It's Christmas Morning!!!!

Chelle and I awoke at 7:30 to open gifts and greet our house guest for the week.
We are so excited to be able to have cute little Lola with us. Her parents Amber and Nathan our going home for Christmas so we get to enjoy her company.





LA LA LA LA LOLA

It's Christmas Eve 2005!!!
HO HO HO! We just got back from the Chrismas Eve service at Bel Air Pres. It was beautiful, but there was no snow on the ground when we got out so I guess we won't get a White Christmas this year......oh well, we don't mind enjoying the 80 degree weather together amid our beautiful blue tree.

We miss you all and love you more. May all your wishes come true this year and may you know the blessings of our Lord ---- we do!
_Chelle Crowe

Brentwood Festivus!
Last night Apartments 101, 102, and 103 shared in a combined Christmas party. We gathered the multitudes to join us for food, drinks and joy! A great time was had by all. We worried that no one would come - but come they did - in droves. Sure does feel great to see so many new faces and different personalities in one place! Thanks to all who shared the Spirit of the Season with us. We had such a wonderful night!!Amber, Heidi, and Chelle
Heidi, Nathan, Susan, and Brandy
Ari
Josh, Lisa, Heather, Rich, Keirin, and Jeff
Heidi and Ken
John, Rich and Josh in front of the gang
Marcy and Ryan
Josh and Lisa

This weeks house guest include: Singer Songwriter Producer Ian Eskelin and Billboard Charting DJ to the Stars Trent Dean!

Introducing our first Christmas tree!

Chelle and I are very excited to have a real Douglas Fur christmas tree. We picked it up in Santa Monica on Sunday. We strapped it to the top off the car and brought it home. I made a Christmas radio station on www.pandora.com and we drank Chelle's special mix of Egg Nog while we decorated. It's so nice to smell the tree in the arpartment. The sense memory that a Christmas tree evokes is awesome. We've both been so fortunate to have had amazing upbringings. We are very blessed with great families.
This will be our very first Christmas all by ourselves, so we adorned the tree with only blue Christmas lights. We are going to have a blue Christmas. :-(
However, come January family a plenty!!!!

You can see the stages of tree decorating.

The Montana Christmas Walk

Judy and I

Ari, David, and Me. I guess we didn't take any photos of my favorite short girl. Once a year Santa Monica allows the patrons of the Montana Christmas Walk to walk from store to store with wine. We had to take the city up on this offer, so we went down with neighbors Judy and Ari. We had a great time.

Visited by the Dripps


The young Dripps

We were delighted to come home from Portland in time to enjoy a visit from Marcus, Lucy, Finn, Freddie, Samuel, and soon to be announced Dripps. Some very fantastic friends that moved back to Australia when they only had one son and one on the way. A few years later and there is a gaggle of Dripps for us to enjoy, and still one more on the way.

A very cool view of one of my favorite cities in the U.S. This was taken on the top floor of the US Bank building where met with Bob and Chelsea.



It hasn't changed much since I moved out of this house in 1987. This is where I spent my life from around the age of 3 until 17. It was a wierd feeling seeing again. It's amazing how the feelings and memories come rushing to your brain when you see something so familiar to you that you haven't seen in person in a long time.



A special treat. I had told Chelle how much I was hoping to see my good friend Tom Tuetsch, and as we were leaving the hotel, who should I almost step on on the way to the car!?! That's right! Tom Tuetsch. He was walking in to see the Christmas bazarre with his wife, son, and mother-in-law as we were walking out. It was a very cool couple of minutes.


We had such a great time with Eric and Margo. They are great friends.

Our Thanksgiving Trip to Portland


We had such a great time with my best friend from high school Eric and his lovely wife Margo. We were joined with their friends Lance and Kristen and their adorable son Aiden and baby girl.




This is the view of Portland from Eric's living room window. He has a very cool heart shaped swimming pool and hot tub. This photo does not do it justice. You can see almost all of Portland, Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood.





We had such a good time. We can't wait for Margo to give birth to their baby so she and Eric can come visit us in Cali.

So we went garage sale shopping this morning and we found some great stuff. First of all, we moved the new chaise in to the couch position and put it up against the wall. There are some new shag pillows to pull in the retro feel - Ah, we are too cool now.



We also got some new prints and frames for some more decor.




And finally, Chelle and I have been wanting to get a shelf to hang above the bed. We had looked at getting one from several different places, but for the size we wanted they were close to $50.00. We found this bad boy at a garage sale and only paid $6.00 for it. It is perfect. We are very happy campers.

My angel's birthday gift!

Never mind the fact that Chelle's birthday gift was several months late, it's here now.
She is the proud owner of the Janome 5124 sewing machine. This is the same sewing machine that mother owns, so we figured if Chelle needs any tutoring as she learns to sew it would simplify things if they both had the same machine.

The adorable wife is going to learn to sew and make adjustments to our clothes, gifts for friends and family, and quite possibly make us a small fortune. She is such a creative women, and gifted to boot. This might be the beginning of a clothing empire!

Only time will tell!

Sunset Ranch in the Hollywood Hills
Saturday at 4:15, 17 of us met at the Sunset Ranch for a horse back adventure.
We had horses hand picked for us by the great staff and once we were in the saddle we headed up the hill.
The ride to the resturant took nearly two hours and included great views of Los Angeles and Burbank, as well as the Hollywood sign and even a special treat passing by the set of the third installement of the "Fast and Furious".
After tying the horses up to the fence, we all sat down family style at a mexican restaurant for beans and margaritas.
At about 8:00, we got back on the horses and headed for home under the stars. The ride back only took about an hour. What a great time and a very cool experience. I had no idea that you could feel so outside of LA while you were in the middle of it.
I recommend this trip whole heartedly.
Visit the website for more info. www.sunsetranchhollywood.com/ 

The whole gang at dinner. 

The Hollywood sign. 

My girl is leading the pack with her horse Fox. Chelle was awesome! She was all over the place with Fox. 

Good Times in the dark! 

Nick and Francesca as pirates 

Neo explaining what the Matrix is with the help of a few beers. 

Bedroom eyes. 

Chelle, Judy and Verna