HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

THIS HAS BEEN THE BEST YEAR OF MY LIFE! I LOVE YOU ONE MILLION!!!

So we already celebrated our anniversary in Cabo but we thought it would be fun to celebrate the official date in Sunriver. After we got home from Kelley Family Christmas we drove to Redmond, over the pass in the middle of the night!! SO crazy... Jim and Bre let us stay at their parents house. It was absolutely gorgeous there! It snowed off and on and the sky was blue blue blue! We tied inner-tubes to the 4-wheeler (pics soon to come) it was a blast!! Last night we went to the village had a nice italian dinner, tried to ice skate but it was too cold! I settled for an icecream cone from Goody's. We are back in Redmond and Bre and I are both at work. Tonight we'll hit up the town and celebrate the NEW YEAR!!!! Good thing Bre and Jim's apartment is on top of the bar, ha! Peace out!

HOW SATAN FIRES TRIED TO RUIN CHRISTMAS...Its 2am again and I cant sleep.

Today after church Phil and I thought we were having a nice afternoon. We made lunch, built a fire and started a movie. Pete came home to shower before he went to the Kirkbrides. Before he showered Phil and Pete went in the garage to have a casual Christmas clove. After Pete's shower we noticed the house slowly started getting smokey so we figured it was because of the wet wood. Pete left, we finished the 45min that was left in our movie.

Phil decided to go to our room, (that has a door to the garage) to take a Sunday nap. When he openned the door he discovered that our room was filled with 5 feet of black smoke pouring in from the garage! Phil started screaming, "fire! call 911!" I ran around the house screaming like a crazy person, searching frantically for my cell, I immediately called 911.

operator "911 emergency"
me "OUR HOUSE IN ON FIRE!!"
operator "What?"
me "Our house, its on fire, I mean the Garage is on fire it's burning!!"
operator "Where do you live?"
talking the fastest ever I stuttered out our address.
operator " GET OUT OF THE HOUSE!"
then I just hung up, I dont know if I should have stayed on...whoops.

As I was stuttering on the phone with the 911 operator, Phil ran out side to access the garage from the other end. Meanwhile Pete was having Kirkbride famiy Christmas. After calling every Kirkbride # I had I finally got Pete on his cell. I was a little too worked up and at first kinda told him the house was on fire. The stuff in our garage was on fire!!! Phil opened the outside garage door, after a big cloud of black smoke was released he was able to see the flames consuming everything on the front-left side of the garage. In his bare feet, Phil immediatley powered up garden hose. With the humble strength of our garden hose he was able to put out the evil fire by the time the 4 fire trucks arrived. He was a hero! Shortly after the trucks came Pete made it home with Brad, Brandon and Chad. Phil tried to go into the house and he got yelled at by a fireman to "stay back!" 5 firemen and the GE were standing with us outside while it poured down rain, poured. I pretended not to hear the reporter when she asked me if I lived here. I wasnt interested in talking. I was wearing Pete's shoes, soaked in my sweats, holding onto Jericho. Phil wasnt wearing any shoes, poor guy. They had to dig through the damage to make sure the coals were out and crawl in the atic and check the breaker to rule out electrical issues.

As soon as we got clearance from the firemen that it was safe to go into our house, I immediately started cleaning the house like a crazy person so that I felt useful. I learned from Ruby to clean when you are stressed, ha! The walls in our room and the laundry room were covered in black cob webs, literally covered like a halloween house. There is a thin layer of soot on everything in our room, all of our stuff stinks. The firemen really messed up our carpet, good thing Phil works for Diamond Clean. I've done the best i can to wash and febreeze everything but I cant stand to be in there! We are sleeping in the living room tonight. Eventually everyone left and the Kirkbrides went back to Christmas. Phil went to Scott's to get an extension cord so he and I could have light to load most of the garbage into his truck and sift through Jenn's metled containers to see if anything was ruined. The garage is horrible, I dont even want to think about the mess! Everything is covered with wet yuck and black soot... It is going to be a huge project to clean all of the soot off our stuff and the walls to repaint!

Phil had to give two reports, one to a detective that had to investigate the cause and wether or not it was arson. Phil was pretty sure it was his clove that he put out in a pop can that was sitting in the recycling. I dont get it, but we can't think of anything else.

Phil spent the whole evening sad and worried that he ruined Christmas...poor guy. We took showers and had to use a scrub brush to get the black off our hands. We were blowing out black snot, Phil was spitting out black gunk from his throat.

Im glad Pete and Jenn came home in good spirits, we were actually able to make a few jokes about it. Emma was relieved that her stuff and Jericho were ok.

Thank God we still have a house. The detective estimated that if the fire had gone on 5 more mins it would have taken the garage and got into the house.

Now I am super paranoid about everything that could be a fire hazard. Im so glad we pay $6 a month for renters insurance. I dont know if we will use it but Im glad I have it. Im getting a fire-box to keep all our important stuff safe, you should too.

so after church today our house caught on fire, everything is fine, no structural damage just smoke damage and burnt stuff. It turns out there was a smoke detector in our room but it didnt have a battery. So, double check your smoke alarm and dont smoke!

I'd like to give a special thanks to Larry the neighbor who saw the smoke shortly after us and ran over. He stuck around long enough to explained to me what the scanner thing was that the fireman was using to measure heat. Before he left he offered us "food and shelter". What a great neighbor.

ITS 2am AND I CANT SLEEP!

It's a bumpin Friday night, just me and the computer! So Heather introduced me to shutterfly.com and I am stinkin addicted. I figured since my one-year anniversary is coming up I should finally do something with my wedding photos!!!! I have spent hours... and hours... uploading pictures, why does it take so long?? Im making a photo book for Phillip, yes it is also for myself, but for your one-year you are "suppose" to give "paper" so other than our used-plane-tickets Im puting HOURS into a book. Dont tell him! Maybe you can come over and look at it. So tired right now I think Im drunk!

SOUP SEASON

When it is cold outsite all I want to do is eat soup!

My Favorites:

Tom Yum from TarnTip

Phil's Peanut Butter Chicken Soup

Pablano Chicken Chowder from Coffee Culture (Mondays)

Peter's Ciapino with big river bread and yutter

Grandma Dorthy's Potato Cheese Soup

home-made Chicken Noodle

"Ok Jenn so why dont you just go-ahead and make one of these and bring them to my "hole"."

Weekend Re-Cap

We had a fun and busy weekend!! We spent the whole weekend with our loves Brandon and Kayla. We have spent the last 4 weekends with them! Friday Ruby and I hung out with Sara Kellog and Angie Brink while the boys went out with Dave. Angie was in town for Christmas with her Portland family. Saturday Ruby and I shopped @ Washington Square then Phil and I went to the rehearsal dinner at Who Song and Larry's, it was yummy. Then we went our for Boo's b-day and it was sooooooooo much fun! Jake, Beka, Uncle Doug, Ben, Tiff, Phil, Lewis and Rubes and I danced the night away and had a blast! Sunday we went back to Washington Square to grab some clothes for the wedding and then we watched our big friend Dave marry his bride. I took monday off because of the late wedding in Portland and we took advantage of the free time to finish or start our Christmas shopping. We went to Bridgeport and ate at Sinju! I dare you to go there and have the best sushi ever in nice atmosphere. http://www.sinjurestaurant.com/ Brandon & Kayla recommended the baked crab roll. So delicious!!

RUBY'S TURNING 23!!

ISNT IT GREAT THAT RUBY IS HOME FOR HER BIRTHDAY! WE ARE SPENDING THE WEEKEND IN PORTLAND BECAUSE OF ALL THE WEDDING EVENTS SO SATURADAY WE ARE GOING DANCING AT BETTY FORD AT 11!! YOU SHOULD COME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.bettiefordlounge.com/

Lewis and Ruby are coming home!!!

OUR FRIENDS ARE COMING! Ruby and Lewis are coming home a week early for Dave's wedding. Lewis will be working at the store and Ruby and I will set-up-shop everyday and work at my house together on the computer. It will be so great to have them back for a week and pretend they never left. Tonight we are picking them up from the airport and spending the night at Uncle Randy's!

The End Of Our Vacation

Wednesday, 5th day.. after our dinner at the Crazy Lobster I woke up with crazy food posioning at 4am. We had to catch our boat at 6am to go Marlin fishing... i was in trouble. I figured it would better to be miserable with people than be miserable in our room and I couldnt stand the thought of wasting our nonrefundable trip. It turned out only 5 out of 10 people made the trip. (some of our las vegas friends were too tired and Jeff and whit were also sick)


this is phil battling his first marlin! he was sweating through his shirt..

I caught the biggest marlin on the trip. I spent most of the time sleeping and throwing up but when it came my turn to reel in a fish I was ready!
Raul, our deck hand. He was busy, grumpy and big. That night we went home and I got a horrible fever and chills, i thought I was dying. I probably wont eat lobster for the rest of my life.
Thursday: we spent lots of time lounging by the pool or ocean. Because of the sickness we decided to get couples massages. Very nice and romantic.
That night we went for a nice normal walk, got icecream and called it an early night. I got to eat top ramen and watch movies.Friday we spent some time at the other resort on our property. There was a boat/bar in the middle of the pool, it was fun.This was our fancy night out. We ate at a beautiful resturant on the beach. Phil ordered a spanish coffee and it might have been one of the coolest things I have seen. Lots of fire and potential death.


Friday before the rain came!! Our last day before it was time to pack up and come home.

I guess we are in love or something..

Our resort had a little bit of private beach that was separated from the public beach by a rope. Venders were always lined up on the other side of the rope, it was usually funny. Phil and Jeff loved to offer them ridiculous prices on things.I think I reached the max on uploading pictures... it wont let me do anymore. So it started raining after I took this last picture but it was our last day and I didnt want to just sit in our room so we took a taxi to the nearest mall and hung out in an arcade... it was fun and funny. They had some weird games and a really weird version of Dance Dance Revolution that made you step in the 4 corners instead of side to side and front and back. It was awkward and hard. That night phil and I rented more movies and all I wanted to eat was mac & cheese. I missed all the nasty american food. Saturday the sun came back out and we were sad to go. I layed out one last time and said goodbye to beautiful Cabo. We had a very important Beaver game to get home to.