New Year's Eve...

New Year's Eve Day...

Today was a day for sleeping in, running errands and putting Christmas decor. We had to finish up Charlotte's Christmas Lego set first....it only took 5 days...age 12 with over 800 pieces (not sure WHAT I was thinking)...but we'll have it up every year under the tree by the train!

Charlotte got her Christmas Lego set complete!

Decided to take down all our wonderful Christmas cards...

Tried out the Cake Pop maker...yum!

We even made a Saturn Cake Pop!

Put together Christmas Card/photo books from 2008 - 2011 - YAHOO!
Got the idea from this wonderful blog entry!
http://eighteen25.blogspot.com/2011/12/christmas-card-books.html

Lots of great cards and photos I went thru...

This one totally cracks me up!

Wild and crazy times at the Cina household tonight...

Fireworks...

We have NO idea who was setting these off {wink}, but boy were they fun to watch.

You can hear Susie yelling "wait, my house is gonna get on fire"...

No one was hurt in the filming of this video!

Happy New Year...

Took this little video before we dropped Charlotte off at Nana & Papa's house yesterday...

We hope 2010 is a wonderful year for all of you!

1999 to 2009...

I am JUST realizing that we we are closing in on the END of another decade...even though I'm ONLY 40 years old, January 1st will be the SIXTH decade I've lived in...kinda weird to think about things that way...60's, 70's, 80's, 90's, 00's and now 2010..holy cow!

It also had me thinking about what I was doing 10 years ago...1999, oh what a year..."fortunately" I don't have any of those photos digitized (yet), but '99 was a GREAT year in my books...

• I wasn't married (with even a prospect in sight)...
• I lived in my very own home for over a year!
• I had been employed at Intel over 10 years...
• I turned 30 that year...
  
• Took my first sabbatical from work, spent nearly 6 weeks driving across the US and visiting some of my favorite cities (NYC, Chicago, San Diego, DC) with my mom and visiting my folks while they were living in Vermont...
• My brother Tim got married to my wondeful sister-in-law Kellie (what a fantastic wedding/party that was)...
• I lost my last grandparent that fall, but I know they are all up in heaven together, smiling down and watching over us (probably playing pinochle together, which they loved to do)! I miss you G-Ma & G-Pa Green & G-Ma & G-Pa Smith and think of you everyday...
• Y2K (the biggest story that ended up NOT being a story)...oh, the craziness leading up to it...and then nada, zilch...nothing happened....
• How did I finish up 1999?? ...well, I partied on a boat off the Big Island of Hawaii with two of best friends (Kim & Jenny) and we partied like it was 1999...I figured if it really was the end of the world, I'd rather be somewhere WARM than somewhere cold!
• January 1, 2000 -- I was with my friends spending the day/evening walking and watching Kilauea while the lava poured out...AWESOME! Do you remember where you were 1/1/00?

1999 to 2009...oh what a DECADE it was. My 30's were wonderful and my 40's, they are gonna be even better!

2008 Year in review...

Hard to believe yet another year has flown by. Victor, Charlie and I are so very lucky to have our wonderful family & friends both near and far. Here's a little look back at our 2008...I'm also working on a photo collage, but I'm a little challenged yet when it comes to Photoshop elements (Shelley said she'd send me instructions when she can).

• Trips to Mt. Hood for some sledding & snow shoeing...just need Charlie to start liking the snow!
• We attend four weddings this year of family & close friends.
• Josi/Glenn in March, St. Patty's Day to be exact.
• Susie/Shawn in May in HAWAII.
• Erica/Stephen in June on one of the HOTTEST days of the year and the ceremony was OUTSIDE.
• Kim/Tom in November at a cool pub in Sherwood!
  
• Shawn saves my photos...love having techno geeks as friends!
• The NY Giants win the Superbowl!!!
  
• Victor & I both turned 39...oh my, 40 is less than 6 weeks away.
• The KU Jayhawks win the Final Four b-ball tournament.
• We go to Oahu, Hawaii for 2 weeks in May to visit Nana & Papa Green and Victor & I go to Maui to attend Shawn & Susie's wedding. We also get to see Scott & Suzanne!
• Celebrating Charlie's 2nd birthday in Hawaii.
  
• Fun trip up to Anacortes to visit the Washington Greens. Uncle T and the entire town work on an amazing playground for the kids. Charlie, Claire and Marilyn get to spend a fun-filled day together and we celebrate their 3 May birthdays. We also stop by Relay For Life of Stanwood to visit my blogging buddy Doreen and her family.
• 6th Annual Relay For Life of Hillsboro - over $120,000 raised and over 150 Survivors honored. WeeBees for a Cure are the 5th highest FUNdraising team.
  
• Great Nana Charlotte, Uncle Donald and Aunt Sue come for the family wedding and we get to spend some fun time with them. Great Nana gets escorted off Cannon Beach by the Chief of police... ;-)
• 4th of July--fun at the Hillsboro Parade and then over at Susie & Shawn's place for some WILD fireworks courtesy of their crazy neighbor Chris!
• Sisters quilt show week with my WeBee buddies at Black Butte Ranch. We've been going every year since 1992.
• A few bocce ball tournaments this summer for Victor, Garland, Ken and Vincenzo. They don't win, but they have a great time playing!!!
  
• We just get settled into my parents home and then they move back early and we then live together until our house remodel is done in October.
• Biggest change for 2008...we had a pretty big remodel done on our home. 2 bedrooms added and COLOR is added to our lives via Maria (aka-Eldin) our friend and painting guru.
• Relay For Life of Newport -- camped out for 18 hours with the Hoffmans and Mr. Litkie..it was fun just attending another Relay and having zero responsibility!
• Trips to the Oregon Zoo and getting to see baby Sam the new elephant who was born in Sept.
  
• Summer Olympics see Michael Phelps win 8 gold medals.
• Victor & Kathy go see Jeff Dunham and Robin Williams perform in Portland and laugh their heads off.
  
• I attend my 4th Relay For Life Leadership Training Summit in Reno in Sept. Dr. Gordy Klatt (founder of Relay) is back and I get the pleasure of hanging out with our divisions top fundraisers. Another AWESOME experience.
• October has us going to Arizona to visit Nana/Papa Cina and Great Nana Charlotte. We have lots of fun and Victor & I get a couple of nights up in Phoenix while Nana & Papa babysit for us.
• Halloween Charlie dresses up like Pooh the Super Sleuth and gets to attend 4 different parties.
  
• Relay University in mid-November. Best one I've been a part of. The Relay Staff did an amazing job arranging everything. I had the pleasure of presenting with Shelley & Mark.
  
• November brings the Green Family Unit (my brother Tim, Sister-in-law Kellie, nephew Jack and niece Kaylie) to visit from San Diego. We get to spend a fun-filled weekend in Seattle/Redmond and get to spend some great time with Uncle T/Aunt L, Dave/Katie/Claire & Marilyn. The 5 kiddos get along great. Early Thanksgiving meal the Saturday before and it was just a wonderful weekend.
• One word sums up December.....SNOW!!! We had record snowfall and had a white Christmas! I've been instructed to NEVER hope for a white Christmas again, unless we decide to spend Christmas on Mt. Hood some day.

• Along with all the good times, we also lost some dear friends this year and we continue to keep them and their families in our thoughts and prayers.
• We also keep our friends and family that have and continue to have some pretty serious health issues, in our thoughts and prayers.
  

We hope that 2009 will be everything you want it to be and THANK YOU for being in our lives (even if we don't get to see you as often as we would like)! Come visit...we technically have a guest room now, it's just a little full still with my stuff!

Love - Kathy, Victor & Charlotte

42 ways to make 2009 awesome

Thanks Shawn for sending this to us...great ideas to incorporate into your daily life.

http://masteryourcard.com/blog/2008/12/15/44-ways-to-make-your-2009-awesome/

2008 is drawing to an end...

We are staying home this evening. I'm working on my 2008 Year in photos, not quite there yet. In just a little less than 7 hours it will be 2009! Seems like just yesterday we were ringing in 1999...