CHRISTMAS!

This Christmas, we (Fox and Pancotto Clans) got to be in the same state together. Due to Daniel and Randi's new arrival, they didn't want to brave traveling to florida with the 2 little ones. Our friends had a lake house that woudln't be in use over the holidays and they graciously let us borrow it. After working Christmas eve, Matt and I arrived in concord at 930ish to catch the tail end of the food and libations. We woke early on Christmas morning to open gifties and stuff ourselves before Dad went into work. (the last gift of the morning, Grandmommie's puzzle took us- 6 adults with almost 10 degrees- 30 minutes) Matt and I then headed to the lake house to meet the rest of the Foxes. We had a blast celebrating christmas that evening. Ellie was quite the helper, passing out gifts and tearing into them herself. AFter multiple attempts to keep the oven working, we ate a yummy christmas dinner then settled in (in our bunk beds). All in all a wonderful break. Both families spent saturday night together at my parent's house and ate homemade mannicotti.  Mom cried when she held Campbell-- then everyone laid into me when we were going to start the process......
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

BRRRRRRRR!!

For Matt's interview out in Colorado, we decided to make a weekend vacation out of it. I met him at the Denver Airport where snow was falling and a storm was blowing in.  The weekend weather forecast was snow with a low in the twenties.... instead of that, we got the coldest December weekend in 100 years. Monday morning's low was minus 19. Brrr.  It was painful to open the door, and even more painful to let the air touch your skin. We did attempt a trip to the mountains for some wondering, but when the snow starting blowing, we quickly changed our minds. It sure was beautiful though!

Deer tracks on the mountain side.

The Chevy Ice Skates (Daniel so aptly named)  We were in a constant state of hydroplaning!

This was the extent of our playing in the snow.  Mind you the weather on the top of the mountain was up to 20... much more bearable. 

Halloween

Happy Halloween!

bailey dog and sarah dog playing with the bone
dalmation sarah!
matt-o ready to fight a fire in an authentic fireman suit!
fireman and pet dalmation.  bailey kept trying to steal my bone. :)

I love LA

SURPRISE!!!! Yay! Theresa was planning a trip to LA to visit Daniel and Jen for the 4th and I had the brilliant idea to come along and surprise Daniel. Jen had to be let in on the secret since we were uping their house load from 3 to 5-- she still couldn't convince him to get the Sam's club sized toilet paper. The key was not letting papa frank in on the secret-- he has a reputation for letting things slip! :) It worked, Daniel had no idea and we all had a BLAST!

This is us waiting it LAX while a bomb threat was going on in our terminal-- mind you a REAL bomb threat. we saw at least 30 cop cars zooming past us then we saw the bomb squad and got nervous.... we then mosied up to the USAir terminal to wait on Tree.
Theresa's first hair cut! We almost, it's been over a year since sissors touched her hair and way more than that since she has paid more than 12 dollars for a cut. Yay for carlos, he did an awesome job!
HAPPY 4th OF JULY! We walked to Century City, saw WALL-E, ate at the Counter (yum), "watched" a firework and went BOWLING!

BOWLING

Round 1: matt won with a 118 and I came in last with an impressive 44.

Round 2: daniel won with a 117 and Theresa brought in the tail end. I won most improved, bringing my score up to a 92!!!! The key was degrading comments right before I released the ball. ie "you're stupid and bad at bowling."
Sofie was very tired after the day at the beach-- barking at seaguls and chasing daniel's kite. The dragon kite made quite an appearance in Malibu at Zuma beach- after multiple suicide attempts (nosediving into the retention pond) it finally got cought in the powerlines then fell into traffic on HWY 1. Daniel saved him and decided to pack up the dragon until next time.

WE'RE GOING TO DISNEYLAND!!!!! Wheels up at 0700. Packed tightly in the prius and headed to Anaheim. Daniel played California themed music the entire way and Matt's shoulders filled up the back seat- we discussed the bed sores we were forming from the inability to move in the back of the prius

Matt borrowed Daniels' sunglasses-- bad idea. After they were left on the first ride of the day-- Indiana Jones, matt left me in charge of them on each ride thereafter. Oddly, that was not the only item lost in Disney......

HIGH SPEED TEACUPS! woohoo!

Jen sat the matterhorn out- afraid she would become decapitated. We all decided she'd been watching the news too much!

Our new favorite thing! Brother bear adventure park. We climbed and crawled our way around this kid park then Daniel did the triple pocket check and realized his wallet wasn't in its correct place. uh-oh. Thanks to some nice person, the guide had it! And the 1$ bill was still in it!

Mulholland Madness. Truly terrifying.

Big thunder!

Goats!

Storybook land- pretending we are all very tiny and live in Disney movies :)

After eating massive amounts at Blue Bayou- YUM. 4 Monte Cristos later, we all decided it was time to go on a grapfruit fast.

NC Mountains

Another Fox Family Adventure! Matt had a few days off after his step 2 so we invited the entire Fox Clan to meet in the North Carolina Mountains for a weekend of hiking and eating. Daniel and Randi have a friend that own this beautiful house in Blowing Rock, NC. They graciously let us all stay there (minus Rosie and Bailey).

So Pretty! We all had our own rooms and plenty of space to spare!



We all made this 4 mile hike together (including Ellie on her dad's back)

Finally to the top and ready to turn back around. This so called
"moderate" hike kicked our butts! We were practically scaling rocks
at one point!





Naked Ellie!

Jacksonville Beach

Matt's friend Casey has a house in Jacksonville Beach that he so graciously loaned to us while we had a few consecutive days off last week. We had a blast, Bailey was introduced to the ocean-- which he thought was trying to chase him. I totured my legs with a very long beach run, we both attempted po-going and we ate plenty of yummy carribean food.

new sink!

After our air conditioner broke, I noticed our sink was leaking... of course. We had just blown almost our entire economic stimulus check on AC coils and repair, so I thought we should fix the sink ourselves.

I attempted to unscrew the old sink for over 30 minutes then left the job to Matt. At least 6 calls to work later, I got the final "it's finished!" and then 2 hours later the "the floor is covered with water, what do I do?". We double checked and triple checked that the sink wasn't leaking then finally put all the cleaning products away and admired our beautiful new sink. Yay Matt, you're quite the handy-man! :)