These are my lovely children on Christmas day.....and my respected parents with Ryan's underwear on their heads....lol

This is the snowman the kids made last week when it snowed. Awwww, how cute!



We had a wonderful Christmas and hope all of our friends and family had the same. We love you ALL!

Milestones: Boys to Men

Well we celebrated big birthdays this past week. Zack turned 21 and Josh turned 18. Wow! How did that happen? Aren't they handsome? We celebrated together with a big family lunch and presents. It was fun having the boys and the girlfriends and the Gram and Papa over. Tostadas and cake and ice cream...o my! I've enjoyed watching them grow up and now I'm looking forward to watching them develop as the young men God created them to be.

Halloween

Ryan was a Tigger this year. He wore this costume a couple of years ago also. This will be the last year since it won't fit for much longer.

Shelby made her "Pirate Princess" costume herself. She took an old princess costume and attacked it with scissors. We bought a hat and an eyepatch. She borrowed the sword from her brother and the look was complete.

This is Shelby and Ryan (in the middle) with some of their friends at Halloween. Remember wax lips? What fun we miss when we "grow up!"

Summer Vacation

Well, the title is really a misnomer. We didn't really have a summer vacation. We spent a week at Mt. Bachelor skiing and snowboarding and relaxing so summer vacation was not happening. Over the summer we did some home improvement (a subject for another blog). By the end of the summer we said, "Hey, we better do something fun fast before summer's over." We had spent much of the summer indoors because of all the smoke from the zillions of wildfires. So we decided to go to Marine World (about 3.5 hours away from where we live).

The original plan was to get up and go to Marine World early one morning. We would spend the day playing and screaming and having fun. Then we would drive part way back and spend the night at Embassy Suites in Sacramento. We had stayed there once before and had a wonderful time. The next day we would play in Old Sacramento and then drive home. We were hoping to have a train ride in Old Sac since the last time we went we had missed the season by 1 week.

Notice in the last sentence I said the "original plan?" We made the mistake of calling it a vacation. We said it as a joke since two days out of town doesn't really qualify as a vacation. Our pastor has the most disaterous vacations - they now refuse to say "the V word." Well, we used the V word in vain. Everything started off well. Josh found a friend to go with him since hanging out with Mom and Dad is not much fun. It's even less fun since Mom and Dad would be doing kiddie rides with the two youngest. We left later in the morning than we planned but not enough to make a big difference. By the time we reached the town just before Marine World, we decided to stop and get something to eat so we wouldn't need to spend a million dollars eating inside Marine World. We stopped at a gourmet restaurant (McDonald's) and had lunch. That's when the fun began. When we went out to our car.......she no start. Eeeek! No matter how many times Bill turned the key we got NUTHIN'. No warning or anything, it was just done. It was over 100 degrees outside and we were stuck. We called a tow truck which took forever and then had the van towed to the dealership. Josh and his friend rode to the dealership with the tow truck while Bill and the young'ens and I had to wait for a taxi which took forever x 10. We rode to the dealership and had to wait for them to troubleshoot and repair it. Ryan fell asleep in my lap while we were waiting. By the time it was all said and done it was 3:00 and Marine World was a no-go. So....we headed to the hotel. The kids were very disappointed that we didn't go to Marine World even though they understood that we would go the next day. They had spent most of the day in the car and the other part of the day in a auto shop. Wheee! Happy vacation.
The good news is that the hotel was wonderful and we hit Marine World bright and early the next morning. Josh and his friend Chris went riding roller coasters all day. Bill and I rode rides that the two youngest could go on and we took turns taking Shelby on some bigger roller coasters. She's a brave little thing. We stuffed ourselves with pizza and cokes and had a wonderful time. So, next time we go somewhere it will be called an outing or an adventure but certainly not a VACATION!

Update...better late than never....right?

Well, the biggest news in the Fuller family is I have a new job. I still work at St. Elizabeth Community Hospital (I've been here 10 years now). I am now the Education Coordinator for the hospital. I got the job about 6 weeks ago but I just started actually doing the job on Monday. I had to wait until they found a replacement for me before I could move into this position. I now work in the daytime (eeek!) Monday through Friday. I will still work a couple of nights each month as Nursing Supervisor. That way I won't lose all my clinical skills and I'll be able to maintain a connection with the people I'm responsible for educating. I had to go buy a whole new wardrobe for the job. Yikes!



Bill continues to work at Remi Vista, Inc. as the Human Resources director. Some days he enjoys his job more than others. Lately he's experienced frustrations in the job. Hopefully the cycle will be on an upswing soon and he can enjoy his work again.

Zack is doing well at his bachelor pad. He's asking for household stuff for Christmas. It's funny because we gave him some household stuff for Christmas last year and he wasn't thrilled (he was still living at home then). Now he sees the value of things like new towels and toasters. So....we'll see what Santa has in mind for him this year! He works at Hertz detailing cars. He's been there over a year now. He and Brittni are still dating. They also work together. Awwww...how cute! He finds stuff in the rental cars all the time. They save it for a set amount of time and then he gets to keep it. He's gotten things like CDs and nice sunglasses in the past. A couple of weeks ago he found $2500 in the glove box of one of the cars. Wow! The company turned it into the police department. If it is not picked up in 90 days there's a chance that they may release it to him. How cool would that be?

Josh is a senior in high school. He is doing independent study. He does most of the work at home and meets with his teacher once a week. He has a very active social life and rides his long board all around town.

Shelby is in 5th grade now. She's enjoying school and has a non-speaking part in the school Christmas play. She's going to be playing a shepherd. She is also on the school basketball team. Basketball just started this week. She also is a very social character and knows everyone just like her papa.

Ryan started kindergarten this year. He's enjoying school and loves his teacher. He cried one day because he didn't have homework. Go figure. He's a busy guy and loves to go go go. Too much time at home and we get told "this is BORING!"

Well, there's a brief update. I'll try to keep up on my posts now that I'm a real daytime person!

Just Trying It Out

So....I have a blog on another site but they changed formats awhile back and I'm just not liking it. I'm trying this site out to see if it works better for me.

This is a test....this is only a test!