End of 2011

2011 was an AMAZING year and we are so happy that it is over! We went to Vegas for the first time and got to hang out with Shawn's best friend and girlfriend (became fiance in Vegas)! It was a great time and hopefully we can go again soon. We celebrated Halloween and invited some of Shawn's friends from the Wilton Fire Department and had a little party...the dogs even got to celebrate. Then it was time for Thanksgiving. I didn't get any pictures but we went to my grandparents and celebrated with them. So glad that we go the chance to do that, since we didn't know at the time but it was my grandpa's last Thanksgiving. Then before we knew it Christmas was here and Shawn FINALLY finished his paramedic "internship" and became an official paramedic. We celebrated on Christmas Eve with the traditional family dinner. I volunteered our house for salads and I'm so grateful that we have family so close by. BTW-the sweater is part of my "ugly" sweater tradition. I am so grateful for all of the blessings that we received in 2011, but since I'm writing this almost a year later, I know that 2012 was where it's really at!!!

Pirates and Giant Pumpkins

Once again, the Giant Pumpkins have come and gone. This is my 5th festival working with the Parks and Rec Department and I have to say it was one of my favorites!! The theme was "Shiver Me Pumpkins" and people really went all out with the theme. On Saturday I got to work in the Produce area again and see all of the pumpkins weighed and all of the huge produce. This year's winning pumpkin weighed 1684.5 and the gentleman that won went on to win again a week later at the Half Moon Bay weigh-off with his 1,704 pound pumpkin. Crazy!! And just to give you an idea our festival pays $6 per pound for the winning pumpkin. Then Sunday I worked the Entertainment area, and got to see some pretty cool stuff...like fire dancers.

The Regatta, pumpkins turned into boats.

So happy to be done entering in all of the information!

Giant Pumpkins!!!

Entering info

Sunday, after the festival was over, so happy!

San Francisco Giants

After we went to a Giants game for our birthdays we decided we wanted to go to another one! Shawn found out from his boss that his company had seats. Well let me just say company seats are way better then seats you would get regularly, and bonus, they give them to you at face value, instead of the crazy prices that you get online. We had such a good time and I'm so glad that my husband is into sports and that we can enjoy them together. He even bought me a Baby Giraffe hat. The clubhouse area was super nice, had lots of cool memorabilia stuff and Peanuts characters. It was such a fun game and Shawn and I always have fun together, hopefully we will get to go to more SF Giants games next year!

The Bonds Visit!

The Bonds came to visit us over Labor Day weekend. We had a great time with them!! We went to the Sacramento Zoo, Fairytale Town, San Francisco (no pictures) and Six Flags (no pictures). Which I feel really bad about the Six Flags one because Brian got picked to be one of the volunteers during the dolphin show. He had to play karaoke with the dolphins and the crowd decided that he lost, so he got SOAKED!! It was so great to see them!! Amy and I got to have some girl shopping time and the boys got to hang out, have sushi and see a movie. It was so much fun and we can't wait to see them again!

Brian and Broc at Fairytale Town

Brielle on the tractor at Fairytale Town

Thumbs up!

Amy, Brielle, Broc and Brian at Fairytale Town on the throne (I don't think Brielle liked it very much)

Orangutan

Brielle and Broc at the Zoo

Broc with the Zebras

Brielle

Zebras (One of my favorites!)

Giraffes (My other favorite!)

Kangaroo (Brian went to Australia for work quite a bit and told us that out there they are everywhere, just hanging out...pretty cool)

Some pretty bird

Creepy looking bird

The flamingos (They actually had a partition up to give the flamingos "privacy" for mating season, it was pretty funny.

GIANTS and San Franscisco

We had a really hard time deciding what to do for our birthdays this year. Last year Shawn really outdid himself with a scavenger hunt, surprise visit from my best friend and a camera that I had been wanting...oh and the skydiving that my mom got for us! So this year we wanted to do something fun, but didn't really have any ideas. Leave it up to Shawn to come up with something to equal last year! A Giants game and 2 nights in the city. It was even more exciting when we found out that Brent and Teresa and the gang would be coming as well....and that they would be buying the tickets as their gift!! We had such a good time! I got off work at around 1 and we headed down to the city. We met with Brent and Teresa down in the lobby and went and picked Byron and Christina up at their hotel. We ended up just taking the Caltrain down to the game, with driving and parking we just decided it would be easier. We got to the game without too much trouble. The game was a lot of fun! I'm really glad Teresa brought extra jackets and a blanket...it was pretty cold!! I loved our seats because we could see the bay bridge, all of the buildings and the bay.

One of my favorite players is Nate Schierholtz, so Shawn made sure to get a nice close-up!

One of the most popular players is Pablo Sandoval, of course everyone has those Panda hats on, I'm not really that into him, but whatever.

Cute picture of the Newlyweds, Byron and Christina, and Brent in the background!

Dylan and Eric with the view of the bay

Us...you can't really see Shawn's shirt with him sitting but it say's Fear the Beard...Brian Wilson!

Teresa! She kept trying to get us to scoot down since the people next to us never showed, the boys eventually moved down there!

The FIGHT! I can't remember which inning it was, I know that it was later one of the pitchers from SF accidentally hit one of the Padres batters, well evidentally they thought it was intentional so both benches completely cleared and they were seriously fighting forever!!

This picture is really blurry but it's funny because you can see that the Beard (Brian Wilson) even came out to see what was going on...he's a little crazy, but we love him!

I would have been really disappointed if Brian Wilson hadn't pitched and we got really lucky..at the very end they brought him out!

After the game overlooking some of the city

The group, minus Brent and Teresa

The rest of the weekend was so relaxing. We got up Saturday (we actually slept in!) went to Half Moon Bay, so pretty there, and just walked around the town. We had lunch at this amazing restaurant called Pasta Moon, if you're ever in the area you have to go there!! Then we came back to the city, had some dinner and just relaxed. I told Shawn we definitely need to do this at least once a year. It's just so nice to get out of town and have time together where we're not worried about school, work, life, anything!! Thanks Shawn for such a great weekend, and thank you Brent and Teresa for a great time, we had a BLAST!