Rolland's 30th Birthday Surprise Party

Well, after a lot of planning and sneaking around, we pulled it off! It started pre-Christmas with the ordering of the invitations. The day they needed to go out, I had the addressed envelopes still wet with ink, the hot glue gun sitting on the kitchen counter from gluing corks, the invites stacked and cut up pieces of ribbon all over the office when Rolland caught me off-guard by coming home from work about three hours early. In a panic, I signaled to Jeanette (his visiting mom) by crossing my eyes and mouthing "help" while simultaneously saying cheerfully, "Rolland's home early! What a nice surprise!" Jeanette keep him occupied with chit-chat while I piled everything into a small box and walk/ran it into the guest room. When he asked me what in the world I was doing with a hot-glue gun, I quickly picked up a broken magnet from the drawer and with a smile said, "Just putting this back together dear." Now for those of you who know me well, telling even the smallest of white lies is not my forte. Rolland later said he thinks after this I'm a better liar than we previously knew.  Ha!  Here are the invites to the party, info was attached to the back with the ribbon: 

The day of his big 3-0, the birthday boy, Chuck, Jeanette and I headed down to El Paseo.  His mom had helped lure him there several days earlier by telling him she'd like to go back to "that little place" where we had taken them a couple years back (The Daily Grill, since out-of-business).  In truth, we wanted to get him to beautiful little Cafe Des Beaux-Arts on El Paseo which has a great patio perfect for surprising him.  So I waited until we were at the point of no return, then got on the iphone and made the phony call to the non-existant Daily Grill.  I broke the news that we'd have to go somewhere else to a now irritated Rolland, who answered under his breath, "Why did this not get planned better before we walked out the door?"  I laughed inside... if only he knew!  We enjoyed a lovely breakfast out on the patio at Cafe Des Beaux-Arts, which Rolland picked after we "happened upon it":

 Since the staff was in on the surprise, they did a great job of turning their usual impeccably quick service into a looooong leisurely meal.  As we were waiting on the check, the Grapeline shuttle bus (see picture below)

pulled up next to the patio on El Paseo, horns-a-blaring, and out ran 10 of our closest friends, hooting and hollering, "Surprise!" and clapping away. The whole restaurant stopped and joined in on a round of "Happy Birthday" to an absolutely stunned Rolland.  Mission accomplished!

Off we went on the bus to the Temecula wine country.  We started at Weins, followed by a nice private lunch at Wilson Creek where they even brought out a little birthday cake.  We ended the day at picturesque Falkner Winery followed by our last stop at laid-back Longshadow Ranch, known for their cool chocolate cowboy boots filled with port. 

I'm so grateful to Davis and Becca from Brightwood Photography for spending all day with our rollicking crowd of aficionados (slash winos). They did a great job of capturing the day.  You can check out all the images under our pictures, but here are some of our favorites from the day:

The Holiday Season

The Holidays are a busy time for us Vaughns. My birthday is in mid-December, followed by Christmas, New Years, our anniversary and ends with Rolland's birthday on the 16th of January. With all those exciting events going on, I just didn't have any time to blog! So here it is... all of it...




OUR CHRISTMAS CARDS



I made these cute cards to match our blog with the help of Molly from
ViviDot, who inspired me with the adorable save-the-date magnets she had made for her sister a few years back. I love how they turned out, and they were a big hit!




FAMILY COOKBOOK

And as if the Christmas card project wasn't enough, I decided to put together a family cookbook for Christmas presents this year. It was a ton of work, but I was extremely happy with the result and hope that everyone enjoys them for years to come.













CHRISTMAS

This year my Aunt Cindy hosted Christmas at her and husband Keven's home in Lancaster. On the way out, Grandma hit a muffler on the freeway about 10 miles before getting to our house, subsequently blowing two tires. She was able to get the car in the shop before we packed up the truck for Cindy's (but still had to stay with us about a week on the other side of Christmas waiting for her little Buick to be back up to par).



Comically, I brought out Bo and Dallas, Cindy & Keven have a pup, Sheila and my parents brought their new puppy, Zack. I think the dogs may have had more fun than the humans. Dad made certain they got their dog park trip every day:





Rolland, having to work on Christmas day, drove out as soon as he got off and we opened presents in the evening. Everyone loved Rolland's new smoker when we used it to make some KILLER pulled-pork sandwiches, topped with homemade chipotle BBQ sauce & blue-cheese coleslaw. Overall, it was a wonderful Christmas with family, and Cindy and Keven did a GREAT job of hosting our rowdy crowd.



NEW YEARS EVE - HAPPY 2010!
Grandma was stranded at our house waiting for her car to be fixed, and Jeanette and Chuck (Rolland's mom & stepdad) flew in to town New Year's Eve. We made a great New Year's Eve meal of Teriyaki Steak, green bean casserole,Waldorf salad with cranberries and some leftover Ruth's Chris sweet potato casserole (see #4 on our favorite things).




OUR FIRST WEDDING ANNIVERSARY!
I can't believe it's been a year already! Boy does time fly.

In lieu of freezing a piece of our wedding cake, we instead went back to my now favorite bakery, Exquisite Desserts, who did our wedding cake. They made us some cupcakes to share with our visiting family out of the same flavor as our wedding cake (pound cake with pistachio filling and fresh raspberries):




We celebrated by watching the Cowboys victory over the Eagles, followed by an overnighter to the Miramonte where we were married. Here's the beautiful view from our room, including the picturesque patio where we had gotten married a year earlier on the right:



We also went to a romantic dinner at Sirocco's Italian restaurant inside of the Renaissance Esmeralda, reknowned for their after-dinner coffee service, which lived up to expectations. They had extra attentive service and amazing food... we'll definitely be back. We were a little full, however, from the thoughtful fruit and cheese platter and bottle of wine which had been sent to our suite from The Miramonte:



The next morning we enjoyed a nice breakfast at the resort, a great start to our second year of marriage:






Last we headed up to the patio where we had gotten married before checking out. 2010:



A year ago in 2009:







COWBOYS IN THE PLAYOFFS

With all the hype after taking down the previously undefeated Saints, followed by two back-to-back shut-outs and a commanding first post-season victory in over a decade, I was certain it was our season. If we have to get beaten, I'm glad it was to Favre. He's a class act, and I'll be rooting for him to take the Vikings all the way. Then hopefully he'll retire and get out of my Cowboys' way!! :-D