Family Christmas Traditions

I LOVE Christmas time!!! Since we came home just 8 days before the special day I figured that most of our typical holiday activities would have passed us by. Usually it all begins the week of Thanksgiving which my dad takes off work to turn his house into a Clark Griswold-like Christmas Light Wonderland! Then after Thanksgiving dinner we'd decorate my parents' Christmas tree. We'd decorate our house and put up our tree too. The weeks before Christmas would be full of baking hundreds of Christmas cookies, crafting gifts with the boys, shopping, Christmas cards, etc. This year Christmas is looking quite a bit different. Our own decorations are packed away... but we came home to finds lots of Christmas waiting for us! We could see the glow from all my dad's Christmas decorations from blocks away as we arrived home! Jonathan woke up as we parked and said, "Oooo! Look at all Papa's lights! It looks great!" My parents really wanted to boys to be able to decorate a tree, so they waited and had the boys put the ornaments on their tree. Jonathan and Aaron loved looking at each ornament and took great care when placing them on the lower branches on the tree. Luckily Papa and Grandma jumped in to help balance out by decorating the top of the tree.

Grandma & Aaron decorating the tree

Papa & Jonathan

Getting a little help from the bench

TA-DA!!

We'd been home only a few days when we were blessed to go to the annual Gingerbread house party with our dear friends the Duggans, the Moes, and the Lauterbachs! Lots of frosting, lots of candy, and lots of laughs- it made for a fantastic evening!

We even managed to do a Christmas craft! The boys had fun painting and gluing. They really enjoy making and giving gifts to others.

Taking his craft very seriously

Foam Decorations!

Can't wait to surprise our family and friends!

And we're making cookies too, just on a much smaller scale! All our cookie cutters are packed so thanks to Christine Bauer for letting us borrow her cutters so we could make such pretty cookies.

Rolling out the dough

Aaron preferred the free-form approach

This is lots of fun!

My happy helpers!

JJ frosting a snowman

Yep, these need lots of sprinkles!

Yummm!

I think Aaron liked the frosting more than the cookies

He did get some frosting on the cookies

Aaron gives his bite of approval!

Christmas Eve Eve our church hosted but we missed it because Kris & Jonathan weren't feeling well and and we didn't want to share any germs! 

Christmas Eve we went light-looking which I've done with my dad and sister for as long as I can remember (sadly my sister Carrie can't join us this year, but we're so happy to start sharing it with the boys). This will be Aaron's first year and I can't wait to watch his face light up!

All bundled up and ready to go!

Nativity in Murphys

The real reason for the season in Angels Camp

and our personal favorite- Papa's house!!

 Christmas cards didn't happen this year, and I'm not too disappointed about it, maybe we'll send out Easter cards, lol. 

We completed our Christmas shopping in Belize and online, which meant I came home and got to do my favorite part- wrapping the gifts!

Christmas morning was spent with my sister and her boyfriend in Stockton. It was her first time hosting Christmas dinner. She did a fantastic job! We also enjoyed meeting Dustin's family for the first time! 

Jonathan's ready for presents!

JJ & AJ get a drum set from Grandma and Papa- Oh my!

The Family

The goofy family!

Our little family

Me & my "little" sister

Carrie & Dustin

Carrie, Mom, & Me

We'll celebrate Christmas with Kris' family on New Year's Eve and can't wait to see everyone!

We certainly feel so blessed to be home to celebrate such a wonderful Season, and to be so near to all our families and friends!

Bring it on!!

When we left for Belize it was in the tail end of summer and we were headed to a tropical place- so shorts and tank tops filled our bags. As we got ready to head home, my mom gently reminded me that we'd be coming home to winter and winter weather... not exactly shorts and tank tops weather... Luckily I had packed one pair of pants and a sweatshirt for each of us. And since we started packing in the summer, our winter clothes were the first things packed and therefore were also the first items put into our 16ft x 10 ft storage unit. We were certainly caught off guard when we arrived home last weekend to the frigid temperatures! Today my mom was off work and she kept the boys while Kris and I headed to the storage unit to hunt for our winter clothes.

Phase 1- stuff from Belize and moving out some stuff

Ready to dive in!

 Long story short it took us 4.5hrs to find what we needed. After about 3hrs I thought we were done but then realized that I hadn't found the boys' coats yet. So back into the abyss I went. We were right in that all the winter stuff was clear in the back of the storage unit. We managed to avoid pulling everything out by carefully shifting boxes and furniture from one spot to another giving me just enough room to squeeze in. The boys' coats proved to be quite elusive. In fact we nearly gave up and just resolved to buying them new ones, but I was determined to find them. Way in the back and way in the bottom in the very last Rubbermaid tubby that I'd be able to look in without drastically removing many things (seriously it was our last chance before just giving up)... the tubby was marked "Teacher Stuff" was all the boys' hoodies and at the very bottom were their coats and hats!! I was so excited!!! I climbed out and we repacked the storage unit as quickly as we could as the temperatures were quickly dropping.

Making a hole!

Determined to find our warm clothes!

 So bring on the winter weather! We're ready to layer up!

12/14-12/17 Layover in Buckeye, Arizona and arriving HOME!!!

AJ with spikey hair

JJ with spikey hair

From Tucson it was only a 2.5 hr drive to Buckeye Arizona. Boy were we excited about spending such a short amount of time in the car!! We made a short stop in the town of Chandler to satisfy our craving for In-n-Out Burger. Soooo yummy! Kris even got one of the pigeons to eat right out of his hand! We arrived at the home of the Trents around 1pm. The big kids were still at school but that didn't keep my two boys from making themselves at home. It was fantastic to see my Moron (it's a long long story, but I promise it's a term of endearment) and her family. Her kiddos came home from school and everyone played and played! Nathan is 9, Chloe is 8, Jillian is 6 and Wyatt is 6 months.

See the snow on the Arizonan Mountains?

@ In-n-Out Burger

Pigeon eats out of Kris' hand

 Moron and I loved just hanging out together- cooking meals, cleaning up, helping each other's kids! Her husband Lowell works nights but took time during the day when he'd normally be catching up on sleep to help Kris with our 'Burb. He said the guy in Mexico had put in the wrong type of transmission fluid and he'd made some other mistakes too (so we're extra thankful that we made it this far!). They drained the transmission and Lowell told Kris to pour in new fluid, well they'd bought both motor oil and transmission fluid so they could do an oil change as well... and Kris grabbed the wrong container and poured in motor oil. Lowell said, "Hey Kris, why are you putting motor oil in to your transmission?" So even though they were nearly done, they had to drain the oil out and wait until the next day to put the correct fluid in. Kris said it was a major lesson in humiliation because he was just criticising the Mexican mechanic for the very same thing! God works in interesting ways sometimes! Thankfully no damage was done and all the repairs were completed by Thursday afternoon.

Silly Aaron

Happy Wyatt!

The kids watched movies, played Lego's, Dora & Diego, Star Wars, and read books together. Nathan surprised my boys by letting them have these two big trucks that they'd been playing with the whole visit. "You mean, I can take it home with me, like for forever??" Jonathan said.

Playtime!!

Moron reading a bedtime story

Nathan & Chloe playing with our air pump

 We left Buckeye at 10am on Friday, knowing we'd have an 11 hr drive ahead of us. We saw many cars on the highways but two license plates caught our eyes- one from the state of Maine, the other from Virginia- boy were they a long way from home! We drove through McDonalds and grabbed chicken nuggets for the boys to eat for lunch (man I can't wait to get back to eating real food)!

Me & all the kiddos- Aaron, Nathan, Jilly, Chloe, Wyatt & Jonathan

Kris & I with the Trent kiddos

Moron, Kris, and I plus all our kiddos!

Me & my Moron!

 Entering CA was easy, but man we got sticker shock when it was time to buy gas! We went from paying $3.09/gal in Arizona to $3.45- 3.85/gal in CA!! We got into the L.A. area around 3pm and traffic was light. The car had been running smoothly and Kris was getting tired. So I offered to drive. I'm not a huge fan of driving in big cities and was pretty stressed out. Then the car started acting up too! So we pulled over and Kris drove again. We had issues with the car off and on the whole way home, guess we'll have to get the transmission looked at. Thankfully if we just pulled over and turned the car off, waiting a few minutes, the car ran fine for a few hours at a time at least. We just wanted so badly to get home! We encountered some fog once we neared Oakdale but it was only small patches and once we hit HWY 4, it was easy-peasy. We arrived at my parents house around 10pm, the boys been asleep for about an hour and Aaron went right into bed. Jonathan woke up as we pulled up and saw that his Papa still had all the Christmas lights turned on. "Wow," He said, "We're here!! Well that didn't take as long as I thought it would!"

Welcome to California!!

Looks like we have a stowaway from Belize!

 It is wonderful to be back on our home turf! Thanks for following us on this adventure! We certainly learned a lot. I plan on keeping the blog going as our life is certainly an adventure in and of itself!

Merry CHRISTmas!!!

12/13/11 Fort Stockton, TX to Tucson, Arizona 556 miles

After making oatmeal for breakfast and digging out our warm clothes we left Fort Stockton at 9:25am. It was cold out but the weather was cloudy and clear, no fog or rain like the day before.  We got gas in Van Horn TX and paid $3.09/gal. After only being on the road for 25 min the car started acting up again. We said a prayer and pulled over, Kris repeated his adjustment trick and off we went. The car ran well. We’re not sure exactly what the adjustment does, but we are so thankful that it is working and is allowing us to move quickly toward home.

Beautiful Texas mountains

 The highlight of the day was definitely stopping in El Paso to visit with my college roommate Stacey, her husband William and their two kiddos Angelica and Willy. They just moved to El Paso so that William could take over managing the Double Tree hotel there and they’d arrived only the weekend before. We hadn’t seen each other since Stacey’s wedding two years before and so it was wonderful that the timing worked out for a visit today! We met up with them at the hotel (which I’d highly recommend if you’re ever in the area, as it is super nice!) and then went to Taco Cabana for lunch. We hadn’t eaten there before and it was fantastic. After a long lunch we went back to the hotel and let the kids run around on a patio that was on the same floor at Stacey’s room. Angelica is 6 years old and William is around 18 months. The kids all had so much fun playing together. We got into El Paso around 1pm and left around 5pm, Stacey bought us coffee for the road (thanks so much Girlie!). We sure wish we could have visited longer, but we are really anxious to get home and wanted to get a few more hours on the road.

Angelica, William & Jonathan

Stacey reads a Jonah book to Jonathan

Angelica makes a bus out of patio chairs- So creative!

Aaron chowing on a churro!

Angelica, 6; Aaron 3, Jonathan, 5

Me & Stacey

 We decided to make Tucson our goal to stop for the night. We thought we were a lot farther away from Arizona until Kris pulled up the Google map and saw that by being in El Paso, we were actually already halfway through New Mexico and making it into Arizona tonight wouldn’t be too difficult! We stopped at a Wal-Mart to stock up on snacks and to get more bread for sandwiches and oatmeal for breakfasts. By 7pm we were headed towards Arizona. At 8:30pm we crossed the border in to Arizona and we gained an hour. Then the rain hit with a vengeance and the car started slipping again. We pulled into a gas station to take cover so Kris could try adjusting it again.It seemed to do the trick and we set off again. Before long the boys were fast asleep.

Amazing Texan sunset!

I agree!

Then it started snowing!! Snow in Arizona??? It was sticking to the grass, but not the highway. It alternated between snow and rain for about 20 miles and then cleared up. We pulled into Tucson a little after 11pm and found a hotel. We got a room at The Western Hotel for $45. Only 828 miles to go!!!

Snow in Arizona!!