2008

HAPPY NEW YEARS to all of our family and friends..we love you and hope 2008 brings you health and happiness!

Tis the Season

SO we went home for the holiday and had a blast hanging out with our FAMILY! Unfortunately our trip had to be cut short because Matt got a 'surprise' from work..they decided to schedule him the day after Xmas which meant that we had to leave for Chico on Christmas day when the plan was to come home on Thursday..bummer huh? There were lots of people that we wanted to see and hangout with but that will have to wait until next time we're in Bako..sorry! The important thing was being with our families for Christmas and thats what counts! :0) We stayed with Mom and Dad Gates and had so much fun hanging out with them, Andrew, Milly Dog and ALL of the kitties :0) We brought our cat Lu-Lu with us and she was shy at first but made some new furry friends by the time we left :0) It was so nice to relax and be around the people that we love and dont get to see as often as we'd like :0) Christmas Eve was alot of fun. Every year for as long as i can remember my family has gathered at my Grandma and Grandpa's house for good food, fun and Christmas tradition!

After we eat dinner and catch up with warm conversations, we all sit down and sing our favorite Christmas carols!

It was tradition that if we sang as loud as we could,Santa would hear it and would leave us a bag of presents by the front door. After one of our LOUD carols, my Grandpa would say "Did you hear that kids?!" and that was the cue for all of us to race to the front door and find Santa's famous bag of presents! Usually there would be at least 10 kids racing to the door and someone would end up getting hurt in the stampede but this year that wasn't the case. My two nieces were the only 'kids' there this year..

..i consider myself a kid so i ran for the bag too ;0)

Next we bring the bag to Grandpa and he will then read "The Santa Letter" Which my grandparents make every year that notes everything thats been going on with each family and kid. Its always neat to see the kids' amazement when they find that 'Santa' knows everything about them in the letters :0)I dont know where they find the time and energy to make that every year (considering the fact that my Grandpa is almost 91 years old and Grandmas not far behind) but that just makes it 10 times more special :0)

My Grandma makes her famous English Toffee every year and gives it as presents..i cant tell you how much i admire her cooking/baking skills!

We were exhausted by the time we got back to Mom and Dad Gates house and we all sleepily watched some cute Christmas shows together before bed and i made Matt read me The Night Before Christmas before we went to sleep :0) The next morning we woke up to the smell of sausage sizzlin' in the kitchen (dont you love that?!)and we rolled out of bed and wished everyone a Merry Christmas with hugs and kisses :0) We all opened our presents together and had so much fun with the 'finding the PICKLE in the tree' tradition :0) Do i even need to tell you who found the pickle? ;0) Anywho i think its safe to say that we got spoiled this year in the present category..thank you SOOO much! We went to my parents house and had fun opening presents and chit chatting with the fam :0) i got to show off the new fly rod and reel my awesome hubby gave me for Christmas..i think its safe to say that i made a couple people jealous ;0) jk

After saying our goodbyes we packed up all of our stuff and hit the road earlier than we wanted to...did i mention that my little nieces Andy and Paige gave me a PRESENT too?? They were both really sick and i left with a new sore throat and temperature! :0/ Oh well..its a good thing that they are stinkin CUTE! :0)


I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas full of fun memories, love and FAMILY.

HOME for Christmas!

Matt and I are pleased to announce that we will be spending Christmas in Bakersfield :0) We will be in town from the 22nd through the 27th SO feel free to give us a call if you want to hang out!! Happy Holidays :0)

I Heart Christmas Trees!

So i almost forgot to show you our beautiful Christmas tree..which would've been a tragedy :0) Last year Matt and i went and cut down our own Christmas tree in the forest (you can do that here) but this year we bought one and managed to squeeze it in the Bug..if you look closely you can see my little head poking out :0)

We got it home and started decorating..Mom Gates was in town so she helped us string popcorn and cranberries..good times :0) Alright here it is!

Lu-Lu loves to knock the ornaments off and play underneath it :0) Anywho i just thought id share!

My Festive Kitty :0)

I just HAD to share..isnt she CUTE?! Happy 'hump day' everyone! :0)

The Reason for the Season

The holiday season is here again! The parking lots are FULL of people competing for a spot to park and Every store is PACKED with people buying gifts, gifts and more gifts. While im at work cutting hair, all they talk about is shopping and presents and what they bought and what Santa is bringing them...It just seems as though people(me included) sometimes lose track of what Christmas is really about and what our minds should be focused on..the important things...



If you have a minute, you should try this out..its pretty neat :0)
Look at the image above. Notice the 4 small dots in the middle of the image. Focus only on those four small dots for ONE FULL MINUTE. Dont let your eyes stray from those 4 dots for 1 minute. When you've stared at those dots for one minute, close your eyes. Keep them closed and something will appear...The TRUE meaning of Christmas. HINT: if you do it right, you see the Savior :0)

I've been DOUBLE Tagged :0)

Erin AND Laura both 'tagged' me SO i guess im supposed to tell y'all 6 things you might not know about Me :0)

1: We just put up our Christmas lights..bet ya didnt know that ;0)

2:I had a paper route for the longest time and threw papers at 4am every morning!
3:I was a TEN POUND baby...sorry Mom!
4:I LOVE Q-tips and use a TON of them :0)
5:I am DEATHLY afraid of sharks but find them strangely fascinating. I love 'shark week' on the Discovery Channel :0)
6:Im still slightly afraid of the dark ;0)
BONUS: I own a Ferret :0)

Did i surprize anyone?? Now I 'tag' Mom Gates, Mom Bulkeley, Brittany & Tae :0) xoxo

So Matt and i are back from our little get-away and i must say that we had a fabulous time staying in the Trinity Alps! The weather was perfect for us and we had a blast exploring 'uncharted territory' :0) We stayed at a Victorian Inn in a cute little town tucked away in the mountains. During our stay there we saw lots of deer :0)

It felt so good to relax and celebrate our first year of happiness together :0) We did some hiking and enjoyed some breathtaking views..like this one..

We also fished in the Trinity river for steel head trout..and we caught a MONSTER!! No, really...it looked like a monster! LoL

We werent sure if it was a steel head or a salmon..whatever it was it was BIG and it had big TEETH!

I caught the thing but Matts the only one who got a picture with it..go figure! :0) Funny Story: the rivers further up north are a LOT colder than the ones that we're used to and my feet were SO cold while we were fishing and wading in the water that i could barely WALK! When we got back to the hotel i thought that a hot shower would help defrost my aching feet but i soon found that it was a bad idea! My feet turned a bright shade of PURPLE and started swelling up! By the time i bailed out of the shower my feet were HUGE! Matt had gone to the store for something and i was freaking out thinking that my feet were going to fall off! I kept off my feet until the swelling slowly started going down..Ive come to the conclusion that i did in fact get Frost Bite! Anywho i hope you found that incident amusing :0) Matt and i have decided that we need to start using Waders to prevent that from happening in the future..i wonder if they make them in pink ;0) SO anyway i better put more pictures on here for you..We went to a 'fish hatchery' and saw lots of BIG fish!


We also got to see the fish jumping up the 'fish ladder'..that was pretty neat.We had fun finding cool things to do and see..We hiked up to a couple of waterfalls near Wiskeytown before it got dark..

Before we knew it, it was already time to pack up and go home. We got our lines wet one more time before we hit the road :0) The End

P.S...I LLLOOOVE my hubby :0)

November 25, 2007

I cant believe that its been a YEAR already! Time has flown by so fast and i feel so blessed to be married to my best friend! I look forward to all of the years to come and the adventures we will share in life together. For our anniversary, Matt and i are going to explore the Trinity Alps for a few days and do a little fishing, hiking and of course ReLaXing ;0) So there will be lots of fun and adventure to be had! Ill post pictures when we get back! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to US! :0)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

This year Matt and i are spending Thanksgiving together as a family :0) Were cookin' lots of food just for the two of us and hopefully we wont burn the place down! jk
I just thought id mention a few things that i am thankful for...
1. My Husband and best friend ~ Im so grateful that we will be a family forever!
2.My Heavenly Father ~ Id be lost without Him.
3. My amaizing Family ~ Thanks for all of the support friendship and Love!
4.Friends ~ Theyre great too :0)

I hope everyone has a wonderful THANKsgiving :0)

Interesting week

Last week was pretty interesting at work..one day i came in to find that there was a flower delivery for me and it was on my station..All of the girls were curious to see who it was from.I figured it was from Matt or a family member..after all, it IS almost our Anniversary but NO..i read the letter and was pretty creeped out to find that it was from a customer!

He said i cut his hair in the note but his name did not ring a bell PLUS im pretty sure he noticed the picure of my HUSBAND and i on my station and the ROCK on my left hand...creepy. Matt was a little disturbed but i assured him of my Karate skills! LoL
And yesterday I cut my client Steve's hair who had mentioned that he hunts with falcons the previous time i cut his hair..i told him that id love to see his bird and he had it with him this time! It was pretty neat to see and he let me hold him too! The bird had a 'hood' on so i wouldn't scare him away ;0)

"Who" is a Peregrine Falcon..isnt he amaizing?!

Anyways its not very often that you get to see one of those guys up close so that was pretty cool..I think ive earned some bragging rights as well ;0)

Bowling in Chico

SO Matt and i decided to go bowling one night after work at the only bowling alley in Chico.We hadnt been in a while so we were a little rusty..Or maybe I was just rusty because Matt did fine job beating me :0) Here he is in action!

I picked the pink ball :0)

We played a few games and decided to wrap it up when i was tired of losing ;0)

We went up to the front to turn in our super cool bowling shoes and pay for our lane.....it was 35 dollars!!! Never in my life have i paid that much for 25 minutes of bowling! As far as im concerned it was a rip off! Fun? yes, but $35 worth of fun?..see ladies and gentlemen..this is one of the reasons why we FISH so much..One, its cheap.Two, you don't get 'rusty' and finally, its always FUN!

SO Matt and I went fishing this week!..big surprise :0) We talked our friend at the Chico Fly Shop and he recommended the lower stretch of deer creek..he gave us some vague directions (which i speedily wrote on my hand) and he mentioned that its difficult to get down there and we were on our way!

lower deer creek happens to be at the bottom of a HUGE canyon which means windy dirt road all the way down the mountain! It would have been smoother in a 4wheel drive however the good ol' civic did famously :0) We found the river at the bottom of the canyon and immediately started fishing..we didnt have much time because it gets DARK so early now...dont you hate that?! Anywho i managed to catch a pretty good sized rainbow trout and a few others as well...


Matt caught a few little guys but they are still fun to catch and SO pretty!

...Love that boy

Anywho we had a good time catching fish and exploring the beautiful new fishing spot.. fishing with your best friend is pretty hard to beat ;0)

Tutorial

SO ive had a few people ask me about my blog lately wondering how ive made it so unique..So i thought id write a little tutorial for those who want to customize their blog a little bit ;0) If you want to put a background on your blog you need to acess your html code which you can find by hitting the 'template' tab and clicking on 'edit html'. Its smart to 'Save your template' before you mess with your html...just in case ;0) Now scroll down the html code a little bit until you see this:

body {
background:$bgcolor;

you need to change it to this:

body {
background-image: url(URL address of your image);

Using an image-hosting site like photobucket (for example) copy the Url link of the image you want to use for your background and Paste it inside of the parenthesis ( I highlighted where it needs to go in red.)

I hope this works for you! I have so much fun personalizing my blog (yes im a dork :0) and i hope you will too! If you have any questions..just ask ;0)

Have fun!

Our New Toy

SO...its been up and running for a few days now :0) but here it is!

...and you guessed it..its a BIG tv ;0) 42" to be exact and were lovin it! Movies are SO much better on a big screen! We mounted it on the wall in our room so we can watch movies in bed! Its great! I just hope that our neighbors cant hear it through the wall...we'll try not to watch Jurassic Park at midnight ;0)

Haloween

SO Haloween has already come and gone and the end of this month will be our ONE YEAR anniversary!! Can you believe it?! I cant :0) I had to work Haloween this year..BOOO..BUT i didnt let that spoil it for me so I dressed up at work..as a puddy tatt :0)

I decided to make the 'costume' which consisted of ears and a tail myself :0) And my adorable husband wanted to help so HE made the awesome tail and I made the ears :0)

Anywho I got off work at 8:30 that night and was pretty tired..Matt and i ate some dinner and decided to get a new TOY..Its our anniversary present to eachother and were pretty excited about it!! Heres a hint...

Can you guess what it IS?? :0) i'll post pictures when its up and running!
Anywho..i hope y'all had a HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEN! :0)

SO it's getting cold pretty quick over here so we decided to squeeze one more camping trip in before they close up the camp sites for the winter. We just so happened to have two days in a row off together so it was the perfect opportunity! We packed up all of our campin gear and headed for the mountains..We wanted to eat some trout that night so we decided to catch our dinner first and set up camp later..which was fine with me :0) While we were fishing there was a little incident and one of our poles ended up breaking :0( BUT we managed to score some pretty big trout with just one pole :0)
..Do you like my cool fishing creel? ;0)

We (mostly matt) set up camp..i love that boy :0)

Then came time to clean the fish and get it ready to cook..

mmm...fish :0)

Then we made a fire..

..and ate some fish :0) We also roasted marshmellows and made some smores..good stuff! When it got freezing and dark we went into our cozy tent and watched some Planet Earth episodes before we hit the hay..thanks mom! :0)

It was freezing at night and the worst is when you wake up at 2am and have to go to the bathroom.. which means that you must leave your warm sleeping bag and walk in the dark to the creepy campground bathroom full of spiders! lol no fun! Anyways when we finally woke up in the morning we went for a walk and found a 'cool' old water pump..it WAS 'cool' until i got...


It was disgusting and didnt look like it would come out..and of course we didnt have any soap so we went and borrowed some from the little old couple camping next to us. We washed it in the river and it finally came out! We returned the soap and gave the nice old people two peaces of marie calendar's Rasleberry pie that we brought up with us..THANK YOU for the gift card Mom Gates..I LOVE YOU! SO after that craziness we cleaned up our camp site and went fishing some more! We saw some pretty places that we hadnt been to before and enjoyed the beautiful weather..and water :0)

We caught some fish and had fun spending time together on our camping trip! :0)