A Trout-y Christmas

Robert and I made our annual pilgrimage to the Trouts' this Christmas break and it was, as always, a wonderful holiday treat! We hadn't seen Christina and Rob since Christmas last year and so hadn't yet met little Gianna. She. is. adorable!!!  Little G was not afraid of strangers at all and let us hang with her quite a bit. She's such a good baby! Of course. All of my friends have fabulous babies that are friendly and well-behaved (in front of us, anyway). It's a conspiracy! Robert was, as expected, goo-goo for G and Chrissie did her best to play the baby card to try to persuade us to get in on the fun soon. (You can send her thank you card to us, Bob, and we'll forward it along. :o)  )  We always love catching up with everyone and had a great night of food and games. So much fun!!! Thanks to the Trouts for hosting everyone and to Christina for letting us horn in on the occasion.

I actually swiped this photo from Chrissie's Facebook page - it's Gianna on her first Christmas morning. I love this pic.

Robert is all aglow with baby fever. Again.

I told Rob we were going to send this photo out to unsuspecting  friends and family as a  "surprise!"  He seemed okay with it so it could still happen...

Little G has her own room at the Trouts' and it's absolutely adorable. Hopefully that means she'll come for visits more often!

G was a good sport and wore her Santa hat for us for a good chunk of the night.

Baby Gerbe!

Woohoo! Gianna Marie was born on Sunday, February 27th, at a healthy 6 pounds, 3 ounces. Christina was kind enough to post some photos of the little gal on Facebook so I'm taking that as an okay for me to post'em on the blog... ! I'm so glad Christina took a moment to share a few pictures because I was dying to see the newest Gerbe! I don't know when she'll make her inaugural visit to CA but I assume it won't be for quite a while. I'm so jealous of all their East Coast friends who get to visit so soon...

Congrats, Christina and Rob!!! She's a cutie and you guys look so happy. :o) Can't wait to see you all!

I can't believe how much hair she has!

Thanksgiving @ the Kidders'

SO! It is Friday the 17th and I have officially been done with my first quarter of the vet tech program for 8 days. And it's. been. fantastic! Soooooooooooooooo, so nice. I have loved having the time off just in and of itself but especially because it's before Christmas and has allotted me time to decorate at my leisure. I put off anything and everything holiday-related until finals were over and once they were I felt pressure to get goin' on all my stuff. (So much so that at 8:30 in the morning following my last final my eyes popped open and my brain started whirring. So, when I say "at my leisure" I mean it more in the sense that I had time to relax and do nothing after frantically rushing to put everything up all at once instead of my usual weekend of frantic decorating followed by going to work.) But I have finished the decorating and so now have time - and a bit more of an inclination - to post a few things that have been piling up in my queue. First up: Thanksgiving!

I actually don't have any photos of Robert and I at either of our parents' celebrations but, y'know, it was all the usual stuff. The next day, though, we were invited to a soiree at the Kidders' house that was a Thanksgiving/Christmas party/baby shower because Christina won't be able to fly out to CA for Christmas this year. (Boo.) As always, it was so much fun and Robert and I were happy to once again be included in the festivities. The best part was the 'tacky sweater' competition; the sweaters and decorative goodies were provided and all we had to do was gaudy up our sweaters as best we could. I definitely don't have a problem with, ahem, loud holiday wear (Christmas is a time for sequins and sparkle, damn it!) so that aspect of the design wasn't a problem for me. I am, however, super anal and in love with symmetry so it WAS very hard for me to just grab a bunch of stuff and slap it on my sweater haphazardly. Plus, my sweater had a design on it already and I just could not add things to the sweater that didn't go with the established motif! Needless to say, I didn't win. But I did get to keep my sweater so in a way I did. :o)

Here we are in our Christmas finery:

Robert just loved his doofy armband - he was convinced it made his sweater "couture."

And here I am with Chrissie and Emily. (Yes, I was the only one who kept their sweater on after the contest was over. I'm nothing if not festive!)

The little fluffball in my arms is Oliver, Emily and Paul's 5-month-old Maltese/Shih Tzu puppy. He was a big hit all night, as you can imagine... Though he was a big difficult to photograph!

More Memorial Day Pics

Christina took MUCH better photos of the Trouts' Memorial Day festivities and since she just uploaded them all to her flickr account, I went ahead and downloaded'em. (Thanks, Chrissie! Good work with your tripod!) My eyes are actually open in most of these so yay me.



L to R: Christina, me, Robert, Rob, Mrs. Trout, Mr. Trout, Amber, Jim, Mrs. Kidder, Paul, Emily, Mr. Kidder

Memorial Day @ the Trouts'

Our good friend Christina and her husband Rob made it to CA for the holiday weekend so Robert and I were invited to a BBQ at the Trouts' on Sunday. I had two papers due on Tuesday so I spent Friday and Saturday rolling around on my office floor trying to bribe anyone and everyone to write them for me. No one went for it so I eventually hunkered down and got the papers written. (Yes, I knew about them at the beginning of the quarter. So? What's your point? Maybe I just work better under pressure, did you ever think of that?!) As such, I was able to frolic about on Sunday unfettered by obligations and it was very nice indeed. :o)

The Kidders brought a croquet set over and I think everyone but Robert, Mrs. Trout and I didn't play. I wasn't really feeling it, to be honest, and I didn't really follow the rules, even though they were explained 256 times. (Though, to be fair, I wasn't really paying attention any of those times. I'm rude, not dumb.) From what I gathered, people enjoyed it.


The spread was huge. There were strip steaks, sausages, hot dogs, pulled pork sandwiches, shrimp, potato and cheese casserole, pasta salad, asparagus salad with avocado, green salad (provided by us - hi yo!), strawberries and watermelon with homemade apple pie for dessert. Even I found lots to eat and you know how picky I am.


Chrissie's brother, Jim, and his girlfriend, Amber, enjoying one of the many heat lamps. They were a lifesaver! For me, anyway. I think everyone else was fine but I was cold the entire night. I'm a wuss. (And I am totally making Robert get some heat lamps when we actually have a real yard.)


Emily's mom, Emily, Robert, me, Mrs. Trout, Jim and Amber enjoying the festivities.


Every year when I see a photo of the three of us, I think "Gee, I really need to lose a few pounds before we next get together!" So does not ever happen. But I always think it!

The Trouts are big game-players, so we busted out Cranium and pitted the guys against the girls. The girls were, unfortunately, trounced the last time all of us got together so it was sweet vin-di-cay-shee-own to win this time around!!! Ha ha! Suck it, fellas.


Here Jim is trying to use Rob to act out a curtsy. The guys actually got this one. Kind of annoying.


I believe Mrs. Trout is trying to act out opening gifts here with Christina. We guessed 'wrapping gifts' so we didn't get it. 'Cause the guys are sticklers. But we didn't need any pity points! We still won! Hoo hoo!! (When it was my turn to get up and perform, I had to do it alone and I had to act out lobster, shrimp cocktail and clam strips. Clam strips!!!!! But all three were guessed correctly, though (sadly) not due to my awesome charade skills. Still, is that not impressive? We were good!)



I'm not entirely sure what Robert is doing here - he had to act out the names of three TV shows and I don't know what this corresponds to.

As per usual, we had a great time and appreciated my parents letting the Funk hang at their abode for 8 hours on their holiday... :o)

The Gerbes

As I mentioned in an earlier post, my good friend Christina got married in NY on March 29th and, unfortunately, Robert and I were unable to attend. I chatted with Chrissie a bit last night and while I didn't get a boatload of details about the ceremony, it sounds like it was exactly what both Christina and Rob had hoped for - I couldn't be happier for them. :o) She forwarded some photos to me this morning so I thought I'd share a few:

Robert has always said he wants little people on our cake and I have always told him "No way. I don't think people do that anymore, man - it's old school!" (I don't even want a cake so the point may be moot anyway...) So what does Christina do? She shows me up by putting little people on her cake!! Selfish!



Both Chrissie and Rob look so happy - they're positively radiant! I'm very sorry Robert and I couldn't make it but I very much appreciate Christina passing some photos along. Now, I just wouldn't be me if I didn't rag on her a little so... It seems like just yesterday Christina was crying in 6th period over a breakup with her latest boyfriend, only to be making out with him by the time I drove past them in the parking lot after class. :o) And now my little Chrissie is married!!! Time flies when you're making fun of your nearest and dearest, I guess...

Christina's Shower

Christina had her (California) wedding shower on December 29th and I was lucky enough to be both invited and able to attend. I've been to Christina's house dozens of times over the years but never really paid any attention to the actual address; when I saw the shower was being held at a residence on her street, I assumed it was at her (parents') house. Luckily for me, just as I was about to make my way to the front door, I saw a woman with a large present being shooed across the street. Turns out, the Trouts' neighbor was throwing the shower ... whoops. Still, I made it in time and it was very nice. I didn't know anyone there but Christina and her mom, (though I had met Emily's mother and Christina's sister-in-law once or twice before), but her mom is always fun to talk to - and she took a bullet for me and let me steal her seat during the meal so I could sit with Christina and Emily's mom. Yay! A sweet gesture that was much appreciated! I also scored two prizes during the shower so, all in all, not too shabby for me. :o)


(Christina won't like this photo, but it's the only one Robert OK'd)

Afterward, I helped lug all of Chrissie's loot across the street and wound up staying for, oh, 6 or 7 more hours. I have always enjoyed hanging out with the Trouts and Chrissie's fiance, Rob, is very easy-going, too, so the time just flew by. I called up Robert and he brought over our Wii guitar for a little Guitar Hero III battle. Jim (Christina's brother) kicked my ass but at least I was better than Christina ... I have to be better than someone!! Sheesh. We played other Wii games, too, and I'm sure I beat Chrissie at least a few times - I distinctly remember her lippy tantrum face right before she made us switch games.
It was great to have a chance to catch up with Chrissie and her family - she's definitely someone that I don't talk too terribly often but when I do, it's as though I haven't been away. Unfortunately, Robert and I won't be able to attend her wedding, as it's in Long Island at the end of March, but hopefully she sends me lots of pictures!