Merry Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas in Clovis, NM this year. Despite our little man getting "PINK EYE", and a few other sickies in the house, I think overall we all had a great time.

Ryan's family drove down from Utah, since we were stuck here (b/c Ryan was oncall during Christmas).

Before they got here, we frantically tried getting our house together as best we could.

Ryan's sister Sabrina and her husband Dallen came a few days early to help with our house.

Thankfully, with their help, we were able to get our house in order for the time being.

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house was the smell of Prime Roast cooking throughout.

Our tummies were happy after such a good meal, we all settled to the living room to take a brief chill.

There was dancing and laughter with cute little ones, and crafty stocking making - oh how we had fun!

We awoke the next day to see what Santa had brought and to much of our surprise it was alot.

For there were 14 total people in our home that day, Santa hadn't forgot any and all were happay :)





The day after Christmas, we went bowling.

It was Keedan's first time, and he seemed to really like it, at least when he got his way.

Testing out the quality of a bowling ball.

Ryan's good luck charm.

Awww success...I believe that was a Turkey!

Keedan rubbing off some charm onto Daran.

Marietta & Camilia...oh soo pretty!

So, the ball comes through here?

SAWEET!

Good Times Good Times!!!

Santa 2009

Yet another year of NOT liking Santa.....maybe next year.

Third time is suppose to be the charm ;)

Really, I like my job.

So, our house is coming along. It's amazing what you can learn from youtube. Every time I need to figure out how to do something, I spend 30 minutes on youtube and wahoo, I'm an expert. This has come in really handy with the renovation and more importantly it has helped me to convince Amanda that we need to buy one more tool. I'm sure I'm getting close to our limit though.

On another note, I had a busy week at work, but I really am loving it. I got a new case assigned to me! Wahoo! Doing court is great fun. It's so nice to be working and actually enjoying what I'm doing at work. The other attorneys that I work with are great and hopefully, things won't change too much (but they will, I'm in the military). After last week's rant, I should also mention that my office does have a very big window that I really love. Some other offices don't have windows, so my office does have some advantages. Just wanted to drop a quick note on the blog, so that I can get in the habit.

Malnar Renovation

I must say that whilst it is exciting to DIY on your house...it can be very very frustrating, exhausting, dusty & super messy.

We have been working on our house fairly diligently for a couple months now.

To begin the rennovation...or should I say...transformation, I started priming the woodwork in the living room.


We scraped the popcorn ceiling (used a water hose to soften it beforehand) and then....



began putting a knockdown texture up. Goes by so much faster with a spray texture gun as opposed to stomping by hand.


Ryan geared up for some hard labor.


Keedan excited that we are making progress.


New ceiling texture is complete, now we need some paint. +


This is our Hallway....the woodwork was stained brown but after some primer and lovely paint it is now dazzling. Of course, you will see the painted part later.

This is our entryway. The wall had wallpaper but I (Amanda)managed to get most of it off with some of my awesome muscles.


Here is part of the entryway wall (Ryan was able to make the opening straight in lieu of a curved opening) and part of the living room that is mostly complete...we now need to put down the flooring and do some touching up.

We hope you enjoyed our Sneek Peek. Stay tuned for more pictures of our Before and After coming very very soon ;)

Wing Command Christmas Dinner

This past Friday night Ryan and I attended his Wing Command Christmas Dinner.



The food was good, the entertainment was so so and the games were a BLAST!



Ryan played a balloon popping game.

How it works:
A balloon is blown up & placed with a string to a person's shoe. The object of the game is to pop others balloon's without using your hands.
Pretty simple, except for cheaters that only blow up there balloon
a tiny bit so that it is harder to pop.

I have to hand it to Ryan, he did amazingly well until the cheaters popped his balloon.



The other game we played was a marshmallow catching (with only the mouth) contest. Each table was given a bag of marshmallows.



This is Aaron..our marshmallow pitcher. He works with Ryan in the legal office. I do have to brag b/c Ryan and I did really good at this game.



This is me laughing...I'm not sure at what but I was definitely having a good time.

By the end of the night we won two door prizes. One was a gift card to Applebee's and the other one was a crystal clock that was just the right size to go on a desk.

We traded that with Aaron for a free tire rotation cuz Ryan WAS NOT going to put the cute crystal clock on his desk. Honestly, I don't think we would have put it on anything at home either.

Good Times, Good Times.

I shall blog!

So, I've decided it's about time that I start blogging on a regular basis (please disregard that I made the same decision about 1 year ago and did one post). I've come to this decision for a few reasons. First of all, I've been inspired by a couple other individuals, namely, the lonely maggot and legal quandary. Before I joined the Air Force, I read everything on their blogs about being an Air Force JAG. Second, it's just not fair that my wife have to post everything about our life and it's not fair that all my family and friends view never hear any of my inner thoughts. No fault to my lovely wife, as I am very happy that she's kept up the blog, because she's done a great job keeping everyone informed and kept a great sort of family journal.

We live in Clovis, NM and I work in the legal office at Cannon AFB. It's been interesting. We moved here during the height of the real estate recession and so we hoped to an inexpensive house to buy. Well, the prices here in Clovis are extremely overpriced. It was unbelievable. We finally found a foreclosure that we could fix up and remodel, so we went for it. This past weekend we bought our flooring and we've been removing walls and getting it all ready to put down before my family gets here for Christmas. Man, construction is a lot of work, I realize why people pay to have others do this kinda stuff.

I met the newest attorney in our office today. He seems like a nice guy. I almost feel bad knowing the way an LT gets treated sometimes. Or maybe that was just me. On second thought, I think it was me. I have the smallest office in the legal office and just to illustrate that point, I was meeting with the Wing Commander the other day and I had to ask him to move his chair so I could get the door open!!! Absolutely ridiculous. At least he didn't ask me if I was a 'real' attorney. I think the life-size poster shouting to the world that I passed the Texas bar might help. We did get new furniture and although it's not the best looking stuff...I really do have more desk space to put things than before, except my books! When they bought the furniture my office got a desk and...a desk, That's IT! This wouldn't be a big deal, except I'm an attorney and YES, I have reference books. Now, I am trying to find any book that has any kind of legal reference in it and filling my office, then maybe I'll get a bookshelf to go along with my desk, not that it will fit though.

After that rant, I do need to add the disclaimer that I have some kind of file cabinet with a couple shelves at the top, but you can only fit books on one shelf since the other one is so small.

When I talked talked to others about the problem with getting the door open...the suggestion always comes back that I should move my desk as close to the back wall as I can, so that guests have more room. I refuse to use 1/3 of my office for me and give up the other 2/3rds for the occasional commander that comes in my room. I will just have to ask them to move their chair. And that's a wrap...look for more ranting next WEEK!

Thanksgiving 2009

This Thanksgiving, we drove up to Logan, UT.

Details of the TRIP:

1. Departed Clovis at the 4 p.m. range.

2. Stopped in Trinidad Co. to purchase DVD player that turned out to be the BEST purchase we have EVER made b/c it occupied the LITTLE MAN for a VERY LOOOONNNNGGGGG time.

3. Arrived in Logan, UT Thanksgiving Day at the 7:30 a.m. range.

4. Napped for a few hours.

5. Ate yummy food, socialized and played games.

6. Went night night at 10:30 p.m.

7. Awoke 4:45 a.m to do some Black Friday Shopping.

8. Left 5:00 p.m. to head to So. Salt Lake to visit my (Amanda's) brother and his family.

9. Ate good food, played a game and slept so very good that night.

10. Left Saturday afternoon to drive to Park City, Ut...but beforehand...we stopped at Lumber Liquidator's to purchase our FLOORING for our house. YAY

11. Arrived around 4'ish p.m.

12. Socialized, ate dinner went nighty night around 11'ish.

13. Awoke 6-ish to leave by 7-ish but we ended up leaving at 8-ish.

14. Arrived back in Clovis by 10:30-ish p.m.

15. Awwww Sleep is wonderful!

Marietta & D'mar taking a nap.

Meredith & Camilia looking pretty.

The Kids

The Ladies

Group Picture

Anita excited to go Black Friday Shopping.

Camilia even more excited to go B. F. Shopping.

Marietta excited to be up @ 5 am-ish and to go B.F. shopping.

Keedan & D'mar jumping on a mattress and having the time of their lives!

Anita & Daran about to have a cool whip fight.

Yummy Strawberry Shortcake that Anita made.

Yummy yummy picture.

Keedan attacking Olivia.

Keedan resorted to attack with his kisses and licks.

We had such a wonderful time with everyone and even though the trip was LONG, we will no doubt make it many more times.