McComb Family

Once again we had to quickly change from Christmas mode into Birthday mode. Here is the birthday boy in his stylish glasses! I'm sure he really appreciated my mom bringing them for him!!
Briana made and decorated the cake ALL BY HERSELF!!! And by doing it "all by herself", she'll give you the third degree if you even step into the kitchen let alone do something really horrible like want to turn on the oven or help her scrape the bowl.

Here is everybody singing to him, but I really think they were hoping all those candles didn't catch the place on fire. Look at that fireball - holy cow!!! : )

Happy 38th Bret!!

Posted in: on Friday, January 08, 2010 at at 5:02 PM 2 comments  

We just got Brie's basketball schedule. All of her games are at Golden Sierra High School and start this weekend.
1/9 11:00 and 1:00
1/16 10:00
1/23 9:00
1/30 1:00
2/6 9:00
2/13 10:00
2/20 11:00
2/27 12:00
3/6 12:00
Being as that she's never played before (and she's such a pip-squeak) she's pretty nervous about playing. She'd love to have some "fans" in the bleachers!!!

Posted in: on Monday, January 04, 2010 at at 7:57 PM 2 comments  

Our tradition for the past few years after the bug infested-sap dripping-Apple Hill tree has been to get our Christmas tree at Rite Aid. This year we really broke out though and got it at Home Depot. Here is Bret setting it up.
Brie decorating with a little help from her friends!

Adam adding an ornament. (Check out the muscle shirt!!!)

Christmas Eve was spent at Tom & Barb's with the family. Dinner was dee-lish!!

Getting ready to open presents!

I don't have many pictures with me in them, let alone the whole family, but somehow we ended up with this one. I thought it turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself! : )

Christmas morning!!!!

Unwrapping gifts while lounging in the bean bags Santa brought -- now that's the life!

Then we were off the Dennis'. It was a gorgeous day so everybody ended up outside on the deck for a while.

Then we ate and opened presents. Every year I get a picture of the kids in front of the tree, and this year was going to be no different.

Me: Kids go stand in front of the tree so I can get your picture.

Me: Where's Adam? ADAM!!!

Kids: (Hmmm....let's roll around on the floor and wrestle while Mom stands there with the camera.)

Me: No guys -- get next to each other.

Me: Goodness -- FINALLY!!!

Then the next day it was back to our house for more presents. Yeah, the kids were pretty bummed. Right!! Michele and Ben came up from Santa Barbara. Mary, Uncle Jer, and Gramma all came too, and we had one last celebration before we had to move on to Bret's birthday.

Post of the birthday boy coming soon!

Posted in: on at at 11:32 AM 2 comments  

I looked back at my blog to figure out what the last pictures were that I had posted of the addition and realized it was back at the foundation stage. Oops....guess it's been a while since I've updated. So here is the "den". I'm trying to convince Bret it should become the workout room, but he's not totally sold on the idea yet. I'll keep trying!! : ) Anyway, here is Bret and Nate framing it up.

Putting the trusses up.

And finally all framed up. Now we need to get sheeting going and it will be an actual room!!!

Then, in the back, we had six huge beams to put up for the deck roof. I have no photographic evidence of the first one going up, but let me just say I'm pretty sure OSHA would have shut us down. Apparently there are weight limits on ladders for a reason and two people cannot lift one of those beams by themselves. Enough said. It did end up getting put up and there weren't even any casualties.

Needless to say for the next five beams we brought in a crew!!! People can't say no to you when it's your birthday!!! ; ) So, Bret got his beams put up with the help of several extra ladders and many extra hands.
There is one side though that you just can't reach from the deck though, so he had to bring in the big gun -- the tractor!!

All six in place!! Thanks to all of our helpers -- we couldn't have done it without you. (And I mean that in the most literal way possible!!)

Then came the easier part -- the trusses. Lots of helpers make for light work!!!

And the one other project that we added to our list of things to do was to beef up the other end of the deck for the arrival of our new spa!!! However, once Bret started working on it, he discovered that "beefing it up" meant demo-ing the whole thing and then rebuilding. With the delivery date in two days, we didn't have time for that option. And we could certainly no longer put it here........We went round and round about what to do and finally realized building a platform out behind the deck would be our best bet. No waiting for concrete to cure and the spa would be out of the way for the rest of the deck construction. Problem solved!!! So here it is with the pathway the kids and I made from extra pavers we had. Now we can go relax in it after all the work that's been going on around here!

Posted in: on Saturday, January 02, 2010 at at 4:54 PM 2 comments