Merry Christmas! (ok, a little bit late but better than never)

We had the greatest, most mellow Christmas, and we hope you all did as well! This was our "off year" for traveling over Christmas and it was so great to be able to spend some quality time at home. We didn't decorate for Christmas last year since we were in Mexico and dealing with Home Remodel Hell, so it was extra special to decorate this year. One of our favorite "decorations", a leg lamp nightlight. It's a major award!

Rob's Mom Ruth came out for a few days and it was wonderful to have family around. We got to talk to lots of family on the day of and we also were lucky to be able to meet up with my Uncle Olie and Cousin Valerie for a morning-after breakfast as they were blowing through San Diego on their way to Mexico (no photographic documentation of said event, sadly, just know that no pancakes were harmed in the process).

But back to the day of. I know you're probably getting sick of pictures of us in our jammies and I PROMISE, we have actually changed out of them...occasionally...but it just so happens to be our tradition that Rob and I wear our jammies all day long on Christmas.

Opening gifts and stockings:

See who else we conned into donning jammies too? We bought Ruth some Christmas pajamas to be able to participate in PJ DAY...she seemed into it!

Of course, there was dog torture (when do we really need a special occasion for that?)- he ran right for his Grandogma to save him from the insanity.

That night was fondue while listening to Christmas music. Next to a roaring fire, with a little white fluffy dog under the table hoping for scraps....sigh, it just doesn't get better than this.

Look at Rob multi-tasking!Wearing our paper crowns from our holiday crackers:

Hot chocolate galore:

The rest of Ruth's visit was so nice - went for a drive through "Christmas Card lane" in Rancho Penasquitos, a nearby neighborhood infamous for their Christmas decorations. We also went to see the new Brad Pitt movie - Benjamin Button and HIGHLY suggest everyone go out and see it, it's beautiful. Also rented a really sweet documentary "Young at Heart" that is so endearing and heartwarming, also getting the "Beth Warrenty".

Good times, all around! Wishing everybody a very happy New Year - can you even freakin' believe it's 2009 already?

Holiday tackiness

Our friends Karen and Alex hosted an awesome holiday party, the theme of which was "Tacky Holiday Outfits"...fantastic idea, I'd say. We had a blast, I was most impressed that everybody turned up in their tackiest inspired outfits. We, of course, used this as a perfect excuse to bust out our footie PJ's and can I just say - never in the history of the Warrens attending a party have we been so freakin' comfy all night long! And not since college have we woken up the next morning...in the same outfits that we wore to a party!

Leigh and Kevin in a Naughty Santa/ naughty elf kind of theme...

Kraigher and Gray had a similar idea - I especially love Kraigher's "Guitar Hero" inspired shirt and Gray's naughty lingerie...the black shirt underneath made everyone use their imaginations a little bit more...

Aaron wore a fantastically awful sweater he actually bought on EBay - can you imagine all the pissed off Grandmas that he out-bid? His outfit was complete with the cheesy holiday mug he held all night. Mo also worked the Naughty Elf angle...quite well in her sassy boots, I'd say.

Alex's shirt says it all...

The Sparks won the best costume awards that night - most impressive!

Lisa channeled her inner "Elmo" with her furry sweater and Jason actually made his own shirt - most impressive, and extra credit points! Bennett could never be tacky - he just looked adorable in a holiday outfit.

The guys working it...

The evening started out pretty tame, I love how everyone is posing very politely originally and then, big shocker, the night quickly disintegrated into a fabulous drunken debacle.


More shenanigans...

The party ended with the guys thinking they were major WWF stars, needless to say I was laughing too hard for any of THOSE pictures to turn out, plus let's try to keep some smidgen of decorum in case one of us ever wants to run for public office.


The End - Greatest Party theme idea ever!

Jammies!!!

As kids, Rob and I used to LOVE our footie pajamas. I'm sure every kid of our generation has as fond memories of them as we do - being all warm and cozy and able to slide dangerously across the kitchen floor with those crazy white plastic bottoms of the footy part. As I'm sure you remember, I've even posted a great picture of my brother and I laughing on the couch in our footie pj's - they were the best.

Anyhoo, we were reminiscing to our friends about how great those pj's were and said how amazing it would be if they made them for adults. Well, VOILA! Greatest Christmas gift ever! Our friends bought us adult footie pj's for Christmas!!! They're like fuzzy, warm, Prozac. They make us so happy and we've been living in them for the last 2 days solid (and even wore them to a holiday party, but that photo documentation will come later). I think there would be no wars if everyone owned footie pj's (because it's common knowledge that wars only start when people are grumpy as a result of tight, restrictive clothing).

I already had some great, fuzzy pj bottoms that made me insanely happy :(Please to enjoy Evidence IA:)
but who knew there was something better out there? These footie pj's are the bomb. I highly recommend EVERYONE go out and buy a pair. Pronto. I give them the "Beth Warrenty". I'm not saying they're attractive, particularly in the saggy butt region, but they're the most cozy, comfy things you'll ever wear.


We even matched our little buddy Bennett in HIS footie pj's - pajama party at the Warrenski's! It's too bad they don't make them for dogs - clearly Galileo wanted in on that action.

Next up: the Warrens further perpetuate their craziness by wearing pj's to a holiday party!

Elephantitis Whitis

I freakin' love Christmas parties. We have a fun tradition every year with two separate groups of friends where we'll exchange tacky and/or naughty white elephant gifts. Our first party was last weekend and I can only show a handful of the "safer" pictures here, but just know it was a fantastically good time.


George won what every guys needs, a "Bacon wallet":

Kev got a dual-purpose Candy Cane:


Aaron got a mini Guitar Hero (quite appropriate, as if all of us didn't play enough Guitar Hero as it was)


Karen got an amazingly creative and touching poster of all our group's shenanigans that could very well have been the Greatest Gift Ever Known To Mankind (hmmmm, I wonder who was the creative mastermind that made that? Oh wait, it was me).


And everybody else got...other fun stuff. Good times!

VOW #1 Little Santa's Helper Edition

I didn't really have a good Picture O' the Week in mind this week, so I figured I'd bust out a Video O' The Week instead. I know, I'm so inventive. Be amazed.

Last weekend I was in shock and awe at our holiday productivity - we had such a great weekend driving around listening to Christmas music and getting a ton of shopping and errands done. I LOVE weekends like that - our house is now all decorated, the gifts are all purchased and with some abnormally rainy days here in San Diego, it actually feels like Christmas! I love this time of year.

While we were out Christmas shopping, we came across this adorable little Santa's hat and beard at Target and of course we had to buy it for Galileo. He was less than thrilled and tried to get it off as soon as I let go. I love this video - to me, the funniest part is he mid-way through trying to get the hat off, realizes he has his half-gnawed on rawhide bone nearby which distracts him from his misery temporarily.

Please to enjoy:

Bright Angel Trail

The third day at the Grand Canyon we hiked down into the canyon itself on the Bright Angel Trail. It was gorgeous and so cool to get further and further down into the canyon. It was a really steep trail and no joke of a hike. Here is a shot from far away that shows the beginning of the trail and the cool hole in the rock that was carved. You'll see me hiking through there in a second.

Of course, Grover had to come with. People seemed to get such a kick out of him although one dude did say "I like your Elmo" - clearly suffering from some sort of Muppet Confusion Disorder.

It is so gorgeous down there, it's so amazing to climb down next to all the striations and see each layer of earth and rock. The temperature is supposed to get warmer as you go down but since we were in the shade the whole time, we didn't really experience that bonus, damnit.

There were two of these stone arches - kinda cool!

Just like the rim trail, there were some sketchy-heights moments and of course there are danger signs posted everywhere just to freak you out. I can't tell you the number of signs warning of risk of death from dehydration, starvation, falls, over-exertion, etc, etc, etc. So, make sure to enjoy yourself, yikes!

Resting about halfway down:

This tree was growing sideways and you hiked right underneath it, pretty amazing!

The funny thing is, heading down, you get kinda cocky thinking "this is a piece of cake"...DUDE! Heading back up is no joke - the thing is SUPER steep and you are definitely sucking wind on the way back up. They tell you to estimate it will take the triple the amount of time to get back up as it did to get down. It was about double for us, but still the workout of the century. Makes it pretty funny that we saw a family with a STROLLER and 3 toddlers heading down when we were climbing back up, I'm sure that wasn't a fun hike back for them.

More pics of the adventure:

Next up: the Warrens get back in the car for a huge ol' car ride! Again!

Rim Trail!

The next morning we woke up (BARELY - see previous post about freezing our faces off in the tent, yikes!) to a gorgeous morning with elk munching on leaves in our campsite. We hiked all day long on the Rim Trail which is exactly what it sounds like - a gorgeous, winding trail that hugs the South Rim of the Canyon. It was BEAUTIFUL! It was really quiet and we only crossed paths with a few people, mostly at the drive-up scenic outcroppings (because, really, we were the only crazy ones who were braving the cold weather, it seems. Most normal people were driving from one scenic stop to the other).

I'm not the biggest fan of heights, so pretty much the whole day I had tinglies in my legs (aka "the jimmy legs") and kept saying to Rob "CAREFUL!" because he, unlike me, had no fear of going straight to the edge to look down. There are no railings along the path and one false step and bye bye! I'm sure I sounded like a worried mother, but there it is. We're both still alive.

I love the total disregard for the Danger sign.

Look, Ma, no hands!

Grover didn't seem to be afraid of heights...

One of the coolest parts of the day - we asked some random guy on a Harley to take our picture at one of the scenic spots and we chatted with him and his 2 friends. Ends up, one of the guys was Alex Van Halen! He was super nice and funny - we had a great time talking to them. And, I fully admit I usually suffer from "Famous People Syndrome" when I continually think people are famous and they aren't (see prior post on "Mark Wahlberg", but this really was him - Rob is my fact-checker. :)

There are no words...

Hiking..

Hanging on for dear life:

Nothing tastes better than a PB&J with the whole canyon in front of you.

One of the funniest parts of the day was our poor planning. We hiked 8 miles one way to the Hermit's Lodge and had planned to take the shuttle back. We got there around 3 in the afternoon only to find....the shuttle doesn't freakin' run during the winter months! OMG! It was impossible to make it back with the dwindling amount of daylight and there was NO WAY I'd hike that close to the edge in dark. Makes my palms sweat just thinking about it. So, we did the thing you're never supposed to do and hitchhiked with some college kids in their car back to ours. In our defense, they were French kids so I somehow knew we'd be safe. Logic? Dunno.

And some more pics to enjoy: