Well it's a New Year...

...With it comes more than new fears."

New Years Eve..... did not suck. As depressing as that may sound, it is actually fantastic. I have certainly been through my fair share of rough New Years Eve's, and I was really trying to break the trend this year.
Nothing epic happened, it wasn't the best night ever, but it was all in all a good time. Sadly enough, this year I will not be able to join in on the oh so fun, "my New Years was worse than yours" banters. Success!

My darling little life saver, Kris, kept me company all night. She too has a montage of miserable New Years to speak of, so we thought we'd better stick togeher this time.

We all met at Cole's place, had a few drinks, walked around downtown, decided not to wait in enormous lines in the freezing cold, and spent the rest of the night chatting at Cole's and listenting to music. Pefect, mellow New Years. Just what I needed.

Maybe next year we will be brave, and try for a perfect, non-mellow New Years.
Cross your fingers.



Funny thing: We said lets do a "duck face" photo, because that is Derek's signature pose and we always make fun of him for it. He couldn't do it! Ha ha.

 

That hat had a lot of fun that night.

 One of my most fave songs of all time.....

 

Side Note: This is the first of many posts to come very shortly. I am trying to get caught up from the break. Obviously they will be out of order a little. I have lots of christmas stuff to come. This one just got done first.

Shooting Range

Since it's mostly just my mom, Bear, and Randi all the time now, things back home have sort of change a little bit. The three of them have developed cute little traditions/hobbies that they do together. My mom and Randi, being attached at the hip, have far too many quirky little things to mention. Bear and Randi, on the other hand, have a couple brand new ones that we got to join in on this holiday vacation.
The two of them, sometimes Tyler, go out to the shooting range near Lake Hemet to target practice quite often. It was pretty obvious that they are frequent visitors because Randi sort of showed us all up. I've never really been much into guns, so this was my first time shooting. I’m not very good, to say the least. Plus, I’m a huge baby. The shotgun about knocked me over, and the handgun just hurts my whole hand. Nonetheless, it was really fun to try, and I love that Randi and Bear have something fun to do together.
Tyler had a little BB gun that he loves to shoot zombies with. He would stand close enough for the nose of the gun to touch the paper, pull the trigger, and then freak out with excitement because he hit the target (or even if he didn't hit it). It was pretty entertaining.

Embarrassing....

Not really my thing....

Gettin' our Model shots on...

Shootin' Zombies!

Model shots of Derek.... He's so tough with that bebe gun :)

Grotto Hike

While we were in California for Christmas, we went on a really adventurous hike with the family in Idyllwild. Randi knows Idyllwild pretty well, since she spends so much time walking around with friends. She brought us to this awesome little trail called the Grotto. Basically, it is a creek surrounded by large rocks that create really cool walls and ravines. Since it was winter, the creek was much more full than usual and all of the rocks were covered in a thin layer of ice. It was a little dangerous, but made for a great adventure. Especially since we brought Tyler and Tundra with us.
We had so much fun scouting ahead, trying to find the best route for everyone. Exploring hidden caverns, and standing on tall rocks. I felt like a kid again. Where every hike you took was a miniature adventure/survival victory.

When the kids were tuckered out, we found a big tall rock platform where we all sat in the sun wishing we had brought a picnic. Luckily my dad had a small bag of cashews in his backpack. So we all rationed our nuts and rested in warmth before we headed back to reality.

Funny thing. We actually learned a lot about Tundra on this hike. We had heard that Samoyeds are considered to be herders. They like to keep others in the correct path and herd them in a certain direction. Well, this was the first time we noticed. He was totally herding all of us on the hike.
Anytime someone would fall behind, he would go all the way back and encourage them to keep moving. Then he would head back to the front. If I started going a different route he would come over and start yelling (barking) at me. It was so funny.
Plus he was slipping all over on the ice. That was hilarious too.

Ha ha. My dads glove. Kind of makes it cool though.

Mom slipped. You can't tell becasue of the sun, but it is super icy everywhere.

It was actually more scary than it looks walking on that log. Except the consequence is most likely not death, just a really long shower.