Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

Well since I still can't find my camera memory stick, I went ahead and did the drawing and y'all will just have to trust me that I was fair and honest, lol! So the winner is.............

Brenda S. Okie in Colorado!!!!

Congratulations Girlfriend!!! I will be packaging up your prizes all cute like and will mail them out, probably not til after Thanksgiving though as I'm crazy busy this week! It will be a great way to kick off your Christmas!!

My Blog Giveaway...

winner will be announced Monday! I wanted to take pics of the actual drawing and i'm still looking for my memory stick that has disappeared! So I will add the names of all who had posted by midnight of the 21st. Odds are pretty good!

I have been busy busy getting ready for Thanksgiving!! I took a lil break from the Christmas decorating so I could focus on the Thanksgiving List! I've gone over my menu 100 times, I know I'll forget something! I'm also on the countdown for picking up my mama at the airport Wed. We can not wait!

So guess what? Two weeks ago I get a call from my friend Monica who says 'you want to go to Disneyland this week?' We've been talking for almost a year now about going, she was gonna take her middle daughter and I was gonna take my youngest who had never been, but time and money had kept us from going. Well her dad offered to drive us in his new RV and the only time either one of them could go was like that week! We are talking about leaving the day after the Marine Corps Ball that Matt and I were to attend. So being the crazy spontaneous person I am, I said 'lets do it!'
So the morning after the ball, Matt and I got up super early and left Reno to zip back home so I could be packed and ready to leave by 1pm that day.

Let me tell ya something y'all. Disneyland is amazing as it is, but to go at Christmas time!!! Are you kidding me??? It was Christmas magic! Soooooooo fantastical! The windows on Main Street alone was worth it!




I immediately thought about ways I could Disney-afy my windows at home. So I've kinda been working on that this week. And to see Disneyland through Bailey's eyes was so cool! We were there for the first Christmas Parade of the season and then it snowed right on Main Street. That was my favorite part, walking with Bailey hand in hand down Main Street and watching young and old couples hugging and kissing in the snow! Adorable! I could go on and on about Disneyland but I won't cuz I have to tell you about so many other things!

The Marine Corps Ball was awesome and it was an honor to be the civilian guests of our friends Sgt. Joe Neal and his wife Jenna. We had a great time, so elegant and formal.

Friday we had a huge windstorm ALL day, like 80mph winds! Our lil ranch took a beating! My chicken coop got blown off its foundation and we lost the side of it, my patio table with the glass top blew away and hit Loagan's truck where it busted to smitherenes, glass everywhere. Fence posts broke, yard art blew away and there is dirt everywhere! I am so glad I didn't have my wreaths up yet on my windows! A big snowstorm was suppose to follow it, but we got nothing here at the ranch. The Sierra's look pretty though, they are covered in snow.

Pictures are downloading as I speak of Disneyland and I promise to get the drawing done first thing!!

Ok, more Disneyland pics, here's me on the stage of the dinner theatre in Frontierland! Loved the decs and graphics



Me and Bailey in front of the Haunted Mansion which was all decorated with "The Nightmare Before Christmas"


Entering Disneyland

My Blog Birthday is Coming Up!

On the 21st my blog will be 1 year old!! Woot Woot! So of course that means presents right??? So I will be having a Birthday Giveaway on the 21st. For every post you make and every new follower you bring here, I will add your name to the drawing hat. Also if you post this giveaway on your blog I will add another ticket to the hat with your name on it.(just let me know you did it!) So what do you need to post??? Well I would love to know what your favorite Thanksgiving Moment is....that one thing you look forward to the most at Thanksgiving and WHY. My favorite moment is Thanksgiving Eve, the last minute stop at the store seeing everyone bustling around, then going home and getting the early prep done while watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles. I love that! A week from tomorrow I will be in Heaven because guess what? Not only will I be making that last minute list stop, I get to go pick up my mom from the airport!! That's right, she's coming for a Thanksgiving visit! Thanks to my girls who all pitched in and bought her ticket! Aren't they amazing? We are gonna go to the airport early and people watch, I love to see families reuniting for the holidays.

So what's the prize?? Well I decided I wanted to share with y'all my favorite Christmas things that I couldn't live without for the season. For starters, I will be giving away my long time favorite Christmas Cd, "Alabama Christmas" I've been listening to this album since it first came out in the 80's! The song 'Christmas Memories' gets me every time.



Next up, one of my favorite books, 'Christmas at Our House' by Donna Green.


http://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Our-House-Donna-Green/dp/1883746132

Beautiful illustrations and wonderful stories, plus its a family journal. You will love it!! Also Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without my favorite candy, Brach's Christmas Nougats.



These were always in my stocking and seeing these gorgeous Christmas jewels sends me home to my childhood Christmas mornings! And last but not least my all time favorite Christmas movie 'Prancer'.



So get busy posting, telling your friends and mentioning this contest on your blogs.

"Haul out the Holly....

put up the tree before my spirits fall again now, cuz I need a little Christmas right this very minute!"

Gotta love a song that speaks to your soul, am I right? LOL Well I have been busy decorating for Christmas since my boots hit the floor Sunday morning. Halloween was a good time yes indeed, but now its all about the real holidays.I have 2 trees completely done, and about 5 more to go. I will post pics when its all done. I'm pacing myself because I don't want to hit burnout, when burnout hits you just start throwing decorations together and its not as fun and beautiful anymore. I'm trying to make my home a nice cozy spot to be when family and friends come over, but most importantly, I want it to be beautiful for my girls. I was very blessed to have a mother that LOVED Christmas and she passed that on to me. I don't think there was ever a day in my childhood that I didn't have Christmas on my mind! The music, the lights, the presents, the stockings! Oh yeah, the stockings. I lived for my stocking on Christmas morning...



I want my girls to look back at their childhood and say the same thing I say, 'my mom knew how to celebrate the holidays, she made Christmas amazing!'



So that's my goal. I should be done in about a week or two. Then I can kick back and enjoy every holiday event, party, gathering,cookie exchange and church activity that I choose to go too and not have to worry about missing out cuz i'm still decorating the house. I love that feeling of accomplishment when my house is all aglow. It's a lot of work but I LOVE every minute of it. Yep when Christmas rolls around I take charge...



I have a lot of people ask me what my husband thinks of all this Christmas decorating so early in November, I tell them what he tells everybody, 'it's her thing, she enjoys it and besides Christmas is NOT negotiable with her' Gotta love that man. Matt knew what he was getting into early on, he had his chance to run, but instead he proposed to me on a chilly Christmas Eve back in 1988. So he kind of set the tone for Christmas magic. Then in 1989, on Christmas Eve morning when we had nothing better to do except wait around for Christmas Eve dinner at my moms house, Matt took me to see one of my favorite all time Christmas movies that had just been released in theaters, Prancer.



Yep he sat through it, poor guy. I've only watched it 2,000 times since then.

Well in the midst of all this decorating, Matt and I have been invited as civilian guests at a Military Ball next Tuesday. Our good friend Joe is a marine,so he and his wife asked us to accompany them. We are really looking forward to it. I got my dress today, nothing like the last minute huh? I will definitely be taking pics don't worry!

Also would y'all please keep your fingers crossed that my mama can fly up for Thanksgiving? I miss her and she hasn't been here for a visit in a couple years.

Anyhow, I have a kitchen tree calling my name to decorate. I'll be back soon. And thank y'all so much for your nice comments you leave. :)

It's the MOST wonderful time of the year....

I'm just loving life right now. As you know for me September kicks off the holiday season and since October is almost over (say it isn't so!)we are in the thick of it! My house is looking all sorts of cozy, like mountain cabin cozy. I love my stone fireplace that goes from floor to ceiling and I love my barn rafters that are dripping with white icicle lights. I really don't want to leave my house once a nice crackling fire has been lit. BUT, of course I have to go outside and see the glorious gift of fall that God has so wonderfully given me.
I love where we live, I think its the most beautiful place i've ever been, and that's after going to New England twice in the fall! And believe me New England is gorgeous! I want a house there, I really do. But what I love about out west is the great open skies and the gorgeous mountains. From my living room window I can see the pine covered Sierra's, now topped with a little snow, and if you look closely you can see patches of flaming yellow and red trees in the crevices and valleys.

A 25 minute drive takes you through the Carson Valley dotted with old farmhouses on acres of pasture land, surrounded by cottonwoods, aspens, and maples.I want to live in every farmhouse I see, sit on every front porch in an old creaky rocker and read Little House on the Prairie books. I want to bake pies in those houses and leave them to cool on the window ledge, because every farmhouse I see has window ledges. I want to decorate each front porch with jack o' lanterns and cornstalks and wait for trick or treaters to stop by on a chilly, blustery Halloween. I want to see my Cowboy Matt in his flannel shirt outside my back window, chopping wood for a chilly Thanksgiving day when all the family is due to arrive. Basically I want to be a Walton. Olivia Walton,there I admit it.

Anyhow at the end of this 25 minute drive, we arrive in Hope Valley, Ca.





The view takes your breath away, quaking aspens, little rivers and creeks find thier way and mountains galore. It looks like a smaller version of Yosemite Park.



Along your drive you see lil general stores with black pot-bellied woodstoves keeping it warm while you buy overpriced necessities like batteries and apple turnovers and sausage scones drizzled with maple butter, I hate it when I forget those at home. Darn.



My two dear friends, DJ and Tammy and I,made this trip last week. Our final destination was Tammy's cabin in Lake Tahoe. What once was a small, quaint home that sadly burned down in the Angora fires, rose from the ashes to an amazing 2 story log home with every amenity you could imagine.



I am not worthy! LOL. We worked on crafts, ate chinese food and watched a chick flick before heading home. We vowed to do a retreat next month and i'm holding everyone to it!

On the way home we stopped several times to take pics, I sat there for a moment soaking it in. The colors, the smell~that woodsy smell of pine, damp leaves and earth, and the sight of my two friends snapping pictures of every gorgeous fall moment, smiling away.I was just here 2 weeks ago with another friend Monica, and it was a completely different hue of fall,but just as gorgeous. It is bitter-sweet. Sweet that it was so gorgeous and I was with my friends, bitter in that this season is so short. The colors we saw that day will be gone next week. Why can't the fall colors last as long as the lingering season of summer???

My on-line friends and I do a fall scrapbook and in that scrapbook we like to log a lot of 'firsts' of the season. First fall leaves that we've noticed, first fire in the fireplace, first sign of the baking aisle at the grocery store, you know, the important stuff.



I'm finding that as October passes, those 'firsts' have come and gone which is causing an ever growing void for me. A void that can only be filled by...
CHRISTMAS!!! WOOT WOOT, oh yeah people, the Christmas train is a rollin' into town! Now don't get me wrong, I love Thanksgiving, every single delicious day that leads to it, but in those delicious days,I begin decorating for Christmas. A continuous, glorious rythm of Christmas magic.
But right now its fall and here is a few of my favorite fall moments in this lil picture slide...

http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v625/elizabethfminden/?action=view¤t=51aae356.pbw

As promised....

Pictures!! First I made a slideshow of all the Red Shirt events we've been doing the last few months. Here ya go.....
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v625/elizabethfminden/?action=view¤t=961d9288.pbw

And then there's the Candy Dance...
This is (L to R)My friend Dawn from Idaho, Alicia from California and me. We are standing in front of our favorite vendor booth. We are thrilled ofcourse with our purchases!







Then we went thrift shopping and loaded the car down even more with stuff to refurbish. That's a screen door in there that I bought and painted black. Will have to take a pic in the daylight.



And then there's the fun-aliscious fall-tastic stuff that i've been having fun doing..
Candy Apples anyone??


Can I just say it takes forever to reach 302 degrees, patience is so not my thing..




Well back to making more Autumn memories! This weekend we are helping my friend Monica at her costume shop which is always a fun fall thing to do!!

Enjoy the moment everyone!!

Fall finally blew in...

Well September is almost over and we are finally getting fall, it has been in the 90's for weeks which is really rare for us up her in Northern Nevada. That is part of the reason why I haven't been blogging much. There are so many fall things I wanted to post about but its hard to do when it feels like July. I've been totally ripped off on the fall weather let me tell ya! It may snow tonight above 6,000 feet, so we go from summer to winter in a blink of an eye, weird ain't it?

So it looks like I need to get y'all caught up on some things. The 9/11 Red Shirt Friday walk was a huge success, almost 200 people. We had traffic backed up for a bit as we all crossed the street, but no one seemed to mind, it was 9/11 after all and I think everyone felt a little bit honored to witness the walk. Joe Neal gave a great concert afterwords and performed his song '21 Guns'.

Another reason for my absence is that we have all been sick and it lingered a loooong time. I think I slept for 3 days straight. (ok, so that part really wasn't THAT bad, lol)

Last weekend was the Candy Dance in Genoa,Nevada. It's a pretty big deal around these parts. The actual dance is a fundraiser they have for the local town, but the craft fair that goes along with it is amazing. I had friends come from California and Idaho to shop with me. We had a lot of fun and loaded our car down with all kinds of stuff. I do have pics that i'm waiting on of the Candy Dance, the Red Shirt Walk and such but I'm waiting on downloading them, so I wanted to get this post asap so y'all don't think I dropped off the face of the earth!

Have a great day everyone, i'll be working on those pics.