55pm- Find the park we're scheduled to photograph a family at 3pm. Turns out it's private property. Chris convinces me to take one for the team and break the law with him. (Ah, love.)

December 3, 3:03pm- Step out of the car; discover Alpine is FRIGID this time of year. Go back to car for jackets.

December 3, 3:10pm- Clients arrive with the most smiling, happy six month old we've ever seen. Doesn't seem to mind the frigidness, despite her short sleeves.

December 3, 4:40pm- We stop at a giant open field we discover on the way back to the freeway to take our own portraits. Chris sets up the camera on a small tripod on a rock, and we take cutesy lovey dovey hey-we're-in-a-field! shots as the sun sets behind us.

December 3, 4:55pm- Looking for grub in Alpine. The Urban Spoon app tells us the Alpine Taco Shop is along our route. It's got 96% likes.

December 3, 5:10pm- Start eating the best fish burrito in the world. Make plans over equally delectable rice and beans to come to Alpine more often for this food.

December 3, 5:30pm- On the road again! Check for Apple store locations en route; find one in Escondido.

December 3, 6:15pm- Stop at North County Fair shopping center to hit up the Apple store for a monitor connector. Get suckered into frozen yogurt due to free samples and Chris' inability to pass up frozen yogurt. Sit and watch the kids in line for Santa and the parents in line for shots at the Picture People while we eat our yogurt.

December 3, 7pm- On the road again!

December 3, 8:30pm- Made it to the Trementozzi's house in Redlands. Stay up late editing photos, watching NCIS, talking to Mom T., and, in Chris' case, playing basketball on his iphone till the wee hours of the morning.

December 4, 12:58am- I wake up enough to wonder aloud what could possibly be so interesting about that game that it surpasses the desire to sleep?

December 4, 6:30am- Chris' alarm goes off. I pretend not to hear it. Chris, thankfully, puts it on snooze.

December 4, 7am- Alarm goes off again. Time to get up for real.

December 4, 7:30am- Packed and out the door. Headed to Sylvan Park for our double one-year old photo shoot with Will and Nelly and their families.

December 4, 8am- Discover Redlands is even more FRIGID than Alpine! Feel sad for ourselves that we have to get out of the car.

December 4, 8:15am- Our teeny subjects arrive and we get to snapping. Mobile one-year-olds are challenging.

December 4, 10:15am- Make plans with the group for doughnuts and breakfast burritos.

December 4, 10:30am- Hit up a Vons for tortillas, bacon, and orange juice. Get very excited that the restrooms are in the front of the store and contain multiple stalls, unlike most grocery story restrooms that are hidden in dark hallways and don't always have locks.

December 4, 10:45am- Breakfast at the Bishops. We talk about being teachers and bartenders.

December 4, 12:00pm- On the road again!

December 4, 2:30pm- Trudge up the stairs with our overnight bag and camera gear. The cats are overjoyed to see us again. Or maybe we're overjoyed to see them again? Indifference is such a common look on their little kitten faces....

An email.

So I'm going to my tutoring interview in a bit here. Just wanted to send you the address of where I'll be since it looks a little sketch on google maps. If I don't contact you in the near future, and end up kidnapped, this is where I last was. :)

Love you,

Jordan 

          Christmas gift idea: tazer gun. 

          Check. ;) 


          Chris