Here are a few of my favorite pictures from our trip to Idaho. Christmas Eve was spent with a wonderful horse drawn sleigh ride through the foothills of the mountain area surrounding Bear Lake, Idaho. Lily loved seeing the enormous horses and kept asking if she could ride a pig and a cow. Tag and his brother Tom enjoyed sledding behind the sleigh. Then we all enjoyed watching the horses pull my mom's Lexus out of the snow. Those are some powerful horses! 
We had Raclette, Fondue and a yummy blackberry drink for our Christmas dinner and I must say that it was by far the best meal I have had in a long time (excluding Thanksgiving dinner). I'm told that raclette means small scraper in French although it is a Swiss dish. You have a grill that you can cook anything you want, for example, steak, fish, chicken, pork, and vegetables. Below the grill there is a place for you to melt the cheese of your choice (there is a raclette cheese). Then you scrape the cheese over the food that you have grilled and enjoy. My favorite combination was Brie cheese over potatoes and shrimp. It had been years since I have had raclette so I really enjoyed having it on Christmas.
Snowmobiles! Tag's family has a little farm on about 7 acres of land that we got to tear up today on snowmobiles. In one picture you can see Tag and I towing my mom and Lily behind us in a big bucket.
SORRY - These pictures aren't working. I posted a super cheesy one until I can figure out what the problem is. For now just picture in your mind me and mother-in-law constructing a gingerbread house (don't forget to imagine my bright blue polka dot pajamas).
My mother-in-law and I thought it would be a lot of fun to make a gingerbread house. Yes, those are my very loud, blue pajamas. I love them! She has never made one before and it has been a long time since I have so we put in our best effort and it turned out pretty well. All in all we had a great Christmas vacation in Idaho.
Lily made herself right at home in our suitcase. Something tells me she is ready to go on vacation!
SANTA CAME EARLY THIS YEAR! We bought a house! Tag and I are so excited that we are now homeowners. This house needs a lot of work because it was a bank foreclosure as I'm sure you can see by the condition of the front yard. However, we got and incredible deal on it. We expect lots of people to come and visit. The painters came today and I can already see a huge difference. I will eventually post before and after pictures. Here's a little information on our new home. There is just over 3,100 square feet. Lily has a nice size yard to play in and we are right across the street from the park and pool. Our neighborhood is in a really nice area. We will be able to move in as soon as the new carpet is installed which should be the first or second week in January. We love company so please come and visit! I feel like I should add that we weren't looking for a house this big. In fact the houses in this area are way out of our price range, but we just came across it one day. Because it was a foreclosure we could afford it and it is such a good investment. With a little TLC it will be worth a lot more than we paid for it. For now we will have to be okay with the fact that we will have a lot of empty rooms. We hope everyone has a great Christmas. Sorry we didn't send out christmas cards this year, but thank you to all of the people who sent us one. We have loved getting them!
These guys are so talented and funny! You have to turn off the Christmas music to hear it.
Cash Advance Loans
We had planned a really fun trip to Vail with our friends Deren and Tara to go skiing. Unfortunately, my foot has been killing me the last few weeks (more like months) and Tara doesn't really like to ski so we opted out. The guys went skiing/ snowboarding and Tara and I found a great little hotel right by the slopes that has a beautiful fireplace with a library and games. We played Skip Bo and Lily played Candy Land. We also had hot chocolate and walked around to some of the fun shops. Even though it was freezing outside, it was still a beautiful day.
Well, it finally happened. After 2 years of a lot of close calls, Lily has a fat lip. Lily's friend Paul came over to play tonight and I was reading to them "The Gingerbread Baby" by Jan Brett. They were playing on one of Lily's chairs and eating gold fish crackers. Then Lily fell and hit her face on the side of the dresser. I dropped the book and taking a quick glance at her face swooped her up in my arms. She buried her face into my chest and cried, but didn't seem to be injured. She started crying for daddy so she left my arms in search for him and sometime from the moment she left me to the moment she got to him (about 5 seconds) her mouth was FILLED with blood and her lip was swelling. I started freaking out! Now, you would think that because I have seen her a lot worse, only open heart surgery, that I would be more collected in moments like this. Nope. Tag, had to turn his attention away from Lily to calm me down. I'm such a good mom. Suffice it to say that I was more traumatized from the accident than Lily. You can see the faded blood on her pajamas. Also, poor girl needs a haircut.
Late at night when Tag and Lily have both gone to bed, I sneak over to the computer and click a link to a site I have on my bookmark bar. The anticipation is hard to stand, will there be another installment? I have become totally obsessed with her stories, her humor, and her surprise contests. "What on earth are you talking about, Tracy?” you ask. Well, I'm about to let you all in on a little secret. I can't not get enough of a woman named Ree and her website Confessions of a Pioneer Woman! Another confession, no I don't really sneak to the computer after they have gone to bed. Tag is aware of the fact that I love Pioneer Woman (he's now claiming he never knew) and he can thank his mother for that. She is the one who told me about the site and now we are both hooked. I think my sister in law is too. Thousands of women all over the country read about Pioneer Woman everyday! I don't know why she is so addicting, but I check her site all the time for new posts! I highly suggest that you go to her site, www.thepioneerwoman.com and read her love story. It is AWESOME! Every week or so she adds another chapter/installment, so make sure you start from the beginning. It's called "Black Heels to Tractor Wheels: A Love Story". So far her blog has remained very clean/ kid friendly. I urge everyone to check her out. Did I mention that I'm totally obsessed?
I am having a moment where I feel like sharing a few things about myself. Some of you may have heard of a company called Gallup. They are well known for their "personality tests" that many huge companies like to give during an interview process or to current employees. Many company's decsions to hire someone may derive from this particular test. It is a well designed test that makes it impossible for you to try to manipulate the results. You all know what I'm talking about to, who hasn't read a teeny bopper magazine and taken one of the tests that you try so hard to make the final answer exactly what you wanted to hear. Anyway, I took the Gallup Strength Finders test and it gave me my top 5 personality traits. Some I am proud of and some I am not. All of the traits they give you have a postive side and they tell you how they can be negative too. The one thing I have always disliked about myself ended up being my number one personality trait. YIKES!!!! Before I share my traits with you, I am going to suggest the book and test (you have to buy the book to be able to take the test) as a great Christmas present. It was a lot of fun to take and find out more about myself. Okay, here they are.
#1 - WOO
#2 - Relator
#3 - Belief
#4 - Adaptability
#5 - Empathy
I took this test over a year ago (almost 2 years ago) and found my results as I was cleaning out my bedside table today. It's funny because I don't feel like I have been very empathetic lately (#5). The description says that you can know the right words to say and the right tone to say them in. I feel like that couldn't be further from the truth these last few months. I feel like I've been really hard on the people around me and taken on the "just get over it" attitude. It's amazing how stress can change you. Also, because I know that WOO is my number one quality I have actually started in the last year staying away from striking up a conversation with everyone I meet. Anyway, here are the descriptions of each trait:
Woo
Woo stands for winning others over. You enjoy the challenge of meeting new people and getting them to like you. Strangers are rarely intimidating to you. On the contrary, strangers can be energizing. You are drawn to them. You want to learn their names, ask them questions, and find some area of common interest so that you can strike up a conversation and build rapport. Some people shy away from starting up conversations because they worry about running out of things to say. You don't. Not only are you rarely at a loss for words; you actually enjoy initiating with strangers because you derive satisfaction from breaking the ice and making a connection. Once that connection is made, you are quite happy to wrap it up and move on. There are new people to meet, new rooms to work, new crowds to mingle in. In your world there are no strangers, only friends you haven't met yet-lots of them.
Relator
Relator describes your attitude toward your relationships. In simple terms, the Relator theme pulls you toward people you already know. You do not necessarily shy away from meeting new people-in fact, you may have other themes that cause you to enjoy the thrill of turning strangers into friends-but you do derive a great deal of pleasure and strength from being around your close friends. You are comfortable with intimacy. Once the initial connection has been made, you deliberately encourage a deepening of the
relationship. You want to understand their feelings, their goals, their fears, and their dreams; and you want them to understand yours. You know that this kind of closeness implies a certain amount of risk-you might be taken advantage of-but you are willing to accept that risk. For you a relationship has value only if it is genuine. And the only way to know that is to entrust yourself to the other person. The more you share with
each other, the more you risk together. The more you risk together, the more each of you proves your caring is genuine. These are your steps toward real friendship, and you take them willingly.
Belief
If you possess a strong Belief theme, you have certain core values that are enduring. These values vary from one person to another, but ordinarily your Belief theme causes you to be family-oriented, altruistic, even spiritual, and to value responsibility and high ethics-both in yourself and others. These core values affect your behavior in many ways. They give your life meaning and satisfaction; in your view, success is more than money and prestige. They provide you with direction, guiding you through the temptations and
distractions of life toward a consistent set of priorities. This consistency is the foundation for all your relationships. Your friends call you dependable. "I know where you stand," they say. Your Belief makes you easy to trust. It also demands that you find work that meshes with your values. Your work must be meaningful; it must matter to you. And guided by your Belief theme it will matter only if it gives you a chance to live out your values.
Adaptability
You live in the moment. You don't see the future as a fixed destination. Instead, you see it as a place that you create out of the choices that you make right now. And so you discover your future one choice at a time. This doesn't mean that you don't have plans. You probably do. But this theme of Adaptability does enable you to respond willingly to the demands of the moment even if they pull you away from your plans. Unlike some, you don't resent sudden requests or unforeseen detours. You expect them. They are
inevitable. Indeed, on some level you actually look forward to them. You are, at heart, a very flexible person who can stay productive when the demands of work are pulling you in many different directions at once.
Empathy
You can sense the emotions of those around you. You can feel what they are feeling as though their feelings are your own. Intuitively, you are able to see the world through their eyes and share their perspective. You do not necessarily agree with each person's perspective. You do not necessarily feel pity for each person's predicament-this would be sympathy, not Empathy. You do not necessarily condone the choices each person makes, but you do understand. This instinctive ability to understand is powerful. You hear the unvoiced questions. You anticipate the need. Where others grapple for words, you seem to find the right words and the right tone. You help people find the right phrases to express their feelings-to themselves as well as to others. You help them give voice to their emotional life. For all these reasons other people are drawn to you.
Ah, snow. Or in other words, entertainment for hours. Lily could play outside in the snow for long periods of time (if I would let her). I would love to stay out there with her, but I get cold! I'm glad she enjoys the snow.
I took Lily down to see my grandmother, her great grandmother in Pauma Valley. She LOVED playing with the dogs, Jack & Jill. Isn't Pauma Valley beautiful! Lily woke up really early in the morning and the first thing she wanted to do was go outside to play.
I love Disneyland! I am so glad that Lily has been so many times and loves it just as much as I do. This last trip was especially fun because she actually knows who Mickey is now. We went on the Monday after Thanksgiving so there were NO lines. We were able to walk onto so many of the rides. The longest we stood in line was about 20 minutes. All of the characters were out and about and the weather was really nice. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day at Disneyland. **Yes, Lily's hair is out of control. I try to put barretts and bows in but they just slide right out. Oh well.
I came out to Cailfornia to visit family for a week. We had our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday and here are some pictures. My Mom is not only a great mom but an excellent cook!
I hope you all know what I'm talking about when I ask, Do you know someone who makes you laugh so hard every time you're around them no matter how much time has passed since your last visit together? For me, that person is my cousin Romi. She is one of the funniest people I know. We grew up together and have so many stories to tell. Getting together for Thanksgiving that's exactly what we did, tell old stories. She was making me laugh so hard. You know the kind of laugh that makes your whole body hurt, then you start crying because you are laughing so hard. That was how hard we were laughing or how hard I was laughing! Romi is a makeup artist in Hollywood. She is going to give me a make over on Thursday, I'm excited to see how it turns out. I'll post before and after pictures. 
I was going through old photos and came across some pictures from when Tag and I were dating. Tag started the food fight! The next two are engagement photos, then the last one is the day he came home from Iraq. Time goes by so fast!
