Rebecca's B-day and Welcoming a New Sister

Tonight we went to dinner at Jack Stack BBQ for my sister's birthday. The original plan was Manny's but I guess they are closed on Sundays. Tonight was the first time Russ and I got to meet our new Swiss sister, Cat. My family has the habit of adopting children. This usually comes in forms of foreign exchange students and friends of ours. Catarina is a 16 year old foreign exchange student from Swizterland who will be living with my parents till this summer. I think she fits in perfect! She is pretty excited for our family ski trip in March. We had a little family meeting tonight to talk about the details. We are all pretty excited!

Rebecca was showered with gifts and yummy homemade peanut butter pie from our mom. I was so proud for finding Rebecca these awesome vans when Russ and I were out in Cali. They are so awesome in fact that we got her two right feet! Can you believe that!!?? I luckily held onto my reciept and will be calling them tomorrow. I think Rebecca has had a pretty awesome weekend between JP's wine bar, movie afternoon on Saturday, and family dinner on Sunday. We love you and hope it has been a great one!

JP's Wine Bar

Friday night we went to JP's wine bar with a small group of friends to start the weekend celebration for my sister's birthday. Russ and I love the cheese flights! This time we got a local flavor and one from Spain. YUM! We enjoyed some great wine flights but more importantly time with friends and family!

Baby Shower

This last Friday I helped host a baby shower for a co-worker, Becky klein. We had a great turn out of people and had so much yummy food! Becky Cook (the mastermind of creativity) came up with the idea of making onsies. She made cute things on transferrable paper and then we ironed them on. Super cute!! Becky got some great gifts...... including a bopy. I used to wonder what the heck mothers did with those things. I've sure learned alot from the mothers I work with! Sometimes more than I want to know!

Cousins Fun!

Saturday evening we got to hang out with our cousins Rachel and Jeremy for the first time since our wedding. They live out in CT and are in town for the week. Russ graciously played host and made dinner for everyone until I got home from work. Dinner was great! He made cheddar ale soup and cheddar brawts. Yum! Everyone enjoyed catching up and of course fit in some Wii time. Carolyn and Jon also came over to visit with Rachel and Jeremy. Carolyn gave Russ his "homemade" Christmas present that she's been working so hard on. It is this awesome photo book of them from when they were kids with a very creative story to go along with it. It really is awesome! We are really getting old when we feel like 1am is soooo late! I am hurting a bit today from working and then being up late! We had a great time seeing everyone though! Sorry no pics.

Lunch with the Hubby

Saturday Russ was kind enough to pick up some Panera and bring it to me at work on Saturday. Delicious! Russ is so kind and generous...... thanks babe! It was fun to have him up there!

Happy Valentine's Day

Thursday evening Russ and I celebrated Valentine's Day and also threw in a little celebration for our upcoming 6 month wedding anniversary. Can you believe that!!?? We said no gifts but Russ got me these beautiful roses and lillies. We celebrated with a glass of champagne and then went to dinner at the Blue Bird Bistro. This is a small locally grown, organic restaurant in Kansas City. The food was ok but we still had a good time. To top the evening off, we watched the newest episode of LOST. What a wonderful and relaxing evening!

Happy Birthday Mark!

Wednesday night we went to dinner at Montana Milke's out at the Legends. Carolyn has teacher parent conferences this week and the Legends was a close place for her to meet all of us. We enjoyed some good food, converstation and showered Mark with birthday presents. He is a wonderful father, husband, friend and father-in-law. We appreciate and love him very much!! Happy Birthday Mark!

Fabulous Trip!

This past weekend the Pearson clan headed out to California to support our friends, the Wade family. We were excited to see Mark again who headed back home from London this past week. I started the trip out on a good foot by leaving my purse on the blue bus. Don't worry, we were able to get it back and get on our way! The other downer was that Russ and I both were a little down and out with colds this past weekend. I started out with just a mild sore throat that turned into one of the worst colds I have ever had.

Bad stuff aside..... we had an AMAZING time! We started out with a memory lane trip to Corona were Carolyn and Russ grew up. It was gorgeous and probably close to 80 degrees! I was able to see their old house and eat at Miguel Jr's. It really was as good as they talked it up to be. I would compare it to Chipotle but maybe even a little better..... sorry Chipotle fans!

Then we spent a couple of hours at the beach with our family friends. Even though it was a little chilly, it was again gorgeous and amazing to beach at the beach. There is just something about the beach that it so therapeutic! We had fun playing around and getting in some good pictures.

Saturday night we cleaned up and headed to Laguna Beach to meet up with Steve Sui. Steve is a long time family friend of the Pearsons. He is a very talened piano player at a hotel called the Montage. Absoutely breath taking even at night! I can't imagine what the place looked like during the day. Steve treated us to drinks while he played his beautiful music. He then drove us in his 6 series beemer to a great Chinese restaurant where once again he showered us all with his wonderful hospitality.

Sunday we attended the Orange COC congregation where Carolyn and Russ went to church growing up. It had been renovated since they had been there last. The people were great and it was again about 80 degrees. That evening we attended a memorial service for a long time friend of the family, Lester Wade. It was a beautiful and touching service. Lester will be greatly missed by his friends and family.

Russ and I want to move to southern California so bad! How could use pass on such gorgeous weather in February! So, we are making it a one to two year plan to try and move. Well, we already had job offers at In and Out Burger! :) We will see! We deintely feel at home there and I think Russ really misses it.

Real Estate

So, Russ is beginning to rub off on me and I now am fairly interested in real estate (I think Russ is so excited about this). I would love to own an event space some day for weddings or what not. Today we looked at a space for sale for the first time. It was very cute and had alot of character but will probably pass on this one. I am learning alot from Russ and realize you have to be willing to walk away. Maybe my dream will come true someday and I'll get to cut back on my current job! It was still fun looking and entertaining the idea!

Super Bowl

Russ and I got to hang out with our friends Mike and Kelly for the Super Bowl. We had lots of good food and really enjoyed the game. All of us were rooting for the Patriots except for Kelly and another one of their friends. So, Kelly had vitcory over all of us! Thanks for having us over!

Baby Time

No not us! I just found out today that my good friends, Scott and Sarah Hartley are expecting in August. I am so excited for them! You will have to check out their blog which is located over on the right side of our page.

Allergy Test

Friday Russ and I went to the Dr's office so Russ could get an allergy test. For those of you who don't know, they make a grid on your back and then scratch in a bunch of different things you could be allergic to. Such things are molds, pollens, animals, foods, trees, etc. Russ was pretty much allergic to everything except for food! Thank goodness he's not allergic to chocolate! :) The nurse was pretty concerned when she saw the big hives on his back. Then they did another test on his arm which was small SQ injections. We found out he is pretty allergic to cats and dogs. Thank goodness about the cats but I was a little sad to hear about dogs. Maybe we need to think twice about getting pets. :(

So, now we are faced with decided if we should put him on weekly allergy shots. We feel this is a big decision for many reasons and are waying out the options. So, please think of Russ. I never knew how severe his allergies really were and things we could be doing at home to help him! I think he's lucking out pretty good about the whole grass situation. We are probably going to have grass cutting be my job and laundry his.

Bad Dog, Bad Sitter

So, pretty much right after I posted the entry bragging about how wonderful Winston is, he did something to make me second think that. I took a shower and hadn't heard from him for awhile. I went downstairs to find that he had pushed open the trash and strewn about all the contents all over the kitchen floor. Bad dog! This deserved a little swat and a time out in the kennel. Ok, maybe the time out only lasted 5 minutes!

So, then I did something bad as well. Tonight I was preparing a chicken buffalo wing dip for the Super Bowl tomorrow. To save time, I bought a rotiserrie chicken. Winston patiently watched me while licking his lips. I couldn't resist so I decided to reward him with a chicken leg. Wrong decision! In about 5 seconds flat he ate the entire thing! I was so dumb at thinking that he would eat the chicken off of the bone. He seemed fine but I thought I better check with the parents. I called my family in Ohio and I gave them quite the laugh. They weren't sure why I thought it was a good idea. I'm not sure why either! Oh well, you live and learn.

Best Dinner Award

Ok, so I awarded this to myself and my husband. But, we were pretty darn proud of our broiled balsamic pork chops and spinach salad with warm shallot vinaigrette. We just had to take a picture because it tasted as good as it looked. This is defintely worthy of the next dinner we make for guests!

out of town visitor

Tuesday evening Russ and I had to clean the house and change the sheets on the spare bed because we had a very important out of town visitor coming for 6 days. Who is this visitor you might ask?? None other than the most important member of the Passman household, WINSTON C PASSMAN!!! So, just kidding about cleaning and changing the sheets. Winston traveled the tretorous 40 minute drive to our house and soon settled in. We decided to keep his cage, oh I mean condo, down by the back door. We thought we might be able to cut down on paw prints on the carpet this way.

He has been an excellent visitor so far. I think he's loving it because he got fed and let outside twice on the first morning. Oops! I don't think he minded eating twice! He is quite the lover if you haven't met him before. In fact, he is curled up next to me right now as I type this. When Russ and I are both home, he loves to lay across us with his head on Russ's shoulder. How cute!

I don't know Mom and Dad if we want to give him back! :)