Weekend of Friends

The story is a familiar one: Dave has a whole weekend committed to church stuff (this time it was a ski weekend at a snowy cabin in the hills with his Young Adult group) and we take off for our own fun. And as we usually do, we found Dave-less refuge at Dorina's house. This may have been one of my favorite weekends with her. Our girls are at such a fun age that it was a pure delight to watch them play together independently, giving their moms lots of long chances to chat.

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Dorina took us to Twee, her new favorite craft boutique (think etsy in a store), for their Friday Morning Kid Craft time. The girls jumped right into some picture frame painting while we drooled over the cute handmade clippies and scarves.

We went out for pizza for lunch and came back home for the little ones to nap. This afternoon was the golden time for Ella and Meilani-- four hours of hard play. Ella immediately headed to Meilani's closet and swapped out her outfit for one of her friend's. Then the coloring, Valentine making, pretend hospital, tent wrestling and baby doll play commenced.


When Delia got up, we introduced Dorina and her girls to Jana Alayra. Our music-loving kids sang and danced along to the DVD on the little trampoline.

Dorina made us delicious pasta and chicken parmesan for dinner. The 4 girls took a happy bubble bath together and then we put the jammies on for a special story time. Ella and Meilani's plan to camp out and sleep in tents in the play room worked for about 2 hours, though we got a kick out of them staying up late to whisper to each other! We concluded our time at Dorina's with some blueberry french toast and smoothies in the morning. Then we had to take off for our next stop, good friend Teri and her family. This was another fantastic day full of quality time with friends. I loved seeing how Beth, Allie and Nathan have grown and watching my girls have a ball playing with them. This day was gorgeous (check out the no coats or shoes!) and playing outside in Teri's fabulous backyard was its own highlight.

We ate lunch with Phil and Teri and stayed the afternoon catching up and feasting on sunshine. And we even left with parting gifts-- Phil works for Land-O-Lakes and sent us home with a giant bag of butter and cheese!

What a great weekend! Big thanks to two of my best friends, Dorina and Teri, for the hospitality and good memories, for me and my girls!

Children's Museum

Yes the rain has been lovely, but this weekend we were starting to feel a little stir crazy. A morning of play at the children's museum helped cure our cabin fever. We found this neat little museum 2 years ago when Ella was Delia's age. It was fun to see Delia be old enough to enjoy it with her big sister this time. The museum is organized in these sort of "stations" of a city.

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The girls went crazy loading up their carts and baskets in the grocery store.

In the newsroom Delia gave some funny reports about the rain, calling herself by just our last name with "The" in front of it ("Hello this is The VM and it is raining outside.")

Can you find the "bad guy" Ella arrested and put in her police car?

No surprise that will all our afflictions lately, Ella was especially into the bones and x-rays and spent a good amount of time studying each one at the hospital. This one was cute because she saw the pins in the bones and said, "This must be Jesus' x-ray."

A lover of drama and fake-injury, Ella revisited the ambulance 3 different times and said it was totally her favorite.

Puppet show!

Ending our busy morning with some stories and sentence forming in the magnetic-wall reading room.

The View Out Our Window

We are on our 4th straight day of a predicted week of heavy rain. It's been fantastic! So much of our year is hot and dry, dusty and dirty; the rain comes and refreshingly cleanses. It also fills our reservoirs, saturates our ground and answers our farmers' prayers. The blog's been quiet because we've just been cuddled up inside watching movies, making cookies, doing crafts and watching the wind and downpour. A few days ago we saw an amazing full bow rainbow. Today we had some rare thunder. There may be nothing I like better than a good thunderstorm, but Ella is terrified. (And actually her intense cuddling during a thunderstorm makes me like them even more!) She was cracking me up today as she created her own Top Ten List of things she DOES NOT LIKE!! while she clung to me and hid from the house-rattling thunder. Guess what? Thunderstorms are the new number one. For the sake of memory preservation, thought I'd write down some of her other submissions. These are, emphatically, straight out of her mouth:

1. Thunderstorms
2. Broccoli
3. Fizzy drinks
4. Spiders
5. Spooky Caves
6. When there's a fire in our house that is not in the fireplace (No, we've never actually ever had this happen.)
7. Puking
8. Getting ouchies
9. Watching other people get ouchies
10. Having hiccups

I feel like I'm constantly describing what my girls like, well, now you know what Ella doesn't like!

Umbrella Parade

Just like last year, Ella had her Winter Celebration and Umbrella Parade today at preschool. She was super excited to have hot cocoa with marshmallows for a snack, wear her rubber boots and have her Mommy and Daddy and sister come watch her march around the block for half an hour. She sang the "Raindrops fall with a pitter, patter, pit..." song, twirled her umbrella and waved to the parent and grandparent audience. No real raindrops today, but a little imagination in the sunshine almost made it cuter.

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Oh how Delia longs to be a part of preschool! I keep telling her, "Next year!" and she responds by counting to three and telling me that's how old she needs to be. It is honestly stranger for me to think about Delia in preschool than Ella in kindergarten next year!
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A Perfect Hand-Me-Down

I've written before about the gift of hand-me-downs. Recently one of our generous suppliers and good friends, Julie, had another big bag of adorable girl clothes to pass on to us. What a delight to find this Shamu costume in the bag! We immediately put it on Delia, who promptly freaked out. Because you need to climb into the costume though the mouth and then see the world through the teeth, I think she thought Shamu was eating her. Her fear of wearing the costume, however, has not deterred her interest in it. Almost every day she asks Ella to put the costume on for her so she can ride Shamu like the trainer and feed her fish. And just tonight I found her in the closet petting it on the hanger and telling me, "I touch-a Sam-U, okay?" I'm not sure which girl will wear it for Halloween next year, but it's definitely going to be a hit at the Harvest Party!

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The New Zoo

It was the desire to take advantage of our zoo membership once again to check out the new-to-us Sacramento Zoo that had us in that area of the state today. Dave's been hanging out on the couch for weeks now and, with his improved mobility, was just itching to get out of the house. We all needed a little family outing!

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The zoo was perfect for us-- a good variety of animals, very different than the Oakland Zoo we know so well, yet not too big or spread out that Dave had any trouble limping around. Ella has been very into directions and maps lately (ALL Dave's genes there!) and was happy to take control of the zoo map. She followed right along and kept telling us where we were on her own.

Leapin' Lemurs! These guys were my favorite of the zoo. I could have watched them all day. This picture gives you just a little taste of the shenanigans they were up to-- one-legged, upside-down chicken fighting!

Ostriches, orangutans, anteaters, jaguars, red pandas and kangaroos were just some of the animals we saw today that we don't usually get to see on zoo outings.

Just love those giraffes!

Ella helped with the map, Delia was very helpful with the wagon pulling!

You know Delia loves all animals. Watching her was the best part of today's outing for us parents. She would run up to each enclosure, exclaim over it and say cute things about the animals inside like, (in a whisper) "Shh. Have to be quiet, this lion is nigh-night."

Aren't the spots on those jaguars incredible?

And...we got to see this. :) This picture of kangaroos "cuddling" is just for you, Auntie Kris!

The Impulsive Haircut

Just yesterday our church secretary was commenting on how long Delia's hair was getting. I have been having some hesitation about getting it cut, though, one reason being that it's taken her so long to even grow hair! Another haircut dread was knowing how sensitive Delia is about her head. She tolerates me brushing and pulling it back in a clippie for about 6 seconds every day before she starts screaming and running away.

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Today we went on a family outing that had us in Sacramento and when we saw the Cool Cuts 4 Kids place right next to the Panera Bread where we ate lunch, we up and decided it was time for Delia to have a real hairstyle. We walked inside and were instantly optimistic that this would be a great experience, instead of a traumatic one. Fire truck shaped stools, each station having its own TV with whatever you wanted to watch on it, legos, trains, coloring books and other toys for distraction, Delia ran in excitedly. And as the gal started spraying, combing, cutting, styling and even blow drying, Delia didn't even notice! Her eyes were glued on Dora and her hands on the steering wheel. We walked out with a much more grown up looking Delia, lollipops and a keepsake certificate with some locks of Delia's baby hair.

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Showing off the new big-girl do at home!
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Diagnosis: Sprain

Having endured over 2 weeks of pain and swelling that was not easing at all, Dave did finally go see his doctor. Before the doctor would see him, he sent him for x-rays on Monday. Monday night we got an email from the doctor saying he saw the x-ray and it indicated no fracture. So what was wrong then? Dave started having worse-case scenarios run through his head-- tear, surgery, etc. Thursday's appointment revealed he does, in fact, just have a bad sprain. The doctor did give Dave a stiff new brace that laces up like an ice skate and instructed him to focus more on hot water soaks, rather than ice packs. Today, for the first time in weeks, Dave's ankle actually looks kind of normal and the new brace has allowed him to ditch the crutches.

. Ella has had a number of ankle "injuries" since Dave got his (most occur when she brushes her leg against something, like the couch). The girls just have to get in on this! Here they raid Dave's hot water soak. In my Bible Study, Beth Moore repeatedly tells us about her favorite quality time activity in her home-- chatting, drinking hot chocolate and soaking her feet in the bathtub with her daughters. Maybe we're starting a new tradition here!

Sneak Peek...

You know I like pictures, so when Dave asked if I wanted to be on the New Church Directory Committee, I thought nothing of it-- get out the house one night a week, creative brainstorming with friends, some say in how the directory pages turn out-- sounded fun! It also seemed like it made the most sense, when our committee decided to digitally design the 11 activity pages ourselves, that I should be the one to do this, since we're the self-proclaimed Photoshop experts. Well, several weeks later and we are finally ready to submit our lovingly-crafted work. And it's a good thing Dave and I didn't keep track of and charge by the hour, because the church would owe us a new computer or another trip to Hawaii or something! :) We downloaded and sorted over 700 awesome pictures from Jeremy, fashioned and framed all the pages from scratch (with ideas from the committee), pulled off a few neat "tricks" and even redid each page when we recently learned we had the sizes all wrong. It's been a looong process, but one that has its rewards-- hours of quality time with my hubbie each night and a finished product we're pretty proud of.

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I've always wondered how many church friends are checking out our family blog. If you're reading this, enjoy a sneak peek of the new directory coming soon!

Busy at Play

Well, it turns out Dave's ankle is not getting any better. His pain is actually increasing and about a week ago he decided he should have a doctor take a look at it. Though, since he waited as long as he did, he decided to wait just a few more days and get it checked out after Jan. 1 so the deductible could be on one calendar year (insurance, ugh.) He's hoping to get into his doctor tomorrow. So, we've been hanging out at home. Yesterday we contemplated a family trip to Target just to get out of the house for the first time in 5 days, but it's honestly too much work. Good thing we have all these awesome new Christmas toys to keep us entertained! Thought you'd like to see how much fun we're having with all the great stuff you sent!

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Dave's 2009 Reading List

My “Rules” review (in case you'd like to try this for yourself):
- Only books read completely can be included in the list - nothing unfinished, nothing I read only a portion of, even if the portion was substantial.
- Page count is calculated by taking the last page of the actual book and then adding any introductory pages that were not in the count and any additional appendices that get read. (Glossary and Notes pages are subtracted, unless read - Illustrations within the book are fair game).
- Categories of “Professional” and “Personal” are totally subjective and usually divided more on why I read the book (especially this year there seemed like a bunch of books that were “Personal” but were more theological in nature)
- Reviews (all based on general impression at the end of the year) Green = generally positive, Red = generally negative, Black = Neutral
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Professional Reading:
“Simply Christian” by: N.T. Wright 244 pgs.
“Louder Than Words” by: Andy Stanley 184 pgs.
“The Faith” by: Chuck Colson 225 pgs.
“Working the Angles” by: Eugene Peterson 192 pgs.
“Crazy Love” by: Francis Chan 186 pgs.
“Shaping the Spiritual Life of Students” by: Richard Dunn 240 pgs.
“Communicating for a Change” Andy Stanley 199 pgs.
“Simple Church” by: Thom Rainer & Eric Greiger 253 pgs.
“The Prodigal God” by: Timothy Keller 140 pgs.
“The Cost of Discipleship” by: Dietrich Bonhoefer 304 pgs.
“Sacred Marriage” by: Gary Thomas 268 pgs.
“Life Together” by: Dietrich Bonhoefer 122 pgs.
“Sacred Parenting” by: Gary Thomas 223 pgs.
“The Prayer Saturated Church” by: Cheryl Sacks 248 pgs.
“Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church” by: Mark Deymaz 206 pgs.
“Uncommon Decency” by: Richard Mouw 169 pgs.
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Personal Reading:
“Armageddon, Oil and Terror” by: John F. Walvoord & Mark Hitchcock 220 pgs.
“UM…” by: Michael Erard 289 pgs.
“God and Government” by: Chuck Colson 424 pgs.
“Under a War-Torn Sky” by: L.M. Elliot 284
“Moby Dick” by: Herman Melville 828 pgs.
“Hattie Big Sky” by: Kirby Larson” 288 pgs.
“Dynamics of Faith” by: Paul Tillich 136 pgs.
“ A Thousand Splendid Suns” by: Khaled Hosseini 420 pgs.
“The Hunchback of Notre Dame” by: Victor Hugo 589 pgs.
“Jesus Wants to Save Christians” by: Rob Bell & Don Golden 218 pgs.
“The Imitation of Christ” by: Thomas A. Kempis 303 pgs.
“Holy Discontent” by: Bill Hybels 149 pgs.
“The Shack” by: William Young 248 pgs.
“The Picture of Dorian Gray” by: Oscar Wilde 280 pgs.
“Desperate Passage” by: Ethan Rarick 250 pgs.
“No Graven Image” by: Elisabeth Elliot 245 pgs.
“Elijah of Buxton” by: Christopher Paul Curtis 344 pgs.
“The Graveyard Book” by: Neil Gaiman 307 pgs.
“Undaunted Courage” by: Stephen Ambrose 539 pgs.
“The Trumpet of the Swan” by: E.B. White 210 pgs.
“Speak” by: Laurie Halse Anderson 208 pgs.
“The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” by: Barbra Robinson 90 pgs.
“The Story of Edgar Sawtelle” by: David Wroblewski 566 pgs.
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2009 Totals: 39 books - 10,838 pages
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Notes from this year:
1. I did have a lot of Young Adult and even Children’s literature this year. But, the ones read with Ella (Trumpet Swan and Best Christmas Pageant) are some of my favorite pages and, again, I think some of the tougher reads balance out the page count.
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2. I had a goal of 12,000 pages for the year, but fell short by a bit (I’ll get there one year). However, this is the most I have read in a year since keeping track (three years going now). The down side of this is that I honestly have little memory of several of the books I read, and even thought, “I read that?” about a couple.
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3. In typing this out, it was fun to think of the memories associated with many of these books - good reminders of what the year held for me.
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4. In the reviewing, it looks like I did pretty good this year, reading a bunch of mostly good books. Professionally, I will appreciate the Gary Thomas books and “Simple Church” most from this year. In the personal Category, I really liked “Desperate Passage” a story of the Donner Party and “No Graven Image” - a book I read in Seminary, but revisited and was really challenged by. It’s out of print, but I came across it and bought it from our church’s library discard sale.
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So, there it is for 2009. If you have any good suggestions for 2010 pass them on!