Where in the world is Santa Claus????

Wondering where Santa is? Click on the link below to find out. Currently at 1:57 pm PST he was in Egypt.

Santa Tracker 2006

Hope everyone has all their shopping and wrapping done and you are sitting back and relaxing today. I am working today until midnight, Greg is slaving away at work until 5 pm, and Belly is hanging out with her Nana and Papa today until Greg gets off work. I can't wait to get off work and be at home so I can indulge in the cookies and milk (hopefully its chocolate milk) that Belly will be leaving for Santa. Plans also include putting together all those pesky toys that require assembly. I'm thinking its gonna be a long night. :)

Santa Claus is coming to town!

Merry Christmas from us to you!!

Hopefully by now, you have or are receiving our Christmas cards. (As usual, they are probably going to be a little late. No matter how early I buy them, the annual trek to the Post Office seems to always be delayed). Maybe you are checking out this blog for the 1st time, if so, take a look, read some posts, maybe send a comment or 2. We love repeat visitors so come back often! If you visit here often, thanks for checking us out! This has been a wonderful way for us to keep in touch with everyone, sharing news and photos. :)

First off, we want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. Since we have moved away we don't often get a chance to spend time with our family and friends like we did before. We are thinking about all of you during the holidays and hope that everyone is healthy, safe, and happy.

2006 has been a good year up here for us. We are all doing well, everyone is healthy and happy. Isabella (Belly) turned 3 this year. Time seems to be flying by and she is growing so fast. She is very, very excited about Christmas this year and has compiled quite a list for Santa Claus.

After graduation from culinary school last year Greg found work at Chipotle which is a Mexican grill. This year he became a manager with them and with continued hard work will hopefully be in his own Chipotle restaurant by next year. I started with Portland 911 in February '05 and just this past July became a certified dispatcher. The training program was long, grueling, and very stressful. I now have a full time permanent position with the city which is great and with training behind me, the job feels hardly stressful at all.

We haven't had much opportunity to travel since moving up here with school and work schedules. This year, however, we were able to make 3 trips down to CA to visit with everyone. It was great to travel, Belly even got to take her 1st plane ride which she loved. We were able to spend Easter with the family (thanks again M/P/A/A for letting us take over the house for a few days!) and a little time pre-Thanksgiving (thanks S/A/S for the place to kick off our shoes). More thanks of course to Nana Debbie and Papa Mike who always let us take over the place when we visit.

Next year we are hoping to get out of town more often. So far, plans are in the works to take Belly on her 1st Disneyland trip; eat some Dodger dogs while watching a Dodger game; and take in the sights of Chicago.

Not much else going on in this Mattie household. We have high hopes for 2007 and have our fingers and toes crossed that work will continue to go well so that we can buy a house this year. We are hoping to get a few more visitors this year so if you are looking at taking a trip and thinking, hey.... I wonder where I can go..... think Portland!

We wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! May God bless and keep you safe.

~~~~Greg, AnnMarie, and Belly :)


A Christmas Prayer by Robert Louis Stevenson

Loving Father, Help us remember the birth of Jesus,
that we may share in the song of the angels,
the gladness of the shepherds,
and worship of the wise men.

Close the door of hate and open the door of love all over the world. Let kindness come with every gift and good desires with every greeting. Deliver us from evil by the blessing which Christ brings, and teach us to be merry with clear hearts.

May the Christmas morning make us happy to be thy children, and Christmas evening bring us to our beds with grateful thoughts, forgiving and forgiven, for Jesus' sake.

Amen.

For those of you keeping track, as promised from an earlier blog here are the Christmas cards that didn't make the cut. Enjoy! Check back soon, we will post our Christmas day photos soon.

All we need now are presents!

Since the last blog, we've been busy getting ready for Christmas! The tree is finally trimmed, Greg is 90% done with the lights outside, and we have knocked out about 3 gifts. hahaha, we have a little ways to go. The most important issue though, has concluded... our Christmas photo. We can't share with you the ones that didn't make the cut yet (stay tuned for the rejected ones coming soon to a blog near you) but to keep you entertained here are a few photos of Christmas tree shopping,




trimming the tree,




the finished product,




and outside lights.




As for life outside of planning Christmas festivities, I am finally healing from my wisdom teeth surgery from a few weeks ago. It was a lot more pain than I expected but it did buy me a few extra days off work (always nice). Thanks to the fun of healing, our anniversary dinner was canceled but hopefully this week we will finally get a chance to go out and enjoy a nice dinner somewhere while Belly hangs with her Nana and Papa. As for the weekend ahead, besides work, work, work, Greg has his Chipotle Christmas party that we are looking forward to.

The weather here (in case you aren't weather fanatics like we are) is bee-yuuuu-teee-ful. Plenty of rain and wind to go around. Here is a look at our current weather conditions that we find so lovely! (addendum on 12/14... hahaha, I copied the link and not just the picture, soooooo... depending on when you actually view the blog, the radar might show lots of rain or possibly nothing at all. oh well. just trust us, it was rainy, rainy, rainy at the time!)


We will be sending out Christmas cards at the end of the week so please be sure we have your current mailing address, you can send it to our gmail email address if you have had changes recently.

In the next few days or so I am going to try and add some fun links to the blog so that should you come and check it out more often, there will be some new things to see and enjoy besides us!

:)

It all started back in 1993...

16 years ago, 1 fateful September night, Greg and I met for the 1st time. We were both joining a new bowling league dedicated to a friend that was killed in a car wreck just days before. We became fast friends and spent plenty of weekends hanging out with our friends, going to football games, bowling, and eating bad foods. We even went to high schools on opposite corners of the road in Santa Maria. After graduation we took a few classes together at Allan Hancock, took more than a few afternoons ditching class to go and drive to Pismo, heck.. we even worked at the same gas station in Orcutt. We were always laughing, chit chatting, doing our thing. Back in those days we were merely just friends.

It wasn't until after a very life changing 1997 that the tides started to change. Late in the year after spending just over half a year apart over a silly disagreement, we reconnected. January 1998 we started dating, a month later we were moving on a whim and starting a new life in Visalia, and that May 2nd we were engaged. Lots of planning, changing plans, making new wedding plans, changing those plans, and then changing plans yet again, we set a date and a place, and December 4th 1999 we took a walk down the aisle. 7 years later and 1 extremely great kid down (hopefully 1 or 2 more to go), the rest is history. It's been quite the ride the last 7, with a major move, 2 educations down, new careers, and who knows what the future has in store for us. I know for sure that I chose the right partner for this journey we are taking.

God blessed us that one day back in September of 1993. If it hadn't been for that league starting and us needing another member to join to make it enough to keep the league going (Greg was the final addition to the league), we might never have even met.

I was going to post a few pictures of our weddin' day as a trip down memory lane, but thanks to my $#^@$* printer/scanner, I was unable. If I can figure it out I will add some pictures of us from way back when.