The barrels arrived!

Happy 60th Birthday Dad!

For my dad's 60th birthday, we decided to take a road trip out to CA so we could bring Jackson with us and introduce him to the rest of the family.  He behaved himself for most of the trip and we got away with just 1 "accident" in the car.  He really didn't mean to, he's just trying to do his job of preparing us for parenthood!

Ruby Trust

In just a few weeks from now, this location will soon become a second home.  Braden and his new partner Ray are going into business to create the first vintage of Ruby Trust wines and it will be the beginning of Ruby Trust Winery.  We hope all you will come by with your feet ready to help stomp some grapes!  

The Winery Dog...every winery needs one!

Man Trip 2009

While all the girls flew to Denver, we sent Braden off to Tahoe for his Man Trip.  The guys went golfing, drinking, ski doo-ing, gambling, and even went to the Heart/Journey concert!  Braden has a new found appreciation for a good "lake trip," which I am very happy about!  They had a great time and already have their next trip planned for a CO mountain trip in January.    

Does this explain "Man Trip?"

Nick taking his sun precautions under the umbrella:)

Oh Brady!

Jackson, Jackson, Jackson

After 9 months of having Jackson, we have learned the importance of picking out a REALLY good name for a dog, cat, and most of all, a kid.  For as many times as we yell "Jackson" in our house, its a really good thing we like his name!  Even though he is a dog, Jackson is now a part of our family.  That means, for the most part, wherever we go, he goes.  (Thank you family and friends for kind of accepting this!)  What this also means is, all you hear is "Jackson down, Jackson NO, Jackson off, Jackson go, Jackson move, Jackson, Jackson, Jackson!"

So yes, we know he is "just like Marley," as we hear so often.  We are enjoying creating our own story of Jackson & Us.  So for your entertainment, I thought I would share with you his latest destruction.  I'm sure it will be less than 24 hours until he finds something else to destroy!

Its okay, it was only $3!

BUSTED!!!...again

Bath time:)...only because he was digging and got muddy!

Training session during bath time

Stanley Steemer

The Doll Collectors Denver 2009

Last weekend we had our annual Cal Poly girls reunion.  This year, I was lucky enough to have everyone fly out to Denver for our meet up... something I never imagined happening when I first moved here.  At the last minute, Meghan came down with the worst combination of strep throat, a cold, and the flu so had to cancel her flight in tears and had to be with us in spirit:(  So there ended up being 5 girls flying into Denver from Orange County and San Francisco.  

Throughout our trip, people kept coming up to asking what kind of group we were.  Eventually we starting making up stories.  When it came to my turn, I said we were a "Dog Club."  The person misheard me and thought I said a "Doll Club," so we rolled with it, so now we each have a Doll that we collect...I collect Quints-- Quintuplet dolls--they were my favorite when I was little:)

While they were here, we went to the Coors Factory (aka the Coolers Factory by Kirby), Steph experienced the dog park with Jackson and I, we went to Lodo's downtown for dinner, went to the Rockies game, then went to the Cowboy Lounge to dance the night away!  Unfortunately we were hit with some pretty bad rain for the whole night, but it didn't get in the way of our fun one bit!  

When we out for the evening, we left the house at 3:00, so (stupid me) decided to leave Jackson out with the door cracked open, since we were going to be gone for possibly 11+ hours.  Our neighbors were out of town, otherwise, they usually check on him if we are gone long.  Not knowing that we were going to get hit with that kind of rain, I thought Jackson could hold the fort down (he has been doing good with this routine lately.)  When we walked in the house at 1:00 am, we walked into a disaster.  (You will see the pictures below)  I can only thank God that I had 5 girlfriends with me who didn't waste 1 minute, grabbed every rag available, and started cleaning away.  I don't know what I would have done without them!  Jackson covered every square inch of the couches, ran upstairs (all the doors were closed to the bedrooms) and went in and out of the kitchen.  Lets just say he had one heck of a party.  

All the girls were shocked at how calm I was about the situation and were scared to death about Braden finding out.  When I called Braden the next day to tell him, the first thing out of his mouth was "well, at least Jackson's okay and everything can be fixed!"  This is what Jackson has taught us, and for this, our hearts have grown larger, we have learned not to stress about the little things, and we will hopefully live longer! ---Don't get me wrong, Jackson is still grounded!!!

Throughout our tour, several people came up to us to ask if we were some sort of "Volleyball" group??  Annie and I had to be the team Nutritionist and Towel girls due to our 5'4 status!

This picture only took us 7 tries!

Our cute outfits turned into capri pants, wet hair, and our arms thrown up dancing in the rain.

CO Rockies vs. SF Giants = Rockies WIN!

Cowboy Lounge...giddy up!

Door left open + Jackson left home alone + a lot of unexpected rain  

+ 5 great friends help cleaning up all the mud + Jackson's night grounded sleeping in the basement

+ $136 for Stanley Steemer cleaning the mud + Jackson's face when he looks at you and knows how much trouble he's in and how sorry he is for what he did = PRICELESS