Insomnia Rears It's Ugly Head

Hello, everyone!

We have been fighting colds recently, which unfortunately messed with sleeping patterns. Since we are still up, why not update the blog?

November has been a busy month, much like all of our other months. In the beginning on the month, Jeff's youngest brother, James, came home from his mission. James served his mission in Brazil and we all were able to meet him at the Oakland Airport. This past Sunday he was asked to speak at both his parent's ward and his single's ward. Jeff was lucky enough to go, but Jen was running a fever and had to stay home.

On the 17th we celebrated another milestone. We have now been married for seven years! It has been an interesting roller coaster ride, but one neither of us would change. We had already celebrated our anniversary with the Seattle trip, but decided on the day of to go to Espetus, a Brazilian steakhouse in San Mateo. Dinner was nice, and we took a few pictures, but just enjoyed a quiet day together.

That weekend was the Big Game. For the third year, we went to the Stanford-Cal football game. This year the game was at Stanford and at first Jen had a hard time getting tickets, but she got a really good deal on seats, which turned out to be section 101, front row right next to the tunnel where the players run out. It was a great game, especially because Stanford won, but it was raining the entire game unfortunately.

The following week was Thanksgiving, at Jen's sister's house. It was a pretty quiet day, with just Jen's parents, siblings and her nieces there for the day. The food was awesome, and we got to do the majority of the work, but it was so much fun! Everything ended up tasting great, and then Jen, Jeff, Jen's sister Myra and our nieces Sarah and Rachel went Black Friday shopping.

We decided to hit McCarthy Ranch in Milpitas because The things we really wanted were at Walmart and Best Buy, and they bad both stores there. Jeff, Myra and Rachel waited to get in line at Walmart while Jen stayed at Best Buy. Unfortunately, the line to get into Walmart was insane, and a lot of people were pushing us to get in, so much that we had to yell at them to leae us alone. Inside the store, a lot of people were impatient, and tried to cut us in line. We didn't get much there, and don't know if we will go back to Walmart on Black Fridays anymore. Aoparently a lot of Walmarts had problems like that. Fortunately, Jen got everything she wanted at Best Buy, and now is the proud owner of a new GPS and two new BluRay boxed sets: Lord of the Rings and Star Wars!

Last Saturday we got to go on one more fun outing. We went with our friend Tanicia to go see Carmen at the San Francisco Opera. This was to make up to Jeff who fell asleep during the Opera At The Park event, and he actually enjoyed the opera. The three of us dressed up and went to the city. Originally we were going to go to dinner first, but a small emergency prevented that.

We went to go introduce Jacob to our nieces and while we were there a stray dog approached us. Another neighbor had followed him for several blocks and he was running loose in the neighborhood. The City of Fremont wouldn't come get him until Tuesday (and it was Saturday) so we caught him and brought him home. We posted flyers everywhere, but the old dog stayed with us until Monday. As Jen was calling around to local shelters, his owners found one of our flyers and called to claim him. Koa, we were told, broke out of his yard Friday night and was over a mile from his home, impressive for a 13-year old dog! His owners came and got him, and we miss the old dog lots, but we are happy he found his home.

Today a huge fog bank rolled into the bay area, and although its common to San Francisco, usually it doesn't reach Newark like this. On the way to work, Jen could not see the entire bridge she takes to get to work, and on the way home, she couldn't see the bridge at all! So. Decided to go outside and take pictures because this is an uncommon experience. We took a lot of pictures at the lake near our house, and they (along with our other pictures) are uploading on our computer now. Hopefully we can get them posted soon so we can share them all with you.

Hope everything is going well with you all. School and work are still going but should wrap up soon. We are planning on sending our Christmas cards soon, so please email us your addresses if you would like one!