Much Ado about the Season

There's nothing like the holiday season to keep yourself busy or learn to master the wonderful (and anxious) art of procrastination. As hectic as our lives seem to be, they do get filled by even more business during all of the holiday joy. Here are just a few things we've done (this weekend alone) recently...
Saturday night, we went to the Newport Harbor Boat Parade. They were celebrating 100 years! OMGosh! That's a whole heck of a lot. We almost left... we were getting burnt out and freezing, too. The parade was supposed to start at 6:30p.m., and at 8:10... we were still sitting there, watching the water and "normal" boats passing to and fro... Then, miraculously, around 8:20, just when we were pondering the thoughts that it just might not happen (other people had already left), we saw the Harbor Police's blue lights and their announcement gliding our way. Woohoo! And the party lights were on! It was wonderful, it was spectacular! This is just a pic of a boat (pre-parade) gliding along the water in the dark (I loved the reflection on the water...).
Who says palm trees and snow don't mix? Only in Southern California can you behold these two wonderful sights at the same time... It was a little colder (and much rainier) last week. Our local mountains got approximately 1-2 feet of snow. Even where I live (much lower to sea level), we had a slight dusting in our hills. We finally turned on the heater, as we had ice when we woke up in the morning... Oh! my poor garden!
And this was yesterday, on the way to my mom's house! Someone kidnapped Santa and stuffed him in a trunk! Poor Stacy! I am always handing her the camera while I drive, so she can snap pics of things I just find totally amazing (or something I think is worth it to hang onto the memory)...

On Friday, we went to get pics with Santa. Jr figured out that he would be taking pics until he was 35, because I said he had to get pics with Santa until Marissa (age 3 1/2) is 18!!! lol! Then we were at a band banquet (can't seem to upload the pics... so SORRY!) and enjoyed good food, Jr was dj-ing, Renee was dancing (Marissa was "shaking her boot-tay"), and they did a gift exchange.
I took sloppy joes and my butter rolls (formed into slider-type rolls) for a main dish. Thanks to a wonderful friend (Thanks again, Jenn!), I was able to keep my hot meal hot for 7 hours, from the drive at our house, out to Los Angeles, then waiting for the party to start. Let's just say... the plug converters in a cigarette lighter and a crock pot are AWESOME things!

Going back to procrastination... I did take some pics of some cards I made... but following that line of thinking, I'll put it in another post... a little later... Toodles for now! lisa