Livin' La Vida Lonergan: January 2013

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Cali! The Newest Addition to the Lonergan Fam

No, we are not pregnant :) But, we did get a puppy!!! Or, we picked her out, she is not quite old enough to come live with us yet!

I have been bugging Scott for quite some time now about getting a dog! I knew that it really wasn't good timing for us for the last year or so, but when I realized that we're actually in a good place now to have one, I have been what some might call obsessed :)

So, after bugging Scott for too long, and searching the internet for white/light goldens in Texas or California, I found the perfect litter! My sister Courtney gave me the name of the people she got her Golden, Tex, from. They are www.texasenglishgoldens.com in case you were wondering :) I wrote them and found out that they had a litter born Jan 4 which is actually pretty great timing since Scott and I are moving in April! The parents are both super light and beautiful!

So anyway, this last weekend when I was in Houston my mom (who was also looking to get a puppy), my sister Courtney, and her two kids made the trek out to the Texas English Goldens place. The puppies are 2 1/2 weeks old, which means they JUST opened their eyes a few days ago! There were 4 puppies left 2 girls and 2 boys and they were just the cutest, tiniest things! It was actually perfect because Scott and I really want a light or white golden and my mom wants one a little darker, and one girl was white and one girl was a little darker! My mom and I played with our puppies and I decided that no doubt about it the light golden puppy was our Cali :)

We got to meet her mom - Georgia on my Mind, and her dad - Champagne Ice (who they call Tucker). They have the sweetest temperaments, are playful but not hyper, and are BEAUTIFUL! Richard, who is the breeder, was so great and so nice! He visited with us and gave us the scoop on how they take care of them and the backgrounds of Cali's mom and dad. While we were visiting, Courtney said "I just love Georgia, she's so sweet and reminds me of Tex's mom, Honey". Richard said, "Oh, that's because Georgia is Honey's daughter!" Which means, Tex is Cali's uncle :) Uncle Tex would be proud of this little litter :)

Here are some pics from meeting Cali!

Georgia on my Mind - her sweet mom

Little Cali

My fave pic - she was all tuckered out!

Her sweet and beautiful dad - Tucker (who actually got his name because the first day he got to his new home, he ran around so long that he passed out and was "all tuckered out")

Tucker

My sister Courtney, her daugher Charley Kate (who loves dogs and animals!), and my mom with Tucker

Me with my sweet little puppy

Mom meeting Tucker

Cali

Her cute face!

Snuggled in

Tucker again - so cute!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Timmy is 60!!

My dad turned 60 last Saturday and I got to go home to spend the weekend celebrating! Neither of my parents are big party people, so we all got to just hang out and spend time together which was perfect :)

The plan was to go to Top Golf - a super fun driving range with two stories, where you can eat and hang out and just kind of make a day of it. However, it was a beautiful Saturday in Houston and everyone and their mom decided to go that day, so the wait was 3 1/2 hours!!!! (And, it actually ended up being 5!) Needless to say, the plan got changed and we decided to go to the shooting range! It was my sister's and I, the husbands that were in town, my mom, my dad and my Auntie Karen and Uncle Steve. Most of my family owns guns, so whoever had them with, brought their own, otherwise they had a cajillion to rent!

It was SO fun!!! We had all kinds of different guns to use (most of which I don't know the names of) and a shot gun!

Here are some pics at the shooting range-

The crew minus Aaron (who had Austen outside)

My Momm and her sis, Auntie Karen

Birthday Boy and Kiki

Courtney and Jennifer - I think Jennifer is giving a lesson!

Jennifer - the master

Courtney

Kiki helping me out

I got pretty good by the end of our session! (Once I remembered how to site/sight it correctly!)

Uncle Steve helping steady Auntie Karen :)

Aaron (my sister Kiki's husband)

Courtney with the shot gun!

Momm with the shotgun

Her reaction to the kick back, haha

With the shot gun!

Birthday boy taking his turn with the shot gun - for some reason the kick back didn't effect him quite as much (is it affect or effect?)

Justin, my sister Jennifer's husband

After the shooting range, my mom had rented out a room at Ninfa's - one of our favorite restaurants to go to as a family. We had SO much food and it was amazing (especially since we don't get real Tex Mex out in California and I had just finished my 10 day cleanse :/)!

Ninfa's pics-

The Hyland/kid table :)

Playing games and visiting

Dad, Uncle Steve, Auntie Karen, Charley Kate, Momm, Courtney and Jay :)

Aaron, Austen and Kiki- they were troopers with a sick baby!

Caught red handed, haha

More visiting/eating

Birthday cake and gluten free cupcakes!

Singing Happy Birthday

Playing with the awesome bouncy balls

Uncle Steve and Charley Kate

Happy 60th Bday Dad!!! We love you!!! :) :) :)

Moriarty Christmas

After a great time in Bend, Scott and I woke up around 4 am and took off on a 5:30 am flight to Houston. Yes, we are crazy, but it worked out great because we got in around 3 Houston time and still had some of Christmas day left to hang out!

My family postponed the normal Christmas Eve celebrations so that Scott could experience the whole Moriarty Christmas, haha. He was in for a surprise! Hanging out in Bend was very calm, and very adult oriented. Hanging out in Houston was very kid oriented - both are so fun but just in completely different ways! So, we had a "Christmas Eve" meal like usual, hung out with the fam and opened up our Christmas PJ's! Every year my mom used to get the girls matching PJ's and as the family has grown, she has started getting them for the husbands and children as well. This year was a "Watt Christmas" because JJ Watt of the Texans is the biggest thing going on in Houston right now! We took lots of pictures, got through some of the crying (the kids don't like taking forever for pictures, haha) and made our pyramid as usual. All the husbands were very good sports!

The next morning we got to do "Christmas morning" with Courtney's family - her kids are still young enough that Santa coming one night later was no sweat off their back :) It was super fun to watch her oldest, Jay, get so excited for his toys, and Charley was as happy as she could be with her new things, too!

We had Christmas morning breakfast casserole, and then we spent most of the rest of the day cooking and getting ready for Christmas dinner and present opening! The families each do their own present opening at their houses, but we exchange aunt/uncle/cousin/grandparent gifts at my parents house on Christmas day.

It was super fun and super crazy as usual! Scott got a taste of a little bit different type of Christmas, haha :)

The rest of the time was spent just hanging out and spending as much time with people as we could! Taking walks, enjoying the good/cool weather in Houston, going to the Houston Zoo (which was SO fun!), and probably a bunch more things I can't think of right this second!

It was so great to spend time with my family and have Scott around to see my family's traditions and just get some quality time in! After a great trip we headed back to LA on New Year's Eve!

Here are some pics from Houston Christmas - again, I had more on my own camera, but have to get my memory card fixed :/

Making our famous and yummy Sausage and Cheese Balls

My nephew Josh :) This is about how the night goes with all of the kids!

Our yearly pyramid, it just keeps growing and growing!

And the collapse

A video on this would have been awesome!

Grandsons! This was a pretty good pic, haha

Daughters

Daughters and kids (thanks for loaning me yours sisters!)

Supposed to be a pic of the son in laws, but the big boys were doing their version of photo bombing and Austen and Charley were for real photo bombing, hahaha - the two little ones crack me up!