Christmas Pictures

Here are some pictures from this year's xmas with my family:

Bittersweet holidays

Hi there...lots has happened since my last post. First of all, I want to thank everyone for my birthday posts and emails, they made my day =)
Christmas and birthday were bittersweet this year. I drove up north on the 22nd, and on the 23rd my nana went to the hospital due to intestinal problems she has been having for a few months. On the 24th we found out she probably had CDIF, a bacterial infection in intestines due to being on antibiotics for so long (she was on cipro for about 3 months earlier this year). We were all releaved, since CDIF, although severe, could be cured with antibiotics. My nana ordered us all to have a fun xmas without her, so we did. It was a huge xmas this year, with all my aunts and cousins present. We were only missing my nana, pa, and uncle (who was with my grandparents). Scott enjoyed his first Vetterli xmas, and even made the gravy in place of nana. I got a new sweater and a floor lamp to replace my broken one.
On the 26th, we found out the CDIF tests came back negative, and that they had found tumors in the colon, so it was colon cancer. We still celebrated my birthday that night at a Mexican restaurant in Pleasanton (scoping it out for our rehearsal dinner). I celebrated my b-day with my parents, brothers, Scott, and childhood friend Haley and her mom Pam (close family friends). We drank many margaritas, and at one point in the evening Scott and Pam burst into a duet of song at the table. It was a nice aversion from thinking about colon cancer.
The next day was my real birthday, the 27th. We drove home, stopping in Claremont to visit my nana at the hospital. My dad flew down the same day to join my uncle who was already there. My aunts drove and flew in also that day. She had a surgery scheduled for today (Fri.) to remove a tumor. It was nice to see nana, and she seemed very positive about the whole thing. We brought her some xmas presents and visited for awhile before heading back to the oc. Surgery was this morning, and my dad called around lunchtime to annouce the surgery went very well, tumor is out, and it looks like the cancer has not spread, although we won't know for sure for about a week or so. Now nana has a surgery to recover from, but it looks like she is out of danger now. Thank goodness, she has a wedding to attend exactly 6 months from today...
Lots of you know my nana, so send your happy thoughts her way =)

The Rockettes!

Scott's mom treated us to see the Rockette's Christmas Spectacular in Orange County on Wednesday night. I have never seen them before, since I think this is the first time they are playing in venues other than Radio City Music Hall in NY. They are here for about 3 weeks, and I think all the shows are sold out. The show really put us in the Christmas spirit, as it was all xmas songs and narrated by none other than Santa. It was amazing to see the line of Rockettes stretch across the whole stage and the kicks were impeccably perfect. Wow. Their kicking puts my kick-boxing kicks to shame. They are very inspirational for getting your legs in shape...although unfortunately I will have to resign my dreams of ever being a Rockette since your have to be atleast 5'7" tall. Maybe I can be an elf in next year's show =) The show ended with a living nativity scene, complete with live sheep and camels. It really didn't have anything to do with the rest of the show, the Rockettes weren't even invloved in it, but it was beautiful nonetheless. But I do wish the Rockettes would've come out one more time at the end, like maybe the nativity scene members could have torn off their robes and formed a line for one more kick.
Oh, and this was fun...before the show we pre-ordered champagne for intermission, so instead of standing in line at the bar during the break, our glasses were ready to drink with our name on it. Very VIP!
Tonight I am celebrating xmas with Scott's mom, sister Kelly, brother Jeff, and Jeff's girlfriend Carolina. I will try to do a quick post tomorrow morning before I head up north for xmas. I will be back in socal on Dec. 27th (my b-day!!). Scott is flying up on Christmas Day to spend the holiday with my family...this is the first time we will ever be spending Christmas Day together =)

Finals and stuff

Wow, its been a busy few weeks, hence the sparse and short blogging. Last week was finals week, and I only had 2, but I found it challenging to fit extra studying time into my schedule. My first final (Screening & Therapeutic Processes for Speech) I scored over 100% (yes, I am fully aware of my nerdiness thanks to Scott's reminders), and my second final was Human Diseases, which I hardly studied for and was really insanely difficult. Basically the teacher took questions from all the tests we have taken over the semester and randomly compsed them into the final, so it would ask a question about multiple sclerosis, then one about diabetes, then one about arthritis. No rhyme or reason to it. We'll see how I did on that one, although I only needed 53% to get a B in the class.
Other than finals, I have been attending xmas parties, 1 for Spectrum Languages (my spanish tutoring company) and the annual holiday luncheon at Sepulveda Elementary School. And Scott and I had a few birthdays to attend last week for our friends Sam and Mike. For Sam's birthday Scott experimented with a new cheesecake flavor, Oreo cookie, with a cookie crust and cookies in the batter. It was delicious, but in my opinion, not as tasty as the one with whole blackberries in the batter.
As for wedding planning, we have decided to make our own invitations from this wonderful store in South Coast Plaza called Paper Source. More on this later though, we are still perfecting the craft. Maid of Honor Carla and I both have January off from school, so HOPEFULLY we will master the art of invitation making then.
I am going to end my post with a picture of our Christams lights. Scott went a little crazy this year. You have to put the picture into context...we are in an apartment complex and no one has lights up except some neighbors across the way, and they only have 2 strands...we have 10...

O, Christmas Tree!

Christmas is offically here in the tiny Vetterli-McCarthy home! Our tree is up, decorations are out, and we've already watched classic seasonal favorites such as Elf and Christmas Vacation. Our cat Cleo thinks the tree is there specifically for her, she sleeps under it, removes the ornaments, and meows until we turn the lights on. We have moved her bed under it for the season =)
She is also very interested in all the Christmas decorations and had made it her mission to "hunt" them. Here she is ready to pounce on a red glitter ball...

Thanksgiving Part Duex

The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we celebrated the feast again with Scott's brother Jeff, his girlfriend Carolina, and their neighbors. Jeff lives in a little complex of 4 houses, lovingly deemed "the compound". Scott used to live there, and I lived there for a couple months before Scott and I moved to our present abode. Our friends Brian and Chris own "the compound" and I think that most of our friends have lived there at one point or another. It is not the nicest place in town, it really needs a lot of TLC, but the rent is cheap, and the neighbors are great. We ate a full T-day dinner of turkey, mached potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, butternut squash, and I brought a persimmon gingerbread.
The brothers McCarthy.
Zoey, Jeff's macaw.