Tyler Jackson is here!!!

Erin and Chris' beautiful baby boy arrived last night at 9:04pm after 13 hours of labor. He weighed in at 7 pounds, 1 ounce and 20 inches long. Both parents sounded "high on life" (as Erin described it and just so grateful for their bundle of joy. They brought tears to my eyes as I listened to both of them talk about the little one.

Tyler was cool, calm, and collected as he entered the world and spent his first hour of life with his eyes wide open looking around the room. Maybe he was looking for his brother Herbie????

I spent the next hour calling all the girls of Rosemont. Since it was late no one answered so I got to leave lots of voicemails with a shaky voice (I was pretty emotional about it after talking to Erin) until I got ahold of Stacy! So at least I got to talk to someone about it. :)

Erin and Chris - CONGRATULATIONS!! We are so thrilled for your new addition and cannot wait to meet the new 'Man of Rosemont' very soon.

God Bless baby Tyler.

(Pics to come.)

We've made it! And we're experts!

Today marks Mike and my one year wedding anniversary! The time has gone by way too quickly but I have to say it has been one helluva year. I think we've got this whole newlywed thing down although it didn't take much work. I've heard that the first year is supposed "to be hell". If that's the case then we've got some great years ahead of us. Fortunately for us, I think the biggest argument we had over the last year was where we would store the grilling knife. Seriously. I thought it should be kept inside in a drawer while Mike wanted it to hang on the grill outside "in its place next to the rest of the grilling utensils". I was worried about our animals stabbing themselves so I won that argument. Other than the fight over the knife, it has been a relatively easy road for the two of us. I have to say that I'm really glad the wedding is behind us, although I do wish I was getting on a plane tomorrow for Bora Bora instead of heading into work.

In honor of our anniversary, I'm posting a few pics from our wedding: 08.17.07.

By the way, we just tried our top layer that we froze over the last year...it most definitely was not as good as it was on our wedding day. We each at one bite and threw the rest away. And that's saying a lot coming from me!

My sisters and I...

Eileen, Karen, Erin, Katie, Mer, myself, and Anastasia at The Starlight Lounge in San Francisco, CA...two nights before our wedding...

Mike with Rosemont!

And some never-before-seen pictures (b/c I'm too lazy to send them around) from our honeymoon!

Mike and I at the LA airport after I just realized where we were headed to...Bora Bora!!!
On our way to our resort...you could only get their by boat.

Our home for the week...an over water bungalow!

Mike arranged for breakfast to be served to us via outrigger canoe straight to our balcony. It was quite the spread!

We ate, drank, scuba dove, wind-surfed, snorkeled, had a day at the spa, ate, and drank some more! It was by far the best vacation we have ever had...so much so that we vowed to visit Bora Bora on our 10-year wedding anniversary. That being said, I sure do hope years 2 - 9 go by as fast as year one!

Following the wildfires... (Part 2 of 3)

About three days after getting home from our "PCH road trip" we got back in the gas guzzling SUV and headed to Lake Tahoe for the 4th of July to hang with our friends Lesley and Mike at Lesley's parent's cabin for the long weekend. Apparently every one else in the bay area had the same idea we did since it took us about 5 hours to drive up to Tahoe when it normally would take us no more than 3. Oh well, it was worth it!



We drank....






Played caps....


By the way, many of you will be happy to know that Mike has succesfully introduced caps to our Bay Area friends...I'm not sure how the wives feel about it but the guys sure do love the game!


We climbed trees for the hell of it...

We visited Nevada's Oldest Saloon (that pales in comparison to The Chicken in College Station, TX)....


We gambled....


We enjoyed nature....




And we played frisbee golf. And although my Mike got one of Lesley's Mike's frisbees stuck in a tree, we still overall played well.

All in all it was a very relaxing and much needed weekend away. We tried not to let the 6 hour ride home (on my birthday nonetheless) ruin our good weekend. And on our lunch stop at (ahem) Taco Bell, the wind shifted and we were in the middle of some heavy smoke from Wildfire #3!

Following the wildfires... (Part 1 of 3)

It's been a road-trip summer so far for the Spruiell clan! How do two seemingly intelligent people handle close to $5 gas prices? By touring California in a gas guzzling SUV of course!

I'm pretty sure we didn't intend on spending a lot of our discretionary income driving up and down the CA coast but the trips just fell together perfectly with our schedules and they were places we had been wanting to visit for quite some time now. We really did enjoy seeing the sights and visiting friends along the way.

As with many of our adventures, this one does not go without a theme. The theme of our June / July road trips you ask? WILDFIRES. Apparently what we really did was follow the wildfires up and down the coast of California.

It all started when I flew to Phoenix to help throw one of my best friends, Erin, a baby shower. As I land to meet Karen and Katie in the Phoenix airport, what do we see? Wildfire #1! Actually, it looked like a volcano but that's beside the point. Who would have know that this would be one of 4 I'd be confronting over the next month. Anyways, here's a pictures of the Rosemont girls (aka closest college girlfriends) who were able to make it:

(left to right: Stacy with her beautiful baby girl Izzy, Erin - the fabulous mom to be, Katie, Karen, and myself)

Aren't we gorgeous?? And aren't I freakishly tall?

Erin looks fabulous at 6 months! There are 8 "aunts" anticipating the early September birth of Baby Boy T! We had such a great time celebrating the impending arrival. And by 'great time' I mean, drinking mimosas, eating homemade scones, playing celebrity baby trivia (I won), and laying out by the pool under the scorching Arizona sun.

Oh, and Erin got Gram!!! For those of you unaware of Gram...it is a framed picture of our friend Jen's grandmother that slyly makes her way across the country to visit all of us. She showed up on the DJ table at Stacy's wedding in Tucson, at the cake table at my wedding in the bay area, at the head table at Keely's wedding in Washington, in the honeymoon suite at Katie's wedding in Tahoe, and now in a shower gift at Erin's house in Arizona! Somehow she made it into Karen's suitcase on her way to Houston. Where will she show up next???

And after the shower....it's pool time!

And, naturally, I had to get a picture with the resident furry creature...Erin and Chris' first baby boy:

Meanwhile, back in California, Mike was packing the gas guzzling SUV to head down to Orange County (cue theme song from The OC - "driving down the 101...California here we come...right back where we started froooom...Califoooorniiaaa...here we coooommmmeeee...) to visit some business school friends. After I spent a few days with the girls, I flew to LA to meet Mike and the dogs. We spend the day in Santa Monica. Here they are chillin' on the Promenade:

The next day, Mike headed to work in the OC office while I took the dogs to show them what SoCal is REALLY all about: shopping! After brunch with our friend Dorothy and a quick stop at Fashion Island to pick up some Pinkberry we were on our way North to LaLa land and to what I like to call heaven (aka Robertson Blvd). The real reason I wanted to head to Robertson? Another Joshua Jackson sighting of course! Before hitting the shops we needed to refuel with some lunch and people watching at our favorite Doughboys - can you say red velvet cake? Katie and Karen said they definitely wanted to see a picture of the dogs outside of Doughboys so here you go (and we didn't see Amanda Peet this time):

Sandy's future's so bright she's gotta get some shades...how very LA of her...

And then with Karen's help (thanks for the address K) we stalked Heidi Montag at her office. We did not see her but if I did who KNOWS what I would have done. I'm TEAM LC all the way!

After lunch and stalking my least favorite celebrity, we headed to Robertson Blvd! I'm kinda thinking Mike had some GPS on Jerry's collar b/c we were only able to enter into two of the 5 Kitson boutiques (yes, they allow the dogs inside) before Mike called to say he was almost to LA and it was time for us to get back to the car to meet him. My shopping trip was cut short. Needless to say, I didn't buy anything. I still think Jerry and Mike had something to do with that.

I was okay with it I guess b/c it meant we were one step closer to our drive up Highway 1 back to San Francisco! It has always been something we have wanted to do and we were finally going to do it....or so we thought...

Jerry was ready to get on the road as well!

Our first stop was Santa Barbara...what a beautiful town! Unfortunately, we were there for about 12 hours so we don't have many pictures b/c we needed to get on the road. We had a LONG day ahead of us and a LOT of sites to see....again, so we thought...

Where to next mom????

About 4 hours into our drive (and a very scary drive at that) the freeway was closed due to the Big Sur fires that were caused by lightening a few weeks prior. We knew ahead of time that at least 15 miles of PCH was to be closed due to the fires but we thought that there would be an obvious detour that would allow us to get back on PCH to continue our road trip...no such luck. Apparently there was a "pretty obvious" (or so the man at the gas station stated) sign that said the freeway was closed about 40 miles before it was closed but we were too busy staring down Hearst Castle to notice the warning. So onward we went....40 miles up the coast...only to run into a LOT of smoke and a very friendly policewoman who kindly told us to turn around and head 40 miles back down south, then 20 miles East to catch Hwy 101, and head 5 hour back north up one of the most boring freeways in California. Three hours out of our way with no coast in site we were on our way home. Darn lightening storm ruined our vacation.

Before we turned of PCH we stopped to take some pictures:

I apologize for not having any better pictures than these...we really thought our trip was going to be longer (and a lot more scenic). Wildfire #2 cut our drive up Highway 1 very short. We WILL drive up or down the coast again soon...and you can be sure we'll check for wildfires.