Little Cabin in the (Snowless) Woods

Though Dave continues to hold his annual Winter Retreat for the youth group, insane blizzard weather has kept us from visiting "Daddy's Cabin" the past two years.  We were excited that the roads were finally safe enough for us to make the trip up to higher elevations to enjoy a day with him and the youth group.

And yes, it was nice to have such completely clear roads, but the lack of snow accumulation was actually a tad disappointing.  I've written about our dry winter and I know you are all experiencing your own mild version of this season, but this was crazy!  If you remember, here are what the woods behind the cabin normally look like.  The girls haven't played in real snow in over a year, though, so they were still quick to get on their booties and slide down this tiny, icy slope (screaming and with their hands in air, of course).

Then we just hiked around the woods a bit, loving that fresh pine air and finding the biggest pine cones we could.  All the while, dodging the snow balls Delia would fire off at point blank range!

Dave was actually out hiking with the youth group when we first arrived, so we had a few hours to explore on our own.  We drove just a bit to try and find some real snow.  On the way, we saw this snow measuring stick along the side of the road.  I asked everyone about it and no one has ever seen it before.  We think this means it's always been covered by snow that's fallen and been plowed!  Again, pretty different this year. 

We found a great clump of fields connected to one another with snow that went up to the girls' knees in places.  They squealed when they got stuck in it, made some snow angels, attempted a snow man and, of course, nailed me with some more snow balls.  You know, the typical stuff for kids who see snow once every other year!

Back at the cabin, we met up with the youth group and spent the afternoon laying around in the sunshine that was pouring through the wall of windows in the cabin's great room.  Lunch, laughter, games and movies were some of the activities.  Highlights were the girls learning to play fuse ball and helping Mr. Phil build his annual snow sculpture.  Though the snow supply was limited, he still put together a pretty impressive snow bridge on the deck's railing.

When the drive that normally takes about an hour took six last year and when the whole youth group had to pitch in for several more hours just to unearth cars and push them out of the cabin's twisty, steep driveway, Dave was more than happy to have a snowless Winter Retreat this time.  Here's hoping we can find some sort of snow happy medium next year!

When Life Gives You Lemons...

Or, more accurately, when friends who you've just shared a play date with give you lemons (and give you more than you know what to do with)...make lemonade! 

On Friday we enjoyed getting to know some new friends when twin girls from Ella's class invited her, Delia and I over for a few hours after school.  When the twins' dad started pruning his fruit trees, the 4 little girls got right in on the action, helping collect hundreds of lemons and creating a pretend lemonade-making business.  So, Ella begged us to try the real thing this Saturday with the bulging bag of lemons they sent us home with.

First, our business started with production.  There is the hard work of squeezing the juice out of all the lemons.  Good thing this is such a fun job!  The mere drops of juice each lemon half yields sure makes it a time-consuming one!

Then we turned our cup and a half of fresh squeezed juice into a delicious jug of lemonade.  Those of us on quality control (Delia) thought this recipe was a pretty good one.  While making the lemonade, I kept thinking of something funny I recently read: "Unless life also gives you water and sugar, your lemonade is going to suck." 

The marketing end of the business (Ella) got busy making signs.  I was shocked how effective this was.  We actually sold lemonade to people who were just passing by! I figured all our sales would be from calling people and begging them to come.  Pastor Bruce, Mrs. P. and a friend working at church were kind enough to patronize the stand also.

We went for some product appeal when we set up the stand.  Ella thought it was important to bring the yellow chair, wear a yellow shirt and use yellow cups and paper.

We also took our stand to a more high-traffic area on the church lawn, which really worked to sell all of...8 glasses!  Yep, that's a whole two bucks we made today! 

This business endeavor was gallons of fun and actually kind of successful.  Everyone has to attempt a lemonade stand once in their life, right?  We had a great experience turning our lemons into lemonade this weekend!

Abloom

To our family and friends:

Whether you're in need of a new screen saver or you're simply in need of the sight of blue skies and sunshine, enjoy this year's batch of Almond Blossom pictures. 

 

With our annual blossom pics, I think it's fun to note some new pronounciation this year. Delia is finally starting to pronounce the sound of "L" and no longer calls them "bwooms", meanwhile Ella, without even realizing it, has dropped the "L" and switched to calling them "aaamond blossoms", thus making her the first true California member of our family! I still refuse to give in. :)

Ella's Big Race

Because she was especially energetic one day this week and because she begged me to do it, I took Delia out for a run.  To keep her out of the street, we went to a nearby school to run around their track.  Though I could barely keep her from yanking my arm off as we approached the track, once we started our "run" Delia decided she was sooo tired after about 30 steps and plunked right down, not to budge until I bribed her with a trip to the playground.  This pretty much sums up my own attitude about running-- it sounds good, but once you start you quickly realize that it kinda sucks and falling down to the ground honestly feels like a better option than pressing on through the pain.  Anyone else with me?  Apparently, Delia and I are the only ones in this family who feel this way.  Some how Ella has decided she's a runner, like her dad.  She actually enjoys going out for runs with him and was beyond excited to participate in the one mile race at this morning's Almond Blossom Festival.

Since she's been running regularly with Dave, they have their stretching routine down.  I hate running, but I do love watching them together map their runs and warm up before taking off down the block!

At today's race, Ella and Dave had two goals: run the entire time and come in under 11 minutes.  They started strong and had a good run.

 In this race, there's a corner you round and then the home stretch with that finish line in view.  Ella was so focused on it, she didn't even see Delia and I screaming and waving the signs she forced us to make for her! :)

The goal of coming in under 11 was met!  Ella ran her fastest mile ever at 10:44!

She was so proud of running her first big race so well.  She met a goal and finished tough and strong, even though Dave said she was tired.  When they posted the list of times and places, we took a peek just for fun.  When Ella saw that she had won 3rd place in her age group, she was so happy she actually shed some tears!

The love and pride Ella feels for this little bronze medal may rival that of an Olympian!  It's probably not coming off her neck for a while!  She's already talking about next year's race and how she's going to go even faster and maybe even run the 8K some day.  Dave said, "This is how a runner is born."

The Membership Put to Good Use, Once Again

To finish off our long weekend, we shared our guest passes with Jeff, Amy, Jonathan, Grace and Benjamin for another great day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  (Seriously, this membership may have been one of the most awesome things we've ever purchased!)  Enjoying the aquarium with some good friends was its own highlight, but some super active undersea critters also had a big hand in making the day memorable.

One of our first aquarium stops is always at the giant octopus.  Though we run there right away hoping to catch a glimpse of this favorite, yet mysterious and shy, animal doing something interesting, he's always just bunched up in a tentacle-y ball, hiding in his cave.  Not yesterday!  We actually screamed (Delia the loudest!) when we walked up and saw him all stretched out!  We watched for a looong time as the octopus changed colors and zoomed all around the tank, climbing the rock walls and suctioning to the glass with all those twisty arms.  Coolest thing ever.

We started a bit of a routine in watching the movie Finding Nemo during the long drive to Monterey.  It's always fun to then find friends from the movie in the tank that's especially designed to display the Finding Nemo collection of coral reef fish.

 The seahorse exhibit never fails to impress!  Yesterday, little Grace shared my enthusiasm for the artfully created Leafy Sea Dragons.

 The girls' favorite part of the seahorse exhibit has become the mating movie romantically entitled "The Dance".  Don't worry, it's very G-rated, though one of our aquarium guests did once label it "Seahorse Porn"!

 Of course, Ella and Delia had to choreograph their own "Seahorses Falling in Love Dance" after watching yesterday!

I think this shows Grace getting a piece of the love that the dance ends with! :)

I include this picture of our friends because I think it's a really nice picture of their sweet family, but also because shortly after we took it, we noticed the dolphins jumping boat waves in the bay!  Seeing wild dolphins in the ocean is something we've been lucky enough to do a number of times now, but it never stops being exciting!

There were a number of great animal encounters yesterday-- an unusually frisky octopus, lots of laughter over seahorses getting together, a rare dolphin sighting and these extra friendly penguins.  The girls were befriended by two penguins who seemed to be trying hard to get as close to them as possible.  The guy above even acted like he wanted to pose for my picture!

Our aquarium day was great, but every good thing must come to an end.  And with 5 little kids that end comes abruptly and with sudden fatigue and crabbiness.  This group picture we grabbed upon leaving may not capture everyone at their best, but it will help us remember the good times we had!

Our family ended the day off in Monterey with one more hour at the beach.  It became very important to the girls to round up every hermit crab they could catch in the shallow tide pools and move them into a pool of water they had dug and decorated special for the crabs.  That is what is happening in the following pictures...it actually was a lot of fun!

Long Weekend

Like you probably did, we all had/took a day off yesterday for President's Day.  But, a school in service also gave us Friday off, so I'm going to take a few posts to write about our great long weekend.  To make Friday's day off a fun day off, we took the kids to Bouncy House Heaven (aka Go Bananas) where they spent all morning expending unbelievable amounts of energy climbing, sliding, obstacle-coursing and, of course, bouncing. A special lunch out followed.

And at night, I allowed Ella and Delia to have the top bunk sleepover they've been begging for.  This little thing was such a HUGE TREAT!  They got to stay up an hour late with their special star and moon lights on.  With a smile, I eavesdropped on them reading and giggling together.  When the lights had to go out, Delia stayed in Ella's bed, cuddling for the night.  I think some sweet, sweet sister memories were made.

Meanwhile, Dave didn't sleep at all as he hosted the annual lock-in at church for his Middle School Youth Group.  Here's what you need to know about that: not a single one of the almost 30 energetic pre-teens in this youth group slept or even settled down...all night.  Good thing Friday was such a fun day, because Saturday was spent tiptoeing around the house whispering, "Don't wake up Daddy!" :) 

Delia "Twinkle Toes"

When we went around our Valentine's Dinner Table sharing what we loved most about one another the other day, Dave told Delia about the pure fun and joy she brings to each day.  Our memories of Delia in her childhood will include a visual of her in some dress-up outfit, performing some sort of dance or song.   She does this daily.  Some days, hourly.

As I listened to Dave describe the Delia we love, I realized I hadn't taken any video of her in a while.  With good timing, she just happened to bust out these sweet tap moves, wearing, what else, but an Ariel gown and hand-me-down tap shoes.  (PS The video is less than 20 seconds long, but the actual tap show was over 20 minutes!)

Check, Check, Check

When you think about Valentine's Day, a lot of typical images of what you should do, give and get come to mind.  In thinking about our Valentine's Day yesterday, I realized we checked nearly every one of those "standards" off the list!

Stuffed animals and chocolate, check.  Thanks to Grandpa's annual box of Valentine goodies, we girls were spoiled once again with these traditional treats.

Love letters, check.  Dave took the time to select special cards for each of his girls and write a long message inside describing all the things he loves about us.

Flowers, check.  Dave also spoiled us with the first tulips of the season!  And he had my favorite lunch waiting for me when I returned home from Bible Study and preschool pick-up! 

Heart-shaped, Mylar balloon, check.  Both the girls had Valentine's Day parties at school.  Delia came home with some LOOT yesterday!  One classmate, in particular, went overboard creating fancy, stuffed gift bags for each kid.  The balloon was tied to the bag and it has provided endless fun!

Heart-shaped lunch, check.  Pinterest gave me a lot of Valentine's Day inspiration this year.  Making my peanut butter, Hershey Kiss cookies with chocolate heart candies and cutting the strawberries into heart shapes were just a few of the ideas I snagged from my new favorite site.

Homemade Valentines, check.  I made Dave this "Checking You Out" card from an old-school library card.  Loved the idea when I saw it on, you guessed it, Pinterest and was excited to make it my own.  Fitting the "You're lookin' good!" theme, I got him a set of kettlebell weights too.  That's romance for ya! :)

Valentine's Day Scavenger Hunt, check!  This one has become a beloved tradition in our house.  Here the girls figure out the clue Happy Valentine's Day! So special you are, find the place that is cold...it's not very far.

You like to watch your favorite movies on this, before you go find it, give Mommy a kiss!

Ring, ring, ring, friends call to say, "Hi."  A message of love for a sweet Valentine!

Little gifts, check!  This is what the Scavenger Hunt allows us to do so well-- give the girls fun little gifts that they need to decode clues around the house to find. 

Though my checklist is full of things, we recognize that the purpose for each thing we gave and received was an "I love you!"  This is why we revel in Valentine's Day:  it's a day to spoil our dear ones and be extravagant in our displays of love.  Hope your Valentine's Day lists are full of checks, but, more importantly, your hearts are full of love after celebrating yesterday! <3

Half & Half

Today I hit a very fun milestone with Dave.  It's February 11, which means 17 years ago today we went on our first date to a high school dance.  Since I was 17 years old at the time, this means Dave has now been in my life for exactly half of it!  (Dave will celebrate this "Half His Life with Jen" milestone next year, at 18 years.)  How blessed am I to be able to celebrate such a long, half-a-life history with the person I love most?

(Hitting this fun milestone gives us an excuse to look back at these old pictures of us as youngins! :)