January Fun!

January started with the Ducks and the Rose Bowl! It was an amazing game with the Ducks beating up on Florida State with a 59-20 win! With these cute fans cheering on the Ducks how could they lose? 

That Saturday Alex and Jake headed down to San Antonio with friends from the Georgia group for the US Army All American Bowl. This was Jake's first live football game and he loved it. He loved watching the game, hanging with Daddy and with good buddy Stacy, meeting the players and the snacks!

While the boys were away Allie and I had lunch with friends and then Allie had her good friend Penelope over to play. The girls were having so much fun and having a great time dressing up. After the playdate we went to Penelope's for some more playtime and a glass of wine for me and Penny's mom!

I was shocked at how emotional I was when we gifted our glider to our good friends Gordon & Melissa ahead of Baby Kennedy's arrival. When they were taking it out I got all teary thinking of rocking each little one. We're so happy for them and hope it serves them well in the late and sleepless nights ahead! 

Allie and I headed out on a super rainy Sunday to the Thinkery (the Austin Children's Museum) to celebrate friend's Millie & Sophie's 3rd birthdays!

Making party hats!

With Eli

Sweet birthday girls!

After nap Allie joined me for Melissa's shower for Baby Kennedy! She was so excited to be there to celebrate. She did ask a couple of times "where's the shower?" which it took me a few minutes to figure out what she was talking about! We were too busy during the shower for pictures but this was Allie as soon as we got home! So exhausted she couldn't even take her coat off or find her bed!

On January 12th we dropped the littles off at school (after a little photoshoot) and Alex and I were off to Dallas for the first College Football National Championship game! When the Ducks made it and I knew the game was in Dallas I couldn't resist trying to get tickets to go. And when an old DC Duck friend gave me a connection to tickets I had to get them!

Jerry-world!

So fun to see some of the old school DC Ducks crew!

As you can see from the pictures it was COLD! Somehow Alex managed to get us into the stadium almost an hour early! It was very cool being in here with almost no one else and being warm! 

Thanks to Facebook I ran into Brian Oxman who was one of my Young Judaea advisors and a friend. I hadn't seen him since 1992 or 1993 when we were both in Israel. Crazy!

We also ran into a few famous folks too. Lou Dobbs was super nice and is married to a Duck like Alex. His wife and I agreed they were smart men! 

Alex also met MLB's Shane Victorino who was there to cheer on fellow Hawaiian, Oregon QB Marcus Mariotta. 

My favorite famous person was sighting was when I noticed Kenny Wheaton, former UO and NFL player, sitting right across the aisle from us. Kenny Wheaton is famous for a play against Washington in 1994, "The Pick"!  

Sigh. So the game didn't go the way that I would have liked but I'm glad that we had the chance to go to the National Championship game and have the experience. Alex and I had the whole day together without the kids, saw old friends AND I got to cheer on the team I love. It was an amazing season. Go Ducks Forever!

Poor Jakey. We had him allergy tested and he's allergic to Austin. For your benefit this picture was taken right after the test, the other pictures were WAY worse! Thankfully, he's now on allergy drops and hopefully it will help.

Miss Allie started gymnastics and she loves it. I mean this is just too cute!

For once we had a quiet weekend and we had our first family movie date. It was Allie's first time at the movie theater and she loved it. We saw Paddington and it was adorable. 

The next week I was in San Antonio and then Houston for work and got lucky enough to have dinner with this guy and his lovely wife. I was honored when Ken came to the door and he was wearing his Oregon sweatshirt that Alex sent to him (along with a Georgia sweatshirt too). The bonus that night was that Aunt Cindy (Brott) was in town and joined us as did Scott (Toppell), Alex's cousin, joined us for dinner too. 

This picture of Allie is a favorite! Even though she wasn't posing but watching her favorite thing and obsession, My Little Pony. 

This blog might have more of me and Alex then ever before. To start 40 off right we headed to Las Vegas to celebrate Alex's birthday! We met up with our friends Joanie & Cary Frieden and Jason and Leigh Anne Mann for a very fun weekend.

We met up with Joanie and Cary at The Wynn and then headed to see the perfect show for Alex's birthday weekend, "40 is not the new 20" It was very funny!

At the Bellagio. Always a favorite!

At Serendipity 3, the originals are in NYC, enjoying a frozen hot chocolate. We couldn't resist getting a photo for Melissa Grossman who always makes sure we know when the movie Serendipity is on TV! 

Jason and Alex made a few morning bets on Georgia basketball. They not only got to see there team win but they won money too!

Joanie & Cary playing the tables. I personally was very happy with the slot machines. I won a total of $22.32 and I was thrilled!

Saturday night we had a great steak dinner to celebrate Alex's birthday, saw a forgettable comic and then hit the casinos. Fun night and a very fun trip!

With the Leigh Anne and Jason!

The birthday celebrations continued with family birthday dinner on his actual birthday and a very fun party Saturday night. We had a great time celebrating both of our 40th birthdays but I'm glad we don't have to think about any milestone birthdays for quite a while now!

Although this was a big birthday for Alex we have to send birthday love to Uncle Phillip from his favorite little people. 

Our basketball star may or may not have a future in the NBA but he seems to love the game!

I still love getting pictures from the Donkey class. Here are a few favorites from the month:

Talking about doctors and nurses!

Allie said that she was so lucky that her Bubba comes to Shabbat even when it isn't Grandparents Shabbat!

The same day as grandparent shabbat Allie got to go to the Frozen party at Kim's Gym! It was very cute and they did a good job but it was by far the worst Elsa I've seen yet! I guess not everyone can pull off Princess. We know Allie doesn't have that problem! 

We've had a great start to 2015 and can't wait to see what the rest of the year brings!