Moab

Last weekend Matt and his buddies took their annual trip to Moab for a weekend of 4-wheeling! 

They have been going for about ten years now and the group seems to get smaller and smaller each year. 

The first time going there were about fifteen of us or so - back in the days when us girlfriends - now wives - tagged along with our men!  My first time there was also my last - I am all for camping and love 4-wheeling, but after a weekend of sweating my balls off because of the unbearable heat, having red dirt stuck in between my teeth, no shower for days and watching Stacey (Jason's wife) get her butt set on fire by a firecracker - the trip now remains a GUYS ONLY trip!

Maybe one day when the kids are old enough to go I will make the trip out their again, but for now Matt enjoys the weekend away drinking beer, hanging with his best friend and doing what he loves - riding 4-wheelers!  Every year Matt gets in some kind of trouble - one year he broke some ribs and this year the 4-wheelers came back a little bruised...

 In my mind this looks like a total disaster - but this made Matt's trip getting stuck in mud and then having to pull it out with the wench on Jason's 4-wheeler...

BOYS!  They seriously never grow up!

 On Saturday, Matt texted me this picture...

with this caption..."My pony is sore"

It looks to me like they had a GREAT time, and I am so happy Matt has a hobby he can escape to for some fun.  Now it's time to plan a weekend away for Mommy...

Oh, where should I go?

79-25-31

Are you thinking Lottery numbers? 

Well you would be wrong, those are actually the numbers of the ages of the person's birthdays we celebrated Sunday evening at Pam and Steve's house.

My Mimi turned 79, Allie turned 25 and my honey, Matt,  turned 31 - big families have LOTS of birthdays!

We had great food - homemade spaghetti noodles and lasagna and LOTS of cocktails as usual.  The birthday girl, Allie, chose White Russians - I am not going to lie they were - Yummy!

These cupcakes are very special because Ashtyn and Nana spent all day Saturday baking and decorating them especially for Matt's birthday dessert.  Ashtyn requested the toppings for decoration - M&M's, Chocolate Chips and sprinkles.  I hear they were delicious - and they looked beautiful!

Allie requested Coconut Cake - YUCK! and Mimi requested chocolate mud pies...

It's always fun celebrating birthdays in my family - good food, drinks and lots of laughs.

Happy Birthday Mimi, Allie and Matt - LOVE YOU!

SUPERMAN!

Last year we started the Tradition of "White Elephant" for Christmas Eve with the Trujillo Family.  There is always that one present which makes the game SO worth it - last year it was the Santa shorts Rob got and this year was...

 ...the SUPERMAN snuggie!  Which of course Matt got, and I think it is very fitting - no one else could quite pull it off like he does!  Needless to say we all got quite a laugh out of it...

Matt makes a pretty sexy Superman, don't you think?

The BIG 3-0 - SURPRISE!

SURPRISE! We celebrated Matt's 3oth Birthday last weekend - CRAZY! I am an amazing wife - not only did I take him to a concert to celebrate his big day, I also showered him with presents and love AND I also threw him a SURPRISE party - you would think he would just LOVE me! Well, Matt hates parties and specifically asked me not to throw one - but how could we possibly pass by his 30th birthday without a huge bash! Well, it wasn't a huge bash, but it definitely was fun - Thanks to my mom for all her wonderful help we threw a Surprise BBQ party with all of our family and friends at my parents house. It was so fun, although Matt did find out about the surprise beforehand - he is a detective and all, but I think he was still shocked by the excitement and all the balloons - another little joke we have - you see Matt and I got in a big fight on Ashtyn's 2nd birthday because I wanted like 100 balloons for her party and Matt refused - so I told him when I threw his next party the house would be filled with balloons, just to be spiteful! - so for his 3oth birthday it was "balloon" themed!

Thank you to all our family and wonderful friends for helping celebrate Matt's 30th!

The fun did not stop there - Matt loves guns - any kind of gun does not matter and lately he has introduced Ashtyn to Nerf guns and they play all the time - Well, I decided for his birthday, from the kids, We would buy him the biggest, best Nerf gun there was on the market and Tah DAH!

He LOVED it and of course so did Ashtyn! She was so excited for him to open it! It has been quite the little toy as everyone who comes over - mainly adults - play with the thing and thinks it is just the coolest thing EVER- nothing like a toy to help you not feel so old on your 30th!

Matt also got some shiny new rims and new tires for his truck - not quite what I would pick for my present - but let's just say he is in LOVE with these! He spent weeks trying to pick out the perfect set and I do say the look very nice! He has been shining them everyday since...

Happy Birthday Babe! I hope the past 30 years have been everything you wanted and dreamed of - job, wife, house, babies - not bad! And I hope the next 30 are even better! I love you so much - you old fart!

Love me some Country...

This year Matt and I celebrate our 30th birthdays! It was always my plan to take Matt to a concert for his 30th birthday since he loves music so much - especially country. So on Saturday afternoon we headed down to Fiddlers Green to watch Brad Paisley in concert with our friends Shannon and Kole! Matt was quite a trooper given the fact he had his Vasectomy surgery the day before - I bought the tickets before realizing this - whoops! We still managed to have a GREAT time like always - even with a little confusion about the concert start time. I thought I had bought tickets to a show that started at 4:00 and so we planned on attending the show and then head to dinner afterwards! Well, I was totally wrong - apparently there was a pre-show at 4pm and then the main show would start at 7:30! Change of PLANS! So we set our blanket out, had some beers and waited a couple hours for the show to start!

Even though the night didn't go quite as planned we had a GREAT time! Enjoying a night away from our kids and enjoying time with our best friends ever! It was also a perfect Colorado evening to watch a concert - which by the way was awesome! Along with Brad Paisley we got see Darius Rucker, the lead singer from Hootie and the Blowfish, so it was a nice surprise to hear all their old hits along with his new country songs. Thank you Shannon and Kole for joining us to celebrate Matt's birthday and of course for "going with the flow" since I have seem to have lost my brain! Happy Birthday BABE! Can't believe you are 30!

Wrapping Presents...

Every year the Police Department raises a bunch of money and has numerous toy drives so they can give Christmas to the kids in the Louisville schools who not as fortunate as the others. Matt is one of the organizers, which keeps him very busy all of November and December preparing for this event. All the schools in Louisville nominate families in need and then Matt and the other team members have to call each family, see what they need, collect money and then go shopping for all the kids. This year they had 20 families to buy for and was able to provide each family with everything they needed with the money they collected and from the toy drive they had at a basketball game hosted at Louisville Middle School - the cops play the kids and teachers, it's very fun to watch. After they collect all the presents, we have to wrap all of them and get them organized to be delivered. So on Saturday morning, Ashtyn and I went with Matt and a bunch of other helpers to wrap the hundreds of presents for these kids. It is such a fun thing to be apart of, and really puts everything in perspective. I hope to always have Ashtyn help with this, so she can realize just how lucky she is and how necessary it is to help others. We were able to get all the presents wrapped that morning with the help of lots of people and then the cops who work Christmas Eve deliver the presents to the families that day. I hope they all enjoyed their gifts and were able to enjoy their Christmas this year.

Matt's 29th Birthday

We celebrated Matt's 29th Birthday on Friday - that's right 29, it sounds so old, but I guess 30 is right around the corner! Matt's actual birthday was Thursday, October 1st, and we started celebrating that night over at his parents. We had Chili Beans with homemade tortillas which was GREAT as always, and then we had blueberry pie for dessert, Matt's fav! Ashtyn helped her daddy blow out his candles - she still "sniffs" at the candles, but hopefully with more practice she will finally figure out how to "blow"! We also got to visit with Auntie Lorraine, Sandy's sister, who was in town from California. It was so nice to see her and catch up, and as always her and Sandy make us all laugh when they get together - they are quite a pair!

Then on Friday night, we met the Trujillo family and the Warembourg Family for pizza at Old Chicagos and then went over to our house for dessert and of course sing "Happy Birthday"! At our house for dessert we had white cake with white icing, or what Matt calls "Wedding Cake", another fav of his! We sang, ate dessert, opened presents - which was just money, so Matt could buy something for his truck - and chatted with the family! It was a great evening to spend with the family celebrating Matt's 29th birthday - next year might have to be a bit more special!

On Saturday night, I took Matt out on a date with our friends Shannon and Kole. We went to Carinos for dinner and saw "The Invention of Lying", which was horrible but it was still fun to get out of the house for a date and hang out with our friends. We finally got see the ultrasound pictures of Baby Harms, and just can't wait to meet that little baby! Congrats to them and Happy Birthday Matt!