Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas to everybody! We have been a little busy lately with work, childbirth education classes, Christmas last week with Laura's family, and Christmas this week with my family, that we have not got our cards out yet. This is the first step. This is us in front of our tree in our new home. Laura is now 7 months pregnant. We are getting closer. We registered last week--atleast got started. There is more stuff to register for a baby than for a wedding! We got Laura's sister to come along with us to Babies R Us last week as she is the expert already having a 2yr old. January, the priority will be to get the room together. Put the crib together, etc. The picture doesn't do Laura justice :). She seems to be doubling in size by the day.

As I said, last weekend, we had Christmas with Laura's family at our house. Everyone had a good time. The highlight, if I might say, was dinner. We put this 11-lb. bad boy in the oven at 12:45 and cooked slow slow slow at 200 degrees. At 6:30, we were sliced and ready to eat. It took a little longer than expected. I was following Alton Brown's recipe and it turned out awesome! He recommended a little different cooking technique and I was impressed (cook slow first, then high heat to crust at the end). I think this is becoming our new Christmas dinner tradition. In fact, we are cooking one tonight for my parents.

Last night, we made the rounds of the Grandparents with the entire family. Again, good times had by all. This picture is all of us singing (trying) carols at Grandpa's. It turned into more of a laughing fest.

So as we end 2006 and move in to 2007, we would like both like to say Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, etc. We hope you enjoy our cheesy little blog and that you continue to check in with us in the new year as we will welcome in a new member to the family some time in February.

Shekell Fire

Last weekend was an interesting one. Sunday morning we woke up, and as we were getting ready, with the wind blowing like a hurricane, Laura looked out the window and said, "That looks like a fire." It was definitely a fire. I wasn't worried, so Marshall and I went to the LA Auto Show. On our way back, we heard on the news that a 2nd fire had started. I don't know how many of you have experienced "Santa Ana's", but I've never experienced wind so hard. Other locals around here said the same thing. Long story short, we are ok. The fire didn't come that close. It started a few miles from here, but it was northwest, and the wind was blowing out out of the northeast. One part of the fire ended up not too far from here. Because of the wind direction we never had smoke or ash here. I cannot believe, that with the wind blowing up to 75mph gusts, the firefighters were able to control the fire so quickly. We met a couple at our Monday night Childbirth Education class (another exciting event going on) that had just moved to Moorpark in July. You should have seen their faces when Laura told them that this is a regular occurence. The flames came within feet of their house!

Christmas Lights

As promised--but definitely late (many of you should have seen an email with this picture attached).