OPEN SESAME!!!!!

HI-O!!! Garrick again.....
So my dad came for a visit last fall and saw the house and he really loved it, but he noticed that we still had the original 1949 garage door still attached to the house.

so he gave us an early Christmas present and purchased us a new garage door to be installed...
!THANKS DAD!

here are the old space consuming spring and levers that used to be attached

and here is the clean smooth tracks that replaced them

OHHHHHH A KEYPAD.....secret code...now stef doesn't have to wait for me to open the garage and if she has to get in it is not a friggin' nightmare.

the beautiful motor all mounted and clean

and the end product...oh it is so nice and makes the house look so put together....I never thought I would be one of those people that loved working on a house..but I AM!!! I also installed a new doorbell that day, so much fun.

SUNDANCE 2009

So let's begin...first off this is Garrick writting this blog entry to tell you all about Sundance 2009. I was hired as a driver for a company named ESG to drive the celeb's around for a week and here are the people I drove, saw and met. First these three Irish actors I picked up in the morning after a night of drinking and they were hilarious!!! I actually listened to the Inaguration with them for about 10 minutes...with Liam Neeson!!! I will never forget that. Ok so here are the people I......
SAW

Here is that Kristen Stewart from "Twilight" she was tiny..smaller than my daughter.

Jim Carrey stood next to me as I waited for my person and said "HI" to the crowd..we are the same height.

Charlyne Yi from "Knocked Up" she kills me in that movie.

Kirsten Wigg from SNL fame, saw her at the airport waiting for Liam, she is tiny also.

JIM!!!! John Krasinski, I saw him giving an interview.

Can't even spell this actors name right.....Chiwetel Ejiofol....or somethng like that...

IRON MIKE TYSON...He is like 5 feet high 5 feet wide..I wish I was kidding.

50 Cent..his bodyguards stopped my car and he walked right in front of me..should have honked and scarred the crap out of him
I also saw a couple other stars..but I just can't remember their names...oh well, now onto people I...
MET

007..Pierce...incredibely nice had his wife and kids with him and said hello to me and was truely a gentleman.

I met this bunch..Tia Leon is gorgeous, Billy Bob is a hipster doofus, and I drove Kyle (Agent Cooper) around for about 15 minutes, that can segway into who I....
DROVE

Rodrigo Santoro ...!!!!!LOST!!!!!! he is Paulo killed by the Medusa Spider and buried alive!!! Also Xerxese from 300 he was so nice and so cool..he held my hand...that was ODD!

Of course Obi-Wan Kenobi ....Ewan McGregor...omg I just about lost my mind when he was in the car..he is cool as they come.

My biggest star (to me) was Mr. Liam Neeson, Qui-Gon Jinn himself...He and his wife were so nice and so cool, and I have a hilarious story about him I will tell you when we are face to face, but I knew I would have Liam in the car and so I brought this Vanity Fair Magazine and both he and Ewan signed it.....that made the trip all worth while....

It was hard work and not alot of sleep and little pay, but I believe I was meant to meet these people for the sole purpose of getting my magazine signed..it was all worth it.
May the force be with you...always.

All growed up!

Well if you can believe it, Aurora has graduated from high school. Seems a little surreal, but nonetheless, she is all growed up!!!

She graduated early and for those that did graduate early they had a ceremony and they walked. So we flew down to AZ for the weekend and let the commencements begin. We got there Friday night and check in to the hotel with Gar's mom and Rog. Then we met Aurora's fam for dinner. Here she is with her boyfriend Patrick at the pizza joint.

The next day was the ceremony. It was so great, she looked beautiful! Here she is walking down.... It's a little blurry, but you can see her...

It was a great ceremony and when she walked up and they called her name, I will say that I cried. I felt so proud to see her up there and so glad to be a part of her life!

Here is Laura her mom and Marshall, Laura's boyfriend and her little brother and sister Elizabeth and Patrick. Here is us.... Good times.

Laura threw a party for her that night at a friends house. It was catered with Mexican food and we had a good time. Her mom put together a film with music and pix from her birth up till her grad. It was great, she was a cute baby. Here is Gar, his mom Deb and Aurora.

Here are the girls, Aurora and her best friends, Amy and Sara.

She is so dang beautiful, huh!!!

Well, it was so great to see your girl graduate high school and accomplish something so great!! She is a great kid and is going to go to college in the spring!!!

CONGRATULATIONS BUBBA!

WE LOVE YOU!!!

Tis the season to be Mary...

We had the best Christmas, would have been complete with Nat there, but we made due. MISSED YOU NAT! We have started a great tradition for Christmas eve. Last year it was just me and Gar and Ang's family. So on Christmas eve, we decided to go to a movie and then for pizza at the Pie. This year we did it again. All of Beck's family, all of Ang's family, me & Gar, and Lynette and Mads. It was a blast. We went to see Bolt and found out it was in 3D. The kids totally loved it. Here is Beck, Gav and Benjamin waiting for the movie to start.

Here is Eden, Issac, Abe, and Everest. They were diggin the glasses. Lynette brought a ton of candy for the kids and the loved it.

These to are best friends Rio and Mads, I just told them I was going to take a picture of them and they both did this face... Not sure what they are doing. But they are SOOOO freaking cute, in the middle of the movie, they came and sat with Gar and I, too cute. Mads would laugh and snort, she is so crazy!

Nette, Ang and Kirk kicking it before the movie. All the kiddies sat all together and were so great during the movie, made it so nice to watch the movie.

Jacob and Adam... they are too cool. Some good looking boys!!

After the movie we headed to the Pie, they kids were so excited, but Benjamin kept saying I hate pie, so Beck just told him we were going to the Pizza Restaurant. Here is all of us and the food!!

While us adults were talking the kids kept running back and forth getting straws. Eden had 9 and i'm not sure how many Rio had. Here is a pic of her trying to drink out of all of them...
Here is a close up of Rio that girl is so funny!

Christmas Eve was so great. I love that tradition and hope we can do it every year!! Here are our Christmas decor... Every year we get a new piece of decor, this year is our star for the tree upstairs. I didn't get a very good picture of it, but it is super cute.

Here is Gar's tree downstairs with all of the "fun" ornaments. His Star War's one, Superman, Spiderman, Darth Vader... They are all there. It is a really cute tree, I'm glad Gar came up with the idea for his tree!
If you look closely at the pic below, you can see Gar's little Star Ward guys dressed up for the holidays. He found these toys at Target and we had to get them, they are so fun Darth Vader is holding a candy cane, hahaha!! Christmas morning was so wonderful!! We woke up at 8am, well, actually I woke up at 6:30 and tried to sleep until 8am, so I woke Gar up at 8 and we made coffee and baileys and had cinnamon rolls and opened gifts. Here are our stockings.
Having Toby is like having a real kid. He freaked out when we brought out his stocking and would not calm down until Gar got the packaging off the toys. He was so happy to find out that we got him a new squirlly and a new kong. His last squirlly died, so we got him a new one. It took him no time to chew the ears and tail off this on too.
We had a wonderful Christmas, together we got a blue ray player, The Dark Knight on Blue Ray, Gar got some cologne and his XBox World at War game, I got new running shoes and a fridge for my office, Nat got me this sweet frame for me to put all of my all of my corks in.

We had a wonderful Christmas. Spending so much time with each other, with my family and with Gar's family, I love it so much. I got to talk to my dad from Afghanistan and that was great. I hope all of you had a wonderful holiday!

A turkey for me and a turkey for you... (yes, this post is a little late)

I'd thought I'd get thanks giving posted before next thanksgiving.... We went to Cali this year to spend the holiday with Gar's family. We had a blast. We left after work a couple of days before T-day and drove until we hit Reno. I got us a room there and we kicked it for the night. Reno is not the greatest! Here is the hotel, rental car, gas station we fill up at, and the Mc D's we ate at before we finished our drive into Chico.

We picked up Aurora at the Sacramento Airport and headed to Deb & Rog's. We had so much fun. For the big day, Gar's bro's Tom and Jesse and their wives came up and spent the day. It was so great. Deb cooked the best food and I managed to ruin the pumpkin cheesecake... So good thing Jesse brought the pumpkin pie.
Deb and Rog have 2 dogs, a big one named Marty and a little guy named Zoey. The little ones took a while to get along but then all they did was play. It was so freaking cute. Marty really wanted to play, but Toby would not have it. He had to be the boss and after Marty jumped Toby for taking his bone, Toby wanted nothing to do with him. I was a pretty crazy altercation between the big one and Toby, scared the pee right out of Toby, literally!!! Sad/Funny!

Jesse and Jamie had a little baby last September and this was our first time meeting here. She is so adorable and not afraid of the dogs at all.
This is Aurora and Brooklyn. The 2 grand kids and only 16 years apart. It was so great to have us all there.
Bubba and Rog kicking it on the couch... This is Gar's step dad, a great guy! Quiet, but will say the funniest things that will make you laugh out loud!

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, we drove down from Chico to Roseville where Tom and Jesse live and we went bowling and played video games. It was a blast. Here is the whole gang.

From left to right:
Tom, Garr, me, Brooklyn, Lindsay (Tom's wife), Aurora, Jamie (Jesse's wife), Jesse, Deb and Rog.

Here is bubba teaching Brooklyn how to play Skee-Ball. She was loving it. We got so many tickets from all of us playing the games. Jesse and Aurora got the jackpot on a couple of games.
Here is Jesse and Jamie playing the basketball game. They totally kicked mine and Gar's score.

Brooklyn love the bowling. Deb would bring her up to play. She thought is was the best thing.

Just so freaking cute!!

We had a great trip and loved seeing the fam. It had been 2 years since we had seen then... Too long. We didn't get any speeding tickets, so that was GREAT!!!