Our Last Few Weeks...According to my iPhone

Matt and the Munchkin

Last last weekend, Matt and I hung out with my good friend, Marie and her son, Landon. Marie and I used to love going to the farmer's market, so on that beautiful (but chilly) Saturday morning, we decided to grab some coffee and walk around the farmer's market. It was Matt's second time ever hanging out with them, so of course Landon was kind of shy. But within 20 minutes, the four of us were running around the farmer's market acting like idiots, especially Matt and Landon. It was nice because I got to catch up with Marie, and Matt had fun because he was able to act like a kid (mind you, Landon is only one and a half, so I guess Matt was acting more like a toddler). We were able to sample lots of fruits (and lots of real food too, the hummus man is my fave!!). I think it must be because it's winter time, but the fruit didn't taste as spectacular as I remember. But we did score a free samosa (I bought two and the lady threw in an extra one for free!).

After we decided that we had had enough of the farmer's market (aka all the vendors started giving us mean looks for trying to snag more of their samples), we decided to head to Target, because no one loves Target more than Marie and I (and apparently Landon). This kid love the place. Marie had to ask him multiple times to get up and stop trying to lick the floor. Funniest thing ever. Plus we spent at least 20 minutes in the toy section. I could hear Matt mimicking Landon's babbling from 4 aisles away. Those two are probably going to be best buds some day.

I think the real plus was Landon opening his present at the end of the morning. What an excited kid he was!!

After hanging out with Marie and Landon, we grabbed some Philz Coffee (best coffee in the entire freaking world) with Brandon (Matt's brother) and his wife, Caitlin, and walked around downtown San Jose. What a great way to spend our last morning of 2011. 

Winter Wonderland

Margaret found a Groupon to attend the Winter Wonderland "festival" and we were very excited to check it out.  It took place in the parking lot of the Great America theme park and had a very cool carnival type feel to it.

It is basically a bunch of neat light fixtures set up and everyone walks around and takes photos.  Of course it would just be LAME for us to take simple photos with the lights.  So as you will see below we definitely took the fun to whole other level:  by impersonating many of the fixtures!

I don't know if we will do it again because it seems to be definitely geared towards a younger audience, but nonetheless, we had a BLAST!!  Enjoy.

Entrance!

One of our only normal photos haha

Rowing the Boat

Fish?

Grrrrrrrrr

Rawr

I am...an idiot

Angry pig!

Failed attempt at "lifting" the bridge

Gooooooooo Niners

I so fat!

Peacock!....and cokes

Best looking fixture in my opinion

Jack Frost

Creepy (my face) Moon

"I have such a big body, and tiny little arms!"

Redeemer City Church

Last night, we were part of something magical. We were part of a celebration, one celebrating the opening of a new church, Redeemer City Church. It was something that we were a part of last summer, we were there when this church met at the Wagners on Friday nights with 8 people and now this is a full fledged church meeting on Sunday night in San Francisco with over 50 people. It is incredible to see this happen, and I can definitely see God here with us.

Part of my new years resolution is to be a part of this, this church with these amazing wonderful people and this awesome God. And I have every intention of keeping this resolution. Though it's hard to go without Matt, I am just hoping I have the strength to keep going on my own. It's not that I can't do it, or I don't want to do it, but I guess as stupid as this sounds, these people and this church know us, Matt and Margaret. And now I think it's time for them to get to know me. It's just weird because these people are our "couple friends." All our other friends, they knew me and now they know Matt, or they knew Matt and now they know me. But these people, they know us. So it's hard to be there without Matt, but I have faith that (hopefully) they will still like me even when he's in San Diego!

We are so glad you are now here, Redeemer City Church, and we cannot wait to watch you flourish in this beautiful city we know and love, San Francisco.

Ugly Sweater Cal Train Pub Crawl

After finals, Matt drove up to Sunnyvale to hang out with me for a few days before going home to Reno for Christmas. Let's just say we squeezed in as much as possible during our few days together (even though we may have missed a few events...aka horseback riding because we wanted to cuddle). But we did plan and partake in a crazzzyy ugly sweater cal train pub crawl. I know it's a lot to say. We met up with my coworkers, Courtney and Tyler, in Palo Alto and grabbed a few drinks in downtown PA (slider bar and madam Tam's). Slider bar had good food, but terrible service (at one point, matt and tyler had to walk up to bar to get drinks, and our waitress tried to seat them again because she forgot what they looked like). Madam Tam's had cheap pictures, plus awesome giants pints :) We had to rush to catch our 4:30 train to burlingame.

Did I mention the focus on ugly sweaters?

Tyler and Courtney!

Courtney, being prepared as always, handed out mimosas on the train...we are classy. In burlingame, we met up with more of my coworkers (Maddie and her bf, Brian, and Caroline and Mike) at Paddy Flynn's. This bar is irish beyond belief, but super fun. I think Matt really hit it off with all of my coworkers (which I'm thrilled about because they are all awesome. We left the bar at 7 to catch our train, but at the train station, we found out there was a 30 minute delay. Well....what better to do than hit up another bar and a donut shop? Which is exactly what we did. When we made it to SF finally (and much later than anticipated), we were all starving, so of course, we went to my favorite bar/restaurant, 21st Amendment for our final stop. This place has the world famous watermelon beer I love! Overall, this was one of the best bar crawls I have ever been on. Thanks to my wonderful friends for coming out and being a blast!

Merry Christmas!!!

We hope you and your loved ones have a wonderful day celebrating Jesus, and one of my favorite days of the year. We know we are blessed with everything we have and we are grateful for all the wonderful and amazing people in our lives. Hopefully you are surrounded by as much love as we are.

merrychristmas

These are not our real Christmas cards (we don't do Christmas cards yet...) but it's fun to pretend!! 

"I gave my kids a terrible Christmas present."

Thanks Jimmy Kimmel.

"I like when you cook dinner...like hot pockets."