Christmas with the Gabels

We had a great Christmas with Chris' parents and Alison here for a few days. It was very relaxing, we mostly hung out at home and visited and watched movies. It was great to have everyone here for our first Christmas at home. Unfortunately, we forgot to take any pictures. Except of Scoop. Here she is on Christmas morning, about one minute before Chris came downstairs and about one minute and 15 seconds before she was no longer wearing her Christmas outfit.

We were all spoiled with fun presents and good company, and enjoyed an evening visiting with Bill, Louise, Brad and Linda before the Gabels headed back to Arizona.

I hope you all had a great Christmas, too!

Denim & Leather

A couple years ago, Erin & Sandor threw an ugly sweater party. And then lots of other people did, too. And this year Erin decided she wanted something more original, and somehow the idea of a denim and leather holiday party was born.

Since Scoop came with us to the party, I decided she should fit the theme, so I found her a jean skirt on sale. For myself, I found a leather vest and borrowed a mullet wig to complete the look.
I wasn't the only one in a wig! Chris opted for a more "classy" denim and leather look. (Read: bo-ring.)

So did Zmoe.

I'm surprised Chris smiled for this photo. He could barely look at me while I was wearing that wig.

Sandor, Julie and Erin

The party was lots of fun with hilarious costumes, good food and good company. I don't know how they'll top it next year ;-)

Dear Santa: We're ready for you

Scoop and I got the Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving. (After I went out to cover the Black Friday story at 4 a.m. and we took a long nap.) But what's more exciting is that, this year, for the first time, Chris put up Christmas lights! Since he was in junior high he's been in charge of hanging the lights at his parents' house. But we haven't been able to hang lights since we moved to Reno because our apartment didn't have any outlets out on the balcony. We had to wait a couple weeks to hang lights this year until we could borrow a ladder high enough to reach the top of our house.
Finally, we got it on Sunday, and I supervised while Chris climbed the ladder.
Here's the front of the house. I think next year we'll add more above the garage, too.

And here are the lights over the back patio.

And a late addition to the decorations last night, Scoop helped with the garland for the banister.

We're having fun decorating the new house and we're excited for our Christmas visitors to arrive next week!

Feel free to call me Master

It's been a whirlwind few days here with my parents and sister visiting and graduation festivities. We were so spoiled to have them here helping us cook and clean for the party, and it was such a nice treat to all be together.

Friday afternoon the journalism school had a reception for undergrad and graduate students who were graduating. Here are the girls in my cohort with our graduate adviser.

The Family - Mena, Chris, Me, Dad, Deb, Mom

Since Chris had to go to Vegas for work on Saturday, we had a party on Friday night. Here again are the girls in my cohort - Whitney, Ana, Me, Carlie, Heather and Megan

Na, Me, Julie and Erin

Graduation was on Saturday morning. Julie was shooting the ceremony for the paper, so she got some pictures for me - thank goodness because everyone else was sitting pretty far away.

The Cohort

It really was a fun weekend and I just have one assignment left to finish and I'm all done! My Dad and Deb left yesterday and my sister left this morning. We had such a nice time visiting with them and wish we could all be together more often.

Tomorrow morning I start a new job doing social media. I'm really excited about a new challenge, but a little nervous, too, for my first non-newspaper job in many years. Wish me luck!

A little of this, a little of that

Over the weekend, we had our first snow. Not quite the "epic" storm that was forecasted, thank goodness, but enough for Scoop to sniff around in for a little bit Sunday morning. Most of it melted by the end of Sunday, which I was glad for because I had to drive to school bright and early Monday morning to prepare for my defense. (Unfortunately, Quincy was hit way harder than Reno was and my Mom wasn't able to make the drive to come to the defense). Chris came for my defense, and it was easier than I imagined (I tend to get really nervous speaking in front of people - especially people who decide whether or not I've earned my master's) and my committee all thought I'd done a good job and signed all the necessary paperwork. What a relief! Chris took me out to a big Mediterranean lunch to celebrate. Now, I just have to write one more paper and take a final and I'm all done! It snowed some more yesterday, and overnight our low was 5 degrees, but it warmed to about 11 by the time Scoop and I got up. Time to get out the boots and gloves!

We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Indie Reno

On Saturday, my craft group held our first craft fair, Indie Reno. I had never done a real craft fair before and wasn't sure what to expect. I didn't have as much inventory as some of the other tables (I've been a little busy preparing for my master's defense) but I still exceeded my sales goals, and it was fun. A lot of my people I knew came by, and Na stayed to help me all day, and she and Erin both helped out with giftwrapping (we offered giftwrapping and hot cocoa for free). I'm pretty sure I have the best friends ever.

Here is my table. The light in the window behind made it hard to get a good picture.

We also gave swag bags to the first 25 people who walked in the door.
People actually were lined up outside before we opened!

I'm looking forward to our next show, sometime in the spring!

Fantasies in Chocolate

Last year, I volunteered at the annual fundraiser for the RGJ Foundation, Fantasies in Chocolate, and thought it would be fun to go, uh, for fun. Then Julie told us she and John were going to go for her birthday, so that was the perfect excuse for all of us to go.

Erin, Na, Me and Julie

John, Chris and Sandor

Team Gabel

We had lots of chocolate, wine and some savory food as well, even barbecued pulled pork with chocolate sauce and chocolate-covered bacon! It's always fun (for the girls at least) to get dressed up, and we all had a good time.

Movember

Chris shaved! He's growing a mustache for Movember, to raise money for prostate cancer research and to raise awareness. He's actually also growing a beard, despite my attempts to persuade him to just do the mustache. I mean, it's only for one month, right? I'm still holding out hope he'll shave down to just a mustache on the last day - at least long enough to let me take a picture. In the meantime, I'll be taking a picture of the progress daily. Here are days 1, 3, 4 and 5. (Day two was election day and Chris was asleep when I left and came home that day, so I missed the picture.)

If you want to donate to the cause, find Chris' profile here.

I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam

This weekend we went out with some friends to celebrate Halloween. Chris and I earlier in the week were trying to find simple matching costumes and Andrea came up with a great idea - Popeye and Olive Oyl.

We went out downtown during the Zombie Crawl, though only some of us were zombies. Zombie pirates, that is.

John and Julie went as Fred and Wilma.

These guys joined us after the Wolf Pack/World Series games were over.

Good times.

Sketchy

I've always enjoyed drawing. I've never had any formal training, and I wouldn't claim to be an artist or anything, I just like to do it. When I was a kid, I drew things all the time and once or twice entered my drawings in the fair. I still doodle, especially while I'm in class, as you can see by taking a peek inside any of my notebooks.
My mom and stepdad always encouraged me to draw, and once invited a friend's daughter who was a trained artist to give us a lesson in drawing faces. Stony kept things I had drawn hanging in his office at our house, and for my 20th birthday, he sent me a sketchpad and a drawing kit with pencils, charcoals and chalk to remind me that I hadn't been drawing enough.

When I read that my cousins Mandy and Denise and their mom Jane were participating in The Sketchbook Project, I knew I also wanted to do it. I signed up a couple weeks ago and received my sketchbook in the mail last weekend. My theme is "... you'd be home now" and I imagine that I will interpret that quite loosely. I decided that I will dedicate my sketchbook in Stony's memory, since I know he would be just delighted by this project.

I still have the drawing kit Stony gave me. (I still haven't been drawing enough.) So that is what I used for the the first drawing.
I'll post some more updates on the progress of the sketchbook before I have to send it in. I hope Chris and I will be able to go to San Francisco in June to see the Sketchbook tour.

Laurnesto does Vegas

A few weeks ago, our friends Ernesto and Laura were both going to be in Phoenix and we really wanted to be there, but we couldn't make it happen. Luckily, Chris was able to join them in Vegas a couple days later ... but since Chris never writes blogs anymore, Laura agreed to write a guest blog. Enjoy!

So Ernesto, my cousin Eddie and my friend Nikki made a short but very sweet trip to Vegas to feed our (or mine mostly) Vegas itch. Short is an understatement as we were there for just about 24 hours. So the question was how much trouble could we get into in such a short amount of time. After a long car ride that consisted of a lot of “ would you rather” (in which we all learned a little bit more about each other) and lots of pictures of the new Hoover Dam bridge we arrived.

So we had a crazy fun night of boozing and gambling.When we woke up the next morning Ernesto was missing, there was a tiger in the bathroom, Chris was missing a tooth......oh wait I am thinking of a different trip to Vegas.

Ours was not as crazy as the Hangover, the highlight of the night was when I sat next to a fun old lady who helped me play Pai Gow Poker. After I was up $100 dollars, she said to me, “raise your bet el cheapo.”

The rest of the night consisted of some dancing in a bar, me outlasting everyone, then everyone thinking I got lost when I was just out gambling still, taking a short nap, getting breakfast at noon at Denny’s,a little bit more gambling and a very long car ride home.

In other news Ernesto and I got engaged 2 days earlier, if you know who we are or just want to see something that might make you cry in a good way, check out this video.

Go Team

Last weekend was Homecoming and since I average about one game a season and since Nevada was hosting San Jose State, we decided to go. My original plan was to create a hybrid Nevada-SJSU T-shirt, but I couldn't find a Wolf Pack shirt at the thrift store, so I went with this instead.

Before the game, we joined our friends for some tailgating festivities.
They were anxious for Chris to arrive with the Baggo, of course.
Did you know Chris was such a multi-tasker?
As for the game, the Wolf Pack won, as was expected, but the Spartans scored in the double digits, which nobody really expected, so that was a victory-of-sorts in itself. (Of course, yesterday was a bad day for both teams.)
Good times. See you next year, Mackay stadium.

Miguel's Meat Cake!

Guest blog brought to you by Tammy's sister Marina:

I love to bake. As you can tell by Tammy's posts, it's somewhat of a family trait. But the problem is Miguel has more of a savory tooth than a sweet tooth. So this year for his birthday I thought I would try to make something that he would enjoy eating as much as I would enjoy baking it. A friend of mine had the solution - a meat cake! It was perfect, I found a good recipe online, and got started.

6 lbs of meet, prepped and ready to bake

cooked and cooling, tops cut off

filled with gravy made from the drippings

(the recipe called for ketchup glaze but I thought gravy would look and taste better)

some boxed mashed potatoes and a little food coloring...

and ta-da - it's a cake!

Happy Birthday Miguel!

Guess what!? It's meat!

I knew it was a smashing success when Miguel tasted it and said, "this is the best cake I've ever eaten."