A Day in the Life Of

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Morning Cappuccino

So, I am way behind in my blogging as always. I have Christmas to blog, New Years, the Cardinals game, and so much more that eludes me at the moment. But the beauty of the new year has challenged me to take a moment to pause. For reasons unrelated to my motivation I have been blessed with a slow season at work recently. My days have been mostly spent connecting with co-workers and staff and enjoying my quick drive home early in the afternoon. It has been a nice change of pace. And on that note, until Qwest decides to get our computers and phone back up and running at work I get to enjoy some of my day working from home. This includes trying to wake up at 5 to go to Bikram yoga, but instead turning on the snooze button. Finally waking up at 7 am (I am usually to work by this time) and rolling out of bed and crawling to our most fantastic and dummy proof cappuccino machine. If you have never tried the Nespresso machines DO! They are fantastic. They make a perfect cappuccino in less than 2 minutes and your total sum of work is pushing two buttons!

So this morning here I am sitting at my computer, drinking my cappuccino and thankful for the new year and the rest it has brought already. I am blessed.

Friday, December 19, 2008

Beautiful Wedding

Another favorite memory of 2008 was the wedding of Rob's brother Todd to his beautiful wife Jeli. The picked the most beautiful location, Long Beach's aquarium. These pictures are from the rehearsal . The whole wedding was themed around the aquarium. What a unique and stylish wedding it was! Just take a look of the view of the alter. Stunning!

Beautiful Grandma Rose

Us at the beach house we stayed at with the Chaney family in Huntington Beach.

Disneyland

So another highlight of this year was our trip to Disneyland. Rob had not been since he was a kid and as a "Johnson" I was itching to go. Disneyland has a very special meaning to the Johnson family. Some of our most favorite memories were built either at or traveling to and from Disneyland. One of my favorite is the infamous brush microphone used during the car ride singing 50's tunes with mom, dad Christa and stefi.

Our time there was just as it was meant to be: Relishing in childlike fun, distracked from the worries of the world.

Winter Wonderland

I hope you smile and maybe even laugh when you receive our Christmas cards. Pathetic I know, sending Christmas cards of our dogs. But what can one say other than they bring so much joy to our everyday lives that we can't help but hope they might do the same for you.

The pictures are from Thanksgiving spent with the Chaney family up at the cabin in Pine Top. I hoped for snow on the way up and was delighted by the snow storm that fell on Thanksgiving day. I walked the dogs much to their disdain but I cherished in the blistering wind and crystal snowflakes.

Time with the family was wonderful! I must say the highlight was celebrating in my sister-in-law's growing bundle of joy due later this year!

LA: Not a dog friendly place

So one detail I missed in the last blog that on our way back to AZ we decided to take a detour and go to LA to visit the beach. The dogs had never been and we thought what a fun day it would be playing in the water and lounging on the sand. Well, we found out after 3 attempts at different beaches and nearly dodging a ticket from the ONLY life guard on duty in all of LA that dogs are not allowed! But we were able to sneak in one lonely picture as we were being escorted back to the car...

This past month we traveled to Palm Springs for our annual reunion. We decided with the holidays just around the corner we would make it a world wind trip. We traveled for a total of 48 hours and spent almost 30 of them in the car driving! We didn't have a babysitter for the pups so we brought them along thinking it would be a great adventure...and that it was. They were miserable...they hated being in the car and every time we stopped to let them out to go potties or get gas they were sorely disappointed we were not where exciting. Not grandma and grandpa's, the doggy park, the park with the patos and pajaros or even back at home. They cried and barked pretty much straight the entire drive there and back. We stayed at a motel 6, one of the only places they allow dogs. And we thought the drive was rough on the dogs the minute we walked in the hotel room they ran back out to the car wishing we could only go back home.

The event was beautiful. We reconnected with the same group of friends we see every year. It is the only time we actually see or even communicate with them. But because of history, love and acceptance the minute we see each other we reconnect. One of them got engaged this past year. We were able to spend much of the evening sharing funny dating stories, wedding stories and even lessons learned in marriage. Lots of laughs and hugs when it was time to go. I am already looking forward to next year. Here are a couple of pictures from the trip.

This first picture was taken on our way back. We got caught in a storm and experienced one of God's wonderful creations. The rainbow was a gentle reminder of the weekend of His faithfullness and promises.