And they have wild cherry pepsi!

And now we're at Stonefire!

This is possibly our FAVORITE place to eat! We are celebrating! More
on that in a bit...

We were at Ikea this morning!

You can spin the carts...

We're recovering from this one this morning

Cory and I went on a date let night!

You've got to love work christmas presents

Good Providence

You've got to be thankful when you are originally sitting two rows in
front of your wife in the middle seat and then the lady at check in
hooks you up with the exit row! On our way back to CA!

Here's proof

Our last night in San Antonio!

The Riverwalk

The riverwalk at night. It's a festival of lights. We head back to
CA tomorrow. Vacations go so fast!

We're in Texas

What is a trip to San Antonio without a jaunt to downtown and what
else- the Alamo! Remember the Alamo!

This is what I am talking about

Its good to be with family at Christmas time. Let the feasting begin!

It's a beautiful day outside

But I am not outside...I may ask my boss if I can work from the roof
for the rest of the day...

Cory snagged one

C stole this one from Auntie I

But then I stole this one

That's what I call working it, working it, working it...

But look what I got next!

Oh wait it just got stolen again!

Look what I got

Wait, mine just stolen

Look what Ben got

Ben got an owl ornament. Kind offitting for a lad that has been
mistaken for Harry Potter...

At an ornament exchange

Here is my aunt explaining the rules...

We'll see what we can bring home.

Happy Anniversary!

Tomorrow is C and I's first anniversary and we are celebrating at the
happiest place on earth, well,maybe. Blogging from my phone is sooooo
much fun!

The greatest thing in the world

This one is for Ben, wish you were here.

Getting ready

I'm at work.

This one's a blog about family. I dig my family and have been richly blessed by them and thank the Lord so much for them and how much they have shown me of His glory.

Lot's of things are happening in the life of the family. Bob and Christa are trying to keep up with the increasingly mobile Tyler (and they are doing a great job). Ben is stepping in to an RA position in the dorm of Hotchkiss at TMC (which abbreviated is Masters, not the Masters, as some would wrongly assume. This is not subjective, it is objective reality.)

My mom and dad recently moved to San Antonio and are very close to buying a house in the suburb of Shertz. They will have to beware of 20 mph speed limits and a town that is almost entirely funded by traffic violations.

Cory and I are doing well. There are a lot of things possibly in the works for us in the near future so stay posted to our blog! Life is exciting!

Oh, and in other news in the post before, my wife won the Pumpkin Carving contest on our blog by the slim margin of one vote. Thanks to all who participated and if you can't get enough of the carving action, there is another place for you to vote for even more pumpkins here.

Goodnight all! Enjoy the extra hour!

Oh, and here are some pics from our recent sibling trip to D-land of Bobby's familia. There is a sweet one of Ben and Cory and I to come.

B & C

El Pumpkin Carving Contest!!!

Tonight was the annual college group pumpkin carving contest, one of the things that I look forward to every year. The smoke from the fires was not very thick tonight so it was fun to enjoy an evening in the Smith's backyard making some serious art.

But hey, it's not just about art, it's a contest! We need YOUR help to delcare a winner!!!

Below we have pictures of all the entries and we would like for you to post a comment and vote for which one you think is best! You don't have to be in the college group to vote, so please, show love to the one you love the most! We will hope to announce the winners soon, so I am thinking we need to have all votes in by Saturday by next Wednesday night (ummm Reformation Day). Hopefully we will get at least 95 votes...

We were really bummed that two of the fiercest competitors, Ken and Beth Flower weren't able to join us. We heard that they had to drive to Santa Clarita to visit their mom who was in the hospital. We are not sure of the details so please pray for them.

All of the entries minus those who had to go home earlier to study for midterms.

"M-I-C, K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E"

"The Elephant"

"The Mask"

"Northpoint"

"AHHHHH, SIDABANYA"

The look that inspired the pumpkin

"The Jay"

These two ladies with their submissions.

"The Picture within the Picture"

Angle 1

Angle 2

"Carving in Trees"

Please leave a comment and vote for your favorite!!!

Fight On

Yesterday, was a great day. It started being great on Thursday. On Thursday I received a call from John Kooker (the man of the house of the awesome family that I was blessed to live with between my junior and my senior year). "Kooker," as he is affectionately called by my dad, said that he had tickets to the USC Stanford game that he wanted to give to my wife Cory and I. We jumped at the chance and were super excited. Cory had never been to a college game before and I had never been to a game at SC.

After fighting some crazy downtown LA driving conditions we found a parking spot and made our way to the campus.

Cory and I didn't exaclty have a plethora of Cardinal and Gold in our wardrobe, so we tried to match as good as we could.

The Campus is QUITE the happening place before a game. We walked down University Avenue and felt like we were swimming in a sea of Cardinal and Gold. I was also struck at how the architecture at SC stuck out a little bit more than North Campus at TMC.

After hiking up some stairs, we finally got up to see the field. It is an amazing thing to enter the Coliseum and to behold the field in all of its glory. Some might say "this is the most beautiful sight these eyes have ever seen." I don't, Cory is pretty beautiful.

I was pretty stoked when we found our seats.

You gotta love the intensity of college athletics.
The SC marching band played the halftime show and did a good job of making fun of Stanford. However, I don't think they are laughing now.

This was on one of SC's touchdown drives.

Cory and I had a blast during the game. However, USC was upset by Stanford. Stanford scored with under a minute to play and the entire Coliseum was silent. John David Booty threw four interceptions, one of them ending any chance for a last minute comeback. The fans used his last name to the fullest.

Although we thoroughly enjoyed going, we were sad for the Kookers and for my folks. USC's national championship hopes may be shot for the rest of the year. We'll see if LSU can get upset.

Just a word to the Kookers.

THANK YOU!

I am thinking that the purpose of our blog would not be accurately stated as informing you on what is going on currently in our lives, but rather telling you about what we did a few weeks ago. Because when we are currently doing something, we don't have time to stop and blog about it (although we could if we had an IPhone).

A few weeks ago it was my birthday and Cory and I met up with Bobby, Christa, Tyler and Mom and Dad for another Disneyland adventure.

Who looks more excited, Tyler or Bobby?

We can now officially say where I get the goofiness from. I think Dad got it from the original Goofy.

This is a good picture of my parents. They are in San Antonio. We are really excited for them but miss them as well.

He's growing up to be quite a young lad! Noggin dude!!!

I was officially higher than Cory on the Merry Go Round. It was my birthday, after all!!!!Hopefully we will have quite a few more posts coming soon so check back often to see more blogs about things that happened a while ago! (and one very recent event...)

B & C

The News

Cory and I were thinking about the right time to share this news (sorry for those of you have constantly been checking your google reader for the news we promised in one of our last posts). We thought now would be a good time. No, we are not having a baby.

But yes, Cory is a licensed nurse!!!! We found out last weekend that she passed her state Nursing Board exam and we are so excited!!!

Please pray for us as Cory searches for a job that God would provide the right job at the right time!

Here is Cory excited to finally be done with school and to be a nurse. I think she really just wanted to be a nurse for the fashion....

Also, please scroll down to see another couple of entries in the flurry of posting we did tonight!!!!

And leave us some love! We greatly appreciate getting to hear some comments!!!