Lake Tahoe Vacation

Tyler and Claire spent a little over a week at the families cabin new Lake Tahoe. We drove and brought all the dogs and had a great vacation! On the way we visited Tyler's Great Grandma Ella, Claire's Dad spent a few days with us after the Jazz Jubilee and on the way out of town we were able to have a quick visit with Ailis. It rained on us the first few days, so we spent many hours in front of the fire playing games and watching movies. It made us relax right from the start and was fantastic! After the rain stopped, we paddle boarded almost every day! We went to a few different lakes and took the dogs with us each time. The dogs loved being on the boards and slept very well at night. My dad joined us paddle boarding when we went to Lake Tahoe and it couldn't have worked out better. We realized where we wanted to go didn't allow dogs, but my Dad has a old friend who has a ton of lake front property and let us use his beach. My dad was able to visit with his friend after the day was done and it was a beautiful day. We love spending time at the cabin and hope to make it a vacation tradition!

SUP!

Tyler and Claire have found a new found love of Stand Up Paddle Boarding! This is one of the many trips we took down the lower Salt River in Arizona. We plan on taking the boards to Lake Tahoe with us in May and get some great view from the water.

4runner hits a new milestone! 200,000 miles!!

Ohio vacation

Tyler had a work trip to Ohio, so I tagged along to visit the Matney's. It was a short and sweet trip and always fun family times! We went to Buffalo Trace Distillery and got a tour of the facilities.

Claires 30th Birthday!

Tyler surprised Claire, by flying Alli down for the weekend! Even Claire's work was in on it! It was a great weekend! Couldn't have asked for more!

Wicked!

A bunch of co-workers of Claire's at LifeLock went to see Wicked. 
Back by “Popular” demand. Entertainment Weekly calls WICKED “the best musical of the decade,” and when it last played ASU Gammage in 2009, it broke box office records and sold out in record time. Winner of 35 major awards, including a Grammy and three Tony^® Awards, WICKED is Broadway’s biggest blockbuster, a cultural phenomenon and was just named “the defining musical of the decade” by The New York Times. Long before that girl from Kansas arrives in Munchkinland, two girls meet in the land of Oz. One – born with emerald green skin – is smart, fiery and misunderstood. The other is beautiful, ambitious and very popular. How these two grow to become the Wicked Witch of the West and Glinda the Good makes for “the most complete and completely satisfying new musical in a long time.” –USA Today

Jars of Clay concert

We bought VIP seats for Jars of Clay @ Central Christian Church. Along with Jars of Clay, we saw Mikes Chair (http://www.mikeschair.com/) and Johnny Diaz (http://www.jonnydiaz.com/) perform! It was a great show.

VIP Includes:
- Early Entry at 6PM
- Preferred Seating - We were in the center row 3
- Preshow Q&A session w/ bands at 6:30PM - People asked some awesome questions and was great to hear from all the band members. Picture below of Q&A.
- Color SHELTER tour poster
- Limited edition SHELTER VIP badge and lanyard (which was really a string)

Dog Bed!

Claire and I tackled our first big sewing machine project since we built curtains for the camper years ago! This one was fun. We build a giant dog bed! The dogs already love it.

Mikiah Thomas Rigg Hillard

Announcement from Dustin and Julianna:

We are happy to announce the birth of our son, Mikiah Thomas Rigg Hillard! 

Mikiah joined our family on Thursday, January 12, 2012 at 8:04pm, weighing 8lbs 10oz and measuring 22.5 inches.  After one week of Julianna’s body trying to start labor on its own at night and then stopping during the day, we began induction on Tuesday, January 10.  And, 57 hours later, he was *finally* in our arms!  We are completely in love with our little guy, and we can’t wait to introduce him to the world.  Given the long, long labor process, we ended up staying two nights at the hospital but all is well, and we are back home, slowly adjusting to a life that is far fuller and more meaningful than we could have imagined. 

For those inquiring minds who are curious about his name…  Mikiah (pronounced Mick-i-ah) was the name of a doctor Julianna saw one time years ago.  He was incredibly kind and patient, and Julianna emailed herself the name and filed it under potential baby names.  We had a lengthy list of possible names, but we both knew the moment he was on Julianna’s chest that he was to be named Mikiah.  The name is a derivative of Micah, and it means “who is like God?”  The traditional spelling is Michaiah, but that seemed to be a bit of a spelling disaster J.  Michaiah was a prophet, and from what we could find online, he spoke truth to power.  In the one story we could find, King Ahab had 400 prophets foretell what was to come in a battle that he was preparing to fight.  All of the 400 prophets, Michaiah included, prophesied that King Ahab would be victorious.  However, Michaiah had a different vision; he told the King that he had not been truthful about his earlier prophecy, and the indeed, King Ahab would lose the battle and die in the process.  For this negative prophesy, Michaiah was imprisoned by the King…  but not for long, as King Ahab ended up losing the battle and dying.  He has two middle names – Thomas, after Julianna’s dad – and Rigg – keeping with our “tradition” of everyone in our little family with Rigg as a middle name.   

We are totally enamored with our little guy and amazed at how quickly our time is consumed by him.  Attached are some pictures of probably the best looking baby boy in the history of the universe (right?).

Best – Dustin, Julianna, Mikiah, and Jersey

Coyotes Game

Part of Tyler's Christmas gift was tickets to the Coyotes tickets. It ended up being a great game! Shane Doan got his first career hat trick! The third goal happened the last second of the game! It was so fun to go to the game. The picture below is in front of the stadium waiting for dinner at Margaritaville.

LifeLock Holiday Party

Claire's company holiday party!

New RV gate!

Our new RV gate! That pretty much completes the list of things I really wanted for the new house.

Juliannas Baby Shower

Tyler on Rainier

Tyler and Gregg got to go play int he snow while Scheila and Claire gave Julianna and Dustin's baby shower.

the accommodations where.....chilly. Thank God for down.

This photo has become an annual tradition. On our way to Rainier!!! 

The worlds best camping spot.

Claire's new bike!

Christmas came early for Claire! Tyler got her a Motobecone road bike!
Its a Motobecane GiGi Pro:

Thanksgiving with the Matney's

We traveled out to help the Matney's move their boat from Cincinnati to New Orleans for a long weekend.  We got to experience America at its finest, like staying at Bobby's fish camp, taking the boat through Locks, boating on the Black Warrior Rivier, boating on the Tom Bigbee Oxbow, driving through Mississippi, seeing a little of New Orleans, had lunch on Burban Street, saw the 
shore of Lake Ponchatrain (where the Matneys are looking for a house) and had a great Thanksgiving dinner on the boat!

Solar Panels!

We are having solar panels installed! They should be up and running soon!

Tyler and Steve Camp

Tyler and Steve got a guys weekend and took our pop up out and camped.

Ping pong

This is how serious ping pong is at our house. This bat is only a couple months old and has never been thrown or intentionally damaged. It's how we get down!

Corn Maze

Claire bought another Groupon, this time for a Corn Maze.

Tinkers first Wiener Race!

We entered Tinker into a Wiener race and she did great! It was at Tempe Octoberfest.
http://www.arizonaadoptagreyhound.org/?page_id=515
Video to come

Chickens!

Tyler and I got Chickens!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJHSRQvT97A&feature=autoshare

Gold Canyon Candles

Claire is officially selling Gold Canyon Candles. I will ship anywhere! Visit www.myGC.com/SilverDapple

The Jerry

Tessa and Michael came out to join as at "The Jerry" this year.

Orange Wall

I have always wanted an orange wall, so this new house was a great victim.

New carpet

We got new carpet as well!

Pool fence is in!

The pool fence was installed, therefore we picked Tommy up from the old house and he is enjoying his new yard.

Tommy's UP house

We moved Tommy's house today to the new house! We had to hire a crane to come get it out of our current yard and be able to place it in the new yard.

Is this our "welcome to the neighborhood" deal?

The concrete has been stained!

The name "stained concrete" can give off the wrong impression on how the whole process works. You are not actually staining your concrete, but using a mixture of acid and other materials to cause a chemical reaction that changes the composition (and color) of the concrete.