Christmas Tree Decorating!

 Yes, it's our first Christmas together as a married couple! And, it will be our first Christmas that we actually spend Christmas Eve and Christmas day together, too! I'm so happy that we'll actually get to share this time together this year. I absolutely love this time of year so even though it's not much, I decided we needed to decorate at least a little bit :) Scott likes the decorations, too, but isn't quite as obsessed with all of it as I am!

Today we finally decorated our tree... long time coming, but at least we did it! It's our cute little Charlie Brown tree :)

Luckily, we have some great family and had a little help with decorations around our house.

Here are some pics from this evening.

Almost our starting point (we already added a few)

Scott doing his part!

Oh and I bought the ornaments and forgot to get hooks, so we got a little Macgyver-ish and used paper clips :) Haha yep

Our huge collection of ornaments!

Doing my part on the tree!

Our first try with the self timer

Much better!

The final product with Scott's present under the tree :) Oh and yes, our star is actually an ornament that I hung from the top. I went to a bunch of different stores and couldn't find one small enough, so there ya go!

Here are cute decorations that our families helped with!

My mom sent us some super cute candle holders and candles, as well as an Xmas shirt and yummy candy!!

My sister Jennifer gave us this cute first Christmas ornament as part of our wedding gift! :) 

And Scott's mom sent us this really cute Texas ornament for our first Christmas ornament from her!! I definitely love having something Texas on our California tree!

We really love all of them and are glad that we have some decorations that are special for our first Christmas :) 

And, just for fun I made this "DIY" Christmas decoration. I thought it was really fun!

SO....

MERRY (early) CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!

Love,

The Lonergans

The Big 2-9!

(Disclaimer- I wrote this entire blog and then accidently clicked out before saving :( It should be pretty close to the first try though!)


I would say Scott's birthday weekend was a success!

Scott flew back from 4 days in Nashville on Thursday (his actual birthday). He was at the Winter Meetings which is basically a week long baseball meeting. At the Winter Meetings there are General Managers from every Major League Baseball team, tons of agents, media, baseball companies, etc. and because there are so many people in one place that need to negotiate contracts or just touch base with each other, they have meetings from like 8 am until 2 am! Needless to say, when Scott got back he was exhausted. So when he flew back on Thursday, I picked him up and we just chilled that afternoon/evening. I prepared for Scott's bday the night before by making one of his favorite meals and one of his favorite desserts! Yes, I said that I made this stuff the night before, which if you know me (the procrastinator) this is a really big deal and a genuine act of love :) I did this so that he wouldn't have to sit around and wait for it to be ready and so that we could actually spend time that afternoon together instead of me cooking! Anyway, the meal that I made him is nicknamed "Pasta Scott". My sister Courtney came up with a yummy steak and pasta dish and nicknamed it after her husband Anthony, so "Pasta Anthony". I am a little embarrassed that I'm about to admit what Pasta Scott is, but here is how it was concocted.

Scott - "Let's have mac and cheese tonight."
Michelle - "Sounds great! Oooh, you know what would be really good?"
Scott - "What"
Michelle - "Let's put chili in the mac and cheese!"

And voila, we have Pasta Scott! The reactions I get after telling people about this are mixed - I get about half "Yum!" or "Awesome, it's like frito pie!" and half "Ew, gross". So, judge away if you would like, I've already heard it! :)

Anyway, while the homemade Mac and Cheese (thank you Aunt Betty and Jennifer!) was cooking in the oven... Scott fell asleep. When it was ready, I woke him up and we ate his birthday dinner together. While I was putting the cookies on the cookie sheet and baking them, Scott fell asleep. So, when they were ready, I woke him up for cookies. And then we went to bed. Yes, very exciting and romantic, I know :) But, I knew he was exhausted and that the rest of the weekend would be super fun! So we went to bed.

On Friday night, we had a great group of friends meet us for dinner at Brick + Mortar in Santa Monica. We had a fantastic meal with great company and the restaurant itself just had a fun vibe. Perfect for a bday dinner! When everyone decided it was time to go we spent some more time at a few other spots in Santa Monica. We have really started to love that area (the Ocean Park area, not like third street promenade).

Unfortunately, Scott had to wake up super early the next morning to spend the day with a client, so he missed out on the freshly baked breakfast casserole. Fortunately, we had a few friends that live in San Diego and Laguna Beach spend the night so we had a great birthday breakfast in Scott's honor. And, of course we saved him some! When Scott finally got home, we took a quick nap and got ready for his company Christmas party. We were told that we were supposed to dress nice/festive and bring a gift to add to the white elephant/gift exchange. We got dressed and then - confession - picked up our two gifts on the way to the party, haha oops. Thank you Starbucks!!! We got two cute mugs and gift cards. The party itself was really fun. I have met most of Scott's coworkers but it was great to actually get to know them. And, the girls in the office and wives/girlfriends of the guys in the office were SO nice! It's always a good surprise when the girls are so sweet and welcoming (because it's not always the case :) ).  After some mingling and a delicious dinner, we started the white elephant exchange! There were lots of joke gifts, some good gifts, some gifts I still don't understand, and our great gifts! The weirdest gift award goes to the ant farm, haha. Scott and I picked numbers that were late in the round so we got to steal the good gifts, which worked out well for us! Confessions number 2 and 3 - we stole one of our gifts back. Who steals their gift back at a gift exchange? We do! And, we found a small, flat, paper gift bag after all of the opening was done. We opened it and found an iTunes gift card. We did not tell anyone and kept the gift card... Whoops!!! :) After the gift opening we had an impromptu dance party in the kitchen. So fun!

And, to round off the birthday weekend we met Chris, my brother in law :), and his wife Summer in Laguna Beach for a birthday dinner! We got lucky that they were still able to come meet us because Summer's sister had her baby earlier that day! Fortunately for us, they were still able to spare some time for the bday dinner. Scott and I got to Laguna Beach a little early so we took a (chilly) stroll around the city. We LOVE Laguna Beach! Then, we met Chris and Summer at K'ya. It's this great restaurant that has a cool roof top deck where we watched the sunset. We had yet another really great meal with great company. We love getting to hang out with Chris and Summer and it was so nice catching up!

And with that, Scott's bday weekend was complete! Here are some sporadic pics. I need to get better at the picture taking thing!

Scott didn't want to come to grips with his 29 candles :)

Good try!

Making it worse

There it is!! The big 2-9!!!

I know it's a terrible pic, but at least we got one!

Laguna Beach

The birthday boy!

I made him take this pic, if you weren't sure :)

Sunset at K'ya

I heart Christmas time!

Yea! :)

Happy Birthday to my Husband!!!

I know it's a little late, but.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY HUSBAND!!!!!!! It's the big 2-9!

I have been so blessed to have spent these last (almost) 6 years with Scott! He is such a wonderful husband (I know it's only been a short time, but he's been great :) and he's been a great boyfriend/fiance as well!), friend, son, brother, nephew, SIL (son in law), BIL (brother in law) and you get the point! He is so kind and caring. And, he has always made sure that I don't take life too seriously! :)

He's the best!

Sneak Peek

Hi everyone!!

Here's a slide show that's a sneak peek of the wedding photos!! My amazing photographer (Brad from Hyde Park Photography) posted it on his Facebook page today! These are the only pics I've seen so far but already I can tell that he did SUCH a great job capturing our day! I could watch this video over and over and over :) And, it totally gives me butterflies!

PS I'm sorry but I have no idea how to make the video smaller :/

Playing with Tigers

My husband (I just wanted to use that word :) ), the rest of my family and the people that know me best, know that tigers are my FAVORITE animal. Well, tigers and dolphins. In elementary school, I got to choose an animal to research and write a report on and I chose Bengal tigers. I’ve ALWAYS loved tigers! And, I’m very lucky that I’ve already gotten to swim with dolphins (twice) and check that off my bucket list! And, yes, swimming with dolphins was absolutely amazing and so special! However, the thing about swimming with dolphins is that 1. they are actually known as sweet and maybe even docile creatures (when it comes to humans) and 2. there are a decent amount of places around the world where you can swim with dolphins. With tigers, most people don't believe that they can be really tamed and I only know of one place where you can hang out with them (Thailand), and Scott and I got to do it!!!! (I’m sure there are more places, but I’ve only heard of people doing it in Thailand)

On a normal day, I would have already been exhausted from the elephant rides (and Scott and I both were), but we both had a huge adrenaline rush that kept us super energetic for the tiger kingdom! Who wouldn’t be excited? We already knew when we got there that we wanted to go into cages with each sized tiger. The cages were dubbed- Smallest, small, medium, and big- very self explanatory. You could also pay to have a photographer with you and since we bought the package with all of the different sizes, we got to have a photographer in with us for the smallest and big tigers, which was super helpful. I don’t know if there are words to describe the excitement we had after buying the tickets and waiting for our turn! :) :) :)

We went through the gates and started out by just looking around at a bunch of the cages. A positive and negative about the time of day that we went is that it was just before dusk, which meant play time. While it was awesome, exhilarating, and a little intimidating to be in the cages while they were playing, it also meant we had to get as many pictures in as we could when they were actually sitting still because they didn’t sit still much!

The people showed us over to the “smallest” cage for our first session (you get between 15-20 minutes in each cage). OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!! That’s all I have to say. The smallest tigers (that you could actually play with) were all about 3 months old, and most of them brothers and sisters. While they were only 3 months old, they were still bigger than any house cat (only by a little). But, they were SOOOOOO cute!!!! One of the rules (which wasn’t as important with the little ones but became MUCH more important as the cats got bigger) was that you always approach it from behind so that they don’t think you want to play. So, even with the smallest cats they would have you sit/lay down behind it, and angle your feet back behind you. The first tiger cub we went to get pictures with was dead asleep. They had us both take turns laying down next it with our faces pressed up against its head, holding it’s paw, kissing it, snuggling and just getting to love on it! I was absolutely, 100 percent in heaven!!! I WAS SNUGGLING A TIGER CUB!!!!!!! I was enjoying every second of this when all of a sudden, I feel four more paws and a warm, fuzzy body on my back! I had just been stalked and pounced on by a tiger cub and it was the best moment ever!!! Scott and the photographer from the Tiger Kingdom both got a great sequence of me smiling with the asleep cub, getting surprised by the playful cub and then enjoying every second they let it stay on me and play :) The guys there weren’t seriously worried about it (because it can’t really hurt you that badly, nor is it trying to) but they also are trying to teach it how to behave around humans. So, they let it lay on me and play for a bit (again heaven), but after a minute or so made it get down. You don’t really get to “play” with any of the tigers so the fact that I got an impromptu session totally made my day! We could have gone home then and I would have been elated! Luckily, we were only just beginning! After playing with each of the 3 month olds (there were 4, I think), we stepped over a little gate to go see the one month old. SWEETEST LITTLE THING EVER!!!!! It was also completely exhausted and just sleeping away. So, we did the same type of routine- laid down with our head on it, held its paw, etc. And, as we were going through the routine, she wriggled over to the edge of the platform we were on and started dozing off but with her head falling off the side- adorable. The trainer had us then hold it’s head up and give it kisses and snuggle even more, which was really cute and really awesome.

Here are a lot of pics from the smallest cage-

Alas, it was time to leave the sweet, sweet babies and head to the “small” tigers. They still felt like babies but they were the same size as a full grown golden retriever. These guys were a little more active and on the move so we did more watching than picture taking in this cage. But, we still got a few pretty cute pictures and a little bit of snuggle time! And, the trainers in the “small” cage must have really liked us because then they took us to “small 2”, which we hadn’t paid for and didn’t even know existed. Great bonus for us! In the small 2 cage, we took some more pictures and had fun trying to get them to sit still. While I was getting some pictures of Scott with a “small 2” tiger, that wasn’t actually so small, I see one of the trainers run over towards me with his stick making that “ah ah ah” sound that you make to a child to tell him no. I turned around, and what did I find? A second tiger stalking me! It was definitely ready to play and it was definitely only about a foot away from me, haha awesome. I didn’t really have time to be scared since I had no idea it was behind me until they made it move. All it wanted to do was play, and worst-case scenario it might have jumped on my back, but the trainers were way more cautious after that.

Next cage was the mediums, and they were probably the most rowdy of all of them. They were constantly wrestling with each other, playing with the trainers, roaring (and LOUD) and just generally running around. Even though they were medium size they were still only about 13 months. It’s crazy how fast and big they grow! The one fun picture we got in there was me getting to hold onto the tail of one of the tigers and he “walked” me for a bit. We even got a little video of that which was pretty fun. I’ll try to post it if I can.

And finally, we made it to the bigs! We loved the in between sizes because they were cute and playful and at a fun age, but for picture purposes, the smallest and big were definitely the best! When they say the “big” cage, they are not joking. I might even suggest they change that cage name to ginormous! Luckily, the big cats were all pretty relaxed… we read that since the tigers there are all well fed (don’t have to worry about energy for hunting), once they are fully grown they stay pretty calm and sleepy which is pretty typical for cats anyway. We did some fun things with the big cats. Scott got a picture using the tiger’s tail as a moustache (his favorite pic), we took some cute ones together hugging it, and some others spooning them and laying on them, etc. It was pretty unbelievable that we were able to rub all over these big tigers and they loved it and just hung out while we did it! 

And, to top off the day we went over and saw the 4 day old cubs! The trainer described them to us as looking like geckos, and it was actually a decent description (but way cuter)! They were some really stinkin’ cute little things and I really wanted to bring one back J No such luck though.

Side notes-

Scott is CRAZY allergic to cats. When I say crazy allergic, I mean that if he walks into a room that a cat has been in sometime in the last few days, he starts to sneeze. Now, because we were thinking that we were going to see TIGERS, it didn’t register to either of us that they were also cats. Needless to say, by the end of the tour, Scott was starting to get hives, sneezing non stop, and itchy all over. I felt horrible, but he said it was 100 percent worth every second!

The trainers were all awesome! We had a really fun trainer with the smallest cats who when I asked what they ate (meaning, is it only milk at that age) he without skipping a beat replied “humans” with a big grin. He also made lots of funny jokes and made it a super fun time. We then had a few of the same trainers go with us for the three middle size cages (small, small 2 and medium) and he was really great. Cracking jokes, pretending to shut us in the cage by ourselves, etc. He also played a lot of games with the tigers so that we could see them in action, which was really great of him! Then, for the “big” cage, we had like 5 trainers in there with us and again, there were all jokesters and helped us relax a little and have fun! Luckily, we got a picture with a few them (and left them a good tip for keeping us alive!)

Look at Scott’s face in the pictures as the tigers get bigger. You can definitely start to see a little more stress (totally understandable), haha :)

Last sidenote- we heard that there is a tiger kingdom or two in Thailand that uses drugs to subdue the tigers. We asked a lot of questions about the one we went to and read some papers they had posted. They definitely did not use drugs on the tigers there and seemed pretty devoted to keeping the tigers healthy and happy. I think the best testament to the fact that they didn’t use drugs and treated the tigers well was that the tigers looked playful, healthy and happy!