Happy New Year !!!!
This year my resolution is to be healthier (and boy is that a big resolution). I'll be posting more on this resolution throughout January.

Some people say, "A picture says it all"! So, I figure this month I'll agree with this statement, since I've been so busy. I'm sorry we didn't get all of our Holiday Cards out to everyone (I think we went up to the letter "O" and gave up), but let me know if you would like me to send you one :(

Below is a collage/montage of the best of my December 2007. You can find more pictures on my Flickr site by clicking on the Flickr icon on the left side of the page.
My department's Holiday Party

Dave's mom came into town some time in the middle of December, we had a nice dinner, then drove through the - Fantasy of Lights at Vasona Park in Los Gatos

My Family (Mom, Brother, Dad and Niece)

Dave's stepmom (Sue), his dad (James) and Dave

Joyce (Dave's mom) and Me***Dave and Me at our place

Dave's 2nd cousin (Kyra), Aunt Marion, Dave's Mom and Dave

Kyra

Dave, Me, Dave's Cousin (Michelle) and her husband, Jeremy

Dave's Grandma, Mom and Uncle Robert****Dave's cousins and Grandma

My high school friend, Tanja and her kids, Lauren and Jordan.

One more post to go before the New Year ! I have plenty of resolutions this year and will be changing my format a bit, so stay tuned...

I've decided to move all of my favorite and personal videos over to my new Vlog (Video Blog) to clear room on this site for pictures and my thoughts on the world. A link to the Vlog is right below my title bar on top of this screen. Or you can also visit the Vlog at: Cheri’s Video Blog.

I will add a Video to this site at least once a week and will note important videos on this Blog, so feel free to bookmark both sites.

This is great...I added the heads, but everything else came from jibjab.com. The URL is listed on the left handside column, under Favorite Websites. Do you recognize any of the characters? Check this out:

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Merry Christmas!!!

(for those of you who celebrate this holiday)

Because of my extremely busy holiday schedule this year, I was not able to complete sending out my Holiday cards by Christmas day. Although, the remaining cards will go out in the mail tomorrow. Just in case, you didn't get one and would like a copy for yourself, the pics are above and below. As you can see, the background changed from the Hollywood scene (last year) to a background depicting our new and current home back in the Bay Area (NorCal). Note the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.

Dave has been dabbling in graphic design and edited these pics. Please feel free to comment on what you think (positive or negative). We would greatly appreciate your feedback and constructive criticism.

It's Christmas Eve and I'm home with Dave. We couldn't be happier to be home together for Christmas!!!!!

We wish all of you....


We are not in Washington, as a local family member passed a few days ago (Dave's Grandpa Emery), so we stayed with family here.
Please check back over the next few days for updated pics, videos and updates.

The last 3 weeks have been the busiest and most transforming in my entire life. Unfortunately, I am limited on time, as Dave and I will be heading to Washington tomorrow morning to spend time with his mom, stepdad and his uncle and family and we will return home the day after Christmas. I'm really looking forward to spending time away from everything and enjoying quality time with the family...relaxing. I have been thinking about changing my route with this blog and will comment more on this subject when I return home. I sincerely hope everyone is enjoying the Holiday Season and please take time out to relax and enjoy "you"!

I have a few Holiday cards being sent to friends and relatives, but for those of you whose addresses, I don't have and for those of you...I do, but you haven't received their cards yet, please check out this video:

I have a ton more to post and plan to post more tomorrow night (things don't always go as planned). In the meantime, here is a short video of my niece dancing to a song from High School Musical 2 today:

And Emily was soo excited about this gift...I asked her to repeat her reaction when she opened the gift the first time, so I could capture the moment:

I posted this last night, but the short movies just finished uploading this morning. My blog will be updated tonight.

And the Golden Globe Nominees for 2007 are....
Golden Globe Nominations
Unfortunately, I won't be able to make it to the Golden Globes this year, as I'll be in Cabo San Lucas Mexico with my friends. Trust me, I will be there in spirit... (and I'm still working on getting tickets for the Emmy's next summer)

I was browsing videos and thought ya'll might find this video entertaining. Check out this Video titled, The Year in Web Video
I've been extremely busy over the last couple of weeks, but I will have more time to post tonight, so check back this weekend for all the latest happenings with me.

Is it Thursday already? I've been meaning to update my blog for a few days now, but had work dinners, met up with friends, and have been working late all week, so this is the first chance I've found the time. My Thanksgiving was perfect! This year more than any, I had a very thankful Thanksgiving with my family. So much has happened this year (as you'll see from my prior blog posts). I finally feel...truly happy! It's funny how you appreciate and love the craziness in your family the older you get (scary I know). Nothing is more important to me than family and this Thanksgiving, I spent true quality family time with mine :) Some family members missing, but I've also become closer with everyone in my family this last year...more than any. Dave and I hung out on Thanksgiving Day and walked over to the local park (Vasona Lake Park), then on Friday we drove up to Redding to spend time with my Mom, Dad, Brother, Niece and Grandma for the traditional Thanksgiving. Here are some pics:

I've also been updating my blog layout to include a few more links on the left hand side bar. Updated my Christmas list and have received a few comments about it...is it that funny? It's more of my own personal wishlist, so please don't feel inspired to purchase any of the items (except mom and dad). I added my friend, Sanjana's blog and Gina's brother's MySpace (John LaRocca) page under Community websites and I also updated my Celebrity News widget and added a widget with The Office episodes. on the bottom of the page. I love that show!

And last but not least, a couple of links that have peaked my interest this week:

1) Matt Damon – People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive

2) United Hollywood – WGA Strike blog

Good night all! I'll be back...

Somewhat slow week, but a good slow week and we did take some time to catch up around the house and visit with family members over the weekend :) This week I thought I'd start a Christmas Wishlist on my blog (left hand side of page), which is actually more of my personal wishlist and is not meant to push anyone to give me a gift. More of a list I can refer to when I'm ready to make a purchase or for my immediate family looking for ideas.

Also, I thought I would add a few of my Social Networking sites, in case you want to add me as a friend, but you'll always find most of my updates on this blog. Check out these links:

1) Cheri’s Facebook site

2) Cheri’s MySpace site

3) Zaadz.com – Social Networking site about Changing the World

As mentioned in a previous blog, I'm working to make a few positive choices in my life, since we moved back home and some of these changes are now in full swing. I joined Toastmasters International this week. Check out their website at: ToastMasters International for more information. I've also made a really big change in my life, which I would love to shout out to the world I've accomplished one of the biggest goals in my life, but some people didn't know about it...so for now I'm keeping it quiet. Let's just say I'm handling a health concern and I feel on top of the world!!!

Last Friday night, Dave and I went to see Martian Child with John Cusack. I highly recommend this movie! Go see it if you are in the mood to warm your heart and smile :)

One last story and a short video. When I was unemployed and living in LA last year, I started fishing around online for people in the local area, who had similar interests as mine to meet new people in the area and for possible employment opportunities and ran into a blog that sparked my interest. After reading there was a DVD Release Party for a new online Podcast site called AskaNinja.com, I joined the party with my friend, Trisha, and briefly met Micki. I guess you could say...I kind of "stalked" her, but it was only to meet someone who I truly admire. She was really nice and it made for a funny story. Her website is listed to the left under the caption, Community Websites and listed as Mickipedia, if you want to check it out. Here's a cool video she posted recently, that I found quite thought provoking (I also thought it would be helpful for some of my friends):

Tune in next week for more exciting stuff and Thanksgiving pics with the family.

In case you haven't figured it out yet...you can scroll over and click on any of the underlined links to pull up more information in a separate window.

To begin, I hung out with Gina, a longtime childhood friend, who I haven't seen in over a year, last Thursday night and we had a great time catching up! And Denise, another longtime friend, flew in from Minnesota on Friday for a funeral on Saturday.

Unfortunately, I do not always have good news to report. My good friends, Tanya and Denise, used to work for Dr. Arnold back in our early 20's and we have all remained in contact with him on and off over the years. He passed away last Saturday, November 3rd after a motorcycle accident, so we attended his funeral and were amazed at how much he accomplished and did over his 66 years of life. Here is his obituary:
Dr. James Edward "Ouzel" Arnold

You will be missed by many, Dr. Arnold.

On Sunday, Dave and I drove up to San Francisco for the....Green Festival

Here are some pics of our day:
I call this one, "Little Boy Playing at the Green Festival".

Closing Ceremonies

Then we drove over to Fisherman's Wharf for dinner and found this restaurant along the pier:
Castagnola’s - Fisherman’s Wharf
The food was wonderful, but somewhat pricey. The view of the pier was exquisite and very romantic. A+ on ambience and food! I'd give Castagnola's a 9 1/2 out of 10, on the Cheri scale, overall. Be sure and check it out if you are up for a trip to Pier 39 in San Francisco.

One last note...here's a cool trailer for a movie I'm looking forward to seeing by Morgan Spurlock (the same guy who produced Super Size Me) when it opens on November 16th:

What Would Jesus Buy?

We were welcomed back to the Bay Area on October 30th by a little 5.6 Earthquake...and they said there were no injuries ;) Look what happened to my knee, when I dove under Dave's table:

On Halloween (still recovering from the earthquake), we hung around and handed out candy to the Trick or Treaters. We only had a couple of knocks on the the door, so Dave and I will have to devour the rest of the candy...

Also, this week I began making some improvements in my life. I cut out a few bad habits (for good this time) and am trying to make better personal and physical changes, as well. More to come on this subject.
Yesterday, Dave and I decided to venture over the Santa Cruz Mountains for a hike and get out and enjoy the beautiful weather and fresh, clean air of Northern California.
Our first stop was one of the best hiking trails, I've ever been on and it was very scenic. Here's the website for Waddell Creek - Rancho Del Oso hiking trail, if you want to check it out sometime. It's worth the drive along the Northern Pacific Coast.
Check out these pics:

I call this one "Colors of Fall" ! Gotta love the change of seasons.

After our 3 hour hike, we drove up the coast about 10 miles to a little beach town, called Pescadero and noticed this striking lighthouse down the coast line. So, we pulled over and snapped a few pics of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse.


After our pit stop at the lighthouse, we drove back down the coast to another little town, called Davenport for dinner at Davenport Roadhouse. We liked the atmosphere there, but the food could've been better and the menu was very limted in selection with many foods, we had not heard of before. Anyway, just being a food critic.
We topped off the evening with a movie (Dan in Real Life), came home reset our clocks for Daylight Savings and went to bed.