Brian's 30th Birthday Party

Brian serenading Parker. This was the first of many songs that he would perform for the day.

More Karaoke singers...

Barb...Weird that he's singing...he's so shy (hint, sarcasm)

Diabetic: also shy

Seth and Gabe

Me and Cynthia sang N'Sync...of course!

Here's some people laughing at the karaoke'ers

Brian got great gifts too!

Dogs

The dogs added to the liveliness (read: chaos)

Parker and Austin sang to each other...I'm not kidding, they really did!

Austin's favorite seat was on Brian's lap!

Parker and Austin "share" a toy

We collected the limbs of the hippo as they were "amputated"

This weekend we had our annual Thanksgiving dinner with friends at Robin, Susan, and Lisa's house. There were about 30 people there and we each pitched in with the cooking. I brought stuffing, it's my Mom's famous recipe but I've never made it without stuffing it in the bird it'self. It was an adventure but it turned out beautifully and people seemed to really like it. All the usual suspects were there, with one exception. Robin went out on a date last week with a guy she met on eharmony and mentioned that she was having this dinner at her house. He asked if he could invite himself and he did, and he showed up...and brought pie (banana cream...my favorite!) His name is Minh Ho and he seems like a nice enough guy but after we all spent the day talking with him Robin discovered that he was Church of Christ (the cult kind, not the normal kind) so it's not going to work out between them afterall, but we all had a great time teasing Robin about bringing a guy that she had only met once to Thanksgiving dinner :-)

Sunday we went to church and then Pei Wei for lunch (my 1st time there...delicious) and then after running errands took Parker on a walk all the way around Balboa Island. He did OK considering the distractions and it was a fun way to sneak in some exercise. We saw some people already decorating their houses for Christmas and it was so inspiring. I can't wait to make Christmas at my house!

Since I haven't written in a while I thought I would include a picture of a fun event that my teams did with me. I took them on our annual "Fall Retreat" and we went "Big Hair Bowling."

My teams went all out with their costumes and fun was had by all. I played on both teams to even things out and I played spectacularly poorly on both teams equally so it worked out. I'm proud of them, they're quality people that I love hanging out with. Good job teams :-)

That's all for now but as holiday events ramp up I'm sure I'll have lots more news and pictures to share :-)

My jealous parents!

OK, so my Dad got really jealous because I posted a picture of my brother and not of him so I thought I'd add this to get him off my back. This is a picture of my parents taken at my wedding. Aren't they cute? My Dad is part of this amazing organization called the Miracle League and he sent me this link that I will post in order to make him oh so proud of me :-)
http://www.visaliamiracleleague.com/video.html Enjoy!

Check out my hot brother!

Brian Foster, not to be confused with Brian Michael, and yes ladies, he is single. He sings too, and plays the piano, and the guitar, and the drums, and the trumpet and...

He was the first one to leave a comment on my blog so I thought I'd give him some props.

Props little bro, props.

Parker
Parker is our 10 month old Beagle that is currently our greatest source of entertainment, frustration, and joy. Although he is so precious (I mean...look at him!) he is DEFINITELY a puppy! On Friday while I was in the shower he stole a pen from who knows where and chewed it to bits leaving a lovely ink spill on our no longer lovely, once cream colored carpet. We plan to have our carpets cleaned, but at this point, I think saving up for new carpet is a much smarter option! Since there is no way to cover the ink spill, I am considering pulling out the permanent markers and adding to it, making a mural of sorts directly on our carpet in order for it to look intentional and somehow more intentionally obnoxious...sort of a "take that Martha Stewart" sort of statement. We'll see!

We spend most of our evenings at the Bark Park so that Parker can run his little heart out and so that we can hang out with other dogs who are much more poorly behaved than Parker so as to feel better about ourselves. He's an overachieving sock-aholic (although his addiction is not exclusive to socks, but to laundry in general) who is about to reach the 1 million mark for number of squirts from the spray bottle when he is naughty. Why is it that the naughty things are so much easier to remember right now than the sweet ones? He is really so much fun and brings a lot of fulfillment to our lives. Even my Mom likes him, don't you Mom (even though she won't let him call her Grandma!) He always makes you feel like a million bucks about yourself because he is SO happy to see you and can't wait to hang out with you. There is nothing like a dog to make you understand unconditional love! I will close this entry with one last, more recent picture to show him off. This is the little devil after wearing himself out chewing the stuffing (literally) out of one of his toys. Lucky for him, it also doubles as a pillow.