Here Comes Santa Clause and Suckers

On Saturday we went out to run a few errands and got back just in time to see the annual visit of Santa on the fire truck. Sebastian was a little scarred because they had the sirens running, (to get folks to come out of their homes) but managed to keep a stiff upper lip long enough to get a sucker from a friendly elf. 

Look who's coming down the street.
It's Santa Claus


Getting a sucker
Yesterday, Emma let him have a couple of licks.
He really seemed to enjoy it.

Some Random Pictures and Blogger is Being Weird

A Post of Pillow

The past couple of days I have been making pillows for my future apartment. A few days after arriving, Joel took me to the fabulous fabric store to get material for them. Emma has been a huge help! She even drew the bird on the one pillow for me to embroider. Thanks, Emma! I've been knitting the cable pillow for awhile now, and am SO happy how it turned out. Some vintage buttons from an antique store in the area completed it nicely. Emma let me borrow a pillow form so I could see what it looked like completed. I wish I could stuff and finish the rest of them, but could never fit them on the plane home with me that way. :)

This one needs some solid border and some brown cording before it is finished
I think this one is my favorite
Tracing the pattern onto the fabric
Embroidering
Sebastian had fun crawling through the hoop after I finished embroidering
The brown corduroy pillow that needs to be stuffed and then squeezed together in places with the orange buttonsClose up of the cables
The completed cable pillow
Side view of the cable pillow

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a very nice Thanksgiving yesterday here in Texas complete with 28 lbs. of turkey. The day ended with a midnight trip to the outlets to check out the sales, and were VERY shocked at the crowds.  We are a little sleepy today, but are having a relaxing day of napping and leftovers. 

A Night of Cards

Last night we went over to Joel's friend's house for cards and dessert. I learned a new game and was very fortunate because it was a lot like Smear and 500 kind of mixed together. The one rule I did like was that if you didn't get your bid, you don't go back any points. :) Sorry the pictures are kind of grainy, but we took them on the iPhone. Not bad though.

Graham, Laurie, and Thom

Here is Thom very proud that he got the bid.

Joel and me in the photo above and below

In-N-Out

Last night we went to the famous In-N-Out burger place. I had heard a lot about it and was told that I needed to get a Double Double and a shake. We did, but after a few bites of our burgers and a discussion about whether or not this was a good time of year for food poisoning, (I had no idea that there were good and bad times of the year to get it. I thought it was never a good time for such a thing. I'm really learning a lot on this trip.) declared them to be too pink for our liking and sent them back for some new ones. Even with the possible impending sickness, it was a yummy dinner and I'm not scarred enough to not go back.

California So Far

Hello from California everybody!  I'm sorry I haven't posted much these past couple of months, but I'll try to get back into it. I'm not making any promises, but we'll see how it goes. I arrived in California last Thursday to visit Joel. We've been having a great time together, and I've enjoyed seeing where I am going to be living in a few months. Weird.

First of all, look who lives just down the street from Joel's current apartment. Who of you has seen enough TV to know what famous television family lived here? Shh to Naomi, Hannah, and Alice.

Come on. Take a guess.

Pretty mountains.
More mountains. Really, I had no idea there were so many mountains here.
The Disney Channel building

Warner Bothers has their own water tower
On Saturday we went to The Grove and registered at a two story Crate and Barrel. Joel liked the scanner thingy. I was scanning things at first, but after a few things he said, "Um...I really want a turn with that." After that, I held the item and he scanned it and entered in how many we wanted. 
Here is Joel being artsy instead of picking a silverware pattern. After about 20 minutes of, "This one? No I don't like the shape of the knife. How about this one? Wait...never mind. I don't like how big the soup spoon is. (etc. etc. etc.) How about we each pick our favorite one and see if the other person likes it? Okay. Good idea. Bummer...they all look the same now."

This is me...all siverwared out. In the end we never did pick a setting of flatware. Ah, well. Now we will pick one out using the tiny pictures provided on the website instead of feeling and holding it, and try to live with it the rest of our lives. HA!

We did manage to buy some Christmas ornaments while at Crate and Barrel. I was going to order some online, and am very glad I waited. You could only get them in pack of six online and in the store you could get them one at a time.