Glorious Weekend

We've been planning this weekend with our dear friends the Gilmores for months.  Finally being on this side of it, I can say it was every bit as fun and life-giving as we had hoped!

Right after school on Friday we drove to the coast to meet Dorina and the girls for a hotel sleepover and Saturday at the aquarium.  We kicked off our weekend with this crazy dinner at Nacho Mama's, a random Mexican place Dorina found on Yelp.  The food was fantastic, as was the guaranteed giggle you'd get from yelling "NACHO MAMA'S!!"  We just can't hang out with Dorina without some food adventure!

  

After Nacho Mama's, it was back to the hotel for an almost 2 hour swim, followed by a pajama party!  We intentionally booked a 2 room suite, so there were plenty of beds and options for the girls.  Where they did all insist on sleeping?  Squished together in a blanket and pillow fort they built on the floor!  (By morning, everyone had migrated to various beds, which we found funny too.)

This was a great aquarium visit.  We decided to let the girls kind of dictate what we'd see and spend time on...which became us using this aquarium visit to deeply explore each of the play areas, learning games and hands-on activities we normally skip over to focus on the animals.  It made for a completely different day and a perfect opportunity to let our girls play together while we adults caught up on life.

My amazing friend is taking all she's been through this year to start writing Bible Study material about "Glory".  As Dorina ponders and researches her first chapter, how God reveals his Glory through creation, she was especially inspired by the jelly fish exhibit.  I love this moment I captured.  I can see her mind trying to wrap around the beauty of these upside-down jellies and I can't wait to read about them when her book gets published!

The girls create their own jelly fish (above) and give the sea cucumbers and decorator crabs some love (below).

 Dorina and the blondes! :)

 This one of our expressive children in the wave cave is going in a frame for sure!

 Each of Dorina's girls had moments that touched my heart, but this one is tops.  Giada brought a little cash she'd been given to spend in the gift shop.  She used it to buy a two-strand Best Friends penguin necklace to share with Delia!

After a few hours at the aquarium, we took a drive down the coast.  We pulled over to watch the wildlife up close. Then we got to watch the sky catch on fire as the sun set at the beach.  

A real highlight of this trip was hearing some more about how the Lord has been walking with Dorina in these months following Ericlee's passing.  Together we got to spend some good time unpacking how God wastes no journey and works good in all circumstances, giving us no option but to give Him Glory.

 Yep.  Nailed it. :)

Our weekend with our friends concluded with some Pizza My Heart for dinner.  We watched in delight as the dough makers tossed their crusts high in the air.  We ate unique slices decorated with bacon, sage, feta and figs.  We fired our theological questions about why God allows evil and suffering at Dave.  And we watched our girls declare their love for one another while fiercely hugging goodbye in the parking lot.  It was a glorious weekend indeed.

    

The Little Things

I'd describe our break with a word like "relaxing" or "peaceful".  We did tons of reading, lots of sleeping, a good amount of movie watching.  But, I must confess something: there were times over this relaxing Christmas Break that I wished were not so relaxing.  I was sad that we were never able to pull together a trip to the city, or a trip to the mountains.  I felt bitter that when people asked what we did over break, I wouldn't have much to tell them.  Then I started looking through the pictures on my phone and listening to my husband, who reminded me that almost every day held something fun in it, and I realized that this was an AWESOME break!  Not because we filled it with spectacular day-trips, but because we filled it with friends and special close-to-home experiences.

I was blessed to kick off break with a wonderful lunch with all my co-workers.  Our Preschool Director treated us and it was SO good to get out of the classroom and laugh with and get to know one another better.  I really value professionally everyone I get to work with, and times like this make me think of my co-teachers as friends too.

After Christmas, we had a fridge full of left-overs so we called over our good friends Sara, Arend, Anja and Anika to help us eat up some ham buns (Anika did not help much).  While they visited, they taught us a challenging new Settlers of America game.  It took a lot longer than any of us anticipated when we set it up, so the girls got to stay up way past their bed time, cuddled up watching movies together.  I'd call us each responsible parents, but there is no way we'd quit on a good game before a winner is declared...even if the kiddos are getting tired! :) 

On Dave's birthday, we joined the VM Fam (all 91 of them!!), for their Christmas celebration.  It included open-air caroling on Grandpa Ed's restored fire truck, fried-up-fresh Oliebollen, and a crazy White Elephant gift exchange.  The next day, we did our annual birthday double date with Phil and Jetta (Phil's b-day is 2 days after Dave's).  We saw Unbroken with them, then spent almost 3 kid-less hours chatting about the movie, ministry, and life at the steakhouse.

Another day, I got the girls out of the house by taking them to the jumpy house place.  A new inflatable featuring those giant red Wipe Out balls was where they spent all their time.  Add "Getting all the way across the giant red Wipe Out ball obstacle course" to their list of skills!  Ella even started making me time her.  She can do it in under 7 seconds.

One thing that was definitely on the girls' Christmas Break list was a get-together with their new favorite friends Evan and Zane.  Evan and Zane's dad and mom, Pastor Chris and Rachel, used to serve a church right here in town.  They moved away for a while, grew their family, and just returned to the area.  It's been a great gift to rekindle our friendship with them and get to meet and know their wonderful sons.  My girls and Rachel's boys are kindred spirits, connecting immediately and asking constantly to play.  We met for a morning of bowling...which led to an hour at the bookstore...which turned into a pizza play date at their house!  We were all having too good of a time to say goodbye, I guess!

So, no, I won't be able to say, like I thought we would, "We went sledding in Yosemite!" or "We spent a day exploring San Francisco!" when people ask what we did this break.  But, I'm content to say, "We learned a new game!" or "We flew across humongous bouncy balls!" or "We drove fast down country roads, hanging off a fire truck, singing Joy to the World!"  It's not what I thought our break would look like.  It's actually better.

Elf Mischief

My girls fill a jar with marbles when they do chores and tasks around the house.  When their marble jar overflows, they get to buy something off their wishlist.  At the top of Delia's list for the past few months has been an Elf on the Shelf.

Now, we don't do much with Santa, so our elf is pretty un-traditional.  We read the book she came with once and decided to make our own rules.  Our elf is named Jingles and each night in December, she has gotten the honor of having one of the 4 of us arrange her into a situation to surprise the rest of the family with in the morning.

These pictures obviously don't show all the mischief she's gotten into with the help of me, Dave, Ella and Delia, but they show some of our favorites:  

 This one was my VERY favorite, courtesy of Dave.  He made the "Magical Magi" have Jingles in the wooden box when we woke up.  Then when we left for school, she was gone!  Later that night we found Jingles hanging off a decoration by the window.  And this is why I love the way we play this...I would have never come up with something like this!  I've been so delighted by the ideas my family have surprised me with!

The girls were not a fan of this one!

Can you tell: 1. This pose was left courtesy of Mom and 2. It came late in the Christmas Break when I just could not take any more arguing!  Can't blame a mama for enlisting all available resources to save her sanity, can ya? :)

We're not making Jingles disappear for a year or anything.  Delia spent her hard earned marbles buying this toy and probably wants to keep letting her have light saber fights with the evil poodle and vacations with the Barbies.  But, we will take the next 11 months to think of new ways to set her up for next Christmas!

Global Wonderland

Tonight we visited the Taj Mahal.  And Big Ben.  And the White House.  And the Sphinx.  And St. Basil's Cathedral.  And the Great Wall of China.  We were supposed to go ice skating, as we do every New Year's Day, but the rink was already sold out when we arrived, so we decided to travel around the world instead.

Sacramento is hosting this one-of-a-kind lantern and light show at Cal Expo this season.  It actually ends in just a few days.  Since it was not far from our downtown skating rink, it made the perfect Plan B when we discovered that everyone in the state is catching on to our "Go Ice Skating on New Year's Day!" idea.  It ended up being such a great night, far exceeding our expectations even!

While we waited for the sun to set, we played in the "snow."

And saw a fun show featuring some Kenyan acrobats who did all sorts of cool tricks, including "human pyramids".  For a limbo number, they called Ella and Delia up on stage.  While Delia could not go this low, one of the acrobats could!

When dark fell, it was time to start our world tour.  The expo was divided up in sections of the globe.  We visited the Golden Gate Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, and the White House in America.

In Europe we saw London Bridge, Big Ben, the Eiffle Tower, Dutch windmills, and gondolas in Venice, to name a few.

We saw safari animals in Africa, the Great Barrier Reef and Sydney Opera house in Australia and a huge dragon, panda bears, and the Great Wall in Asia.

We've been having some really cold weather lately, so being outside all night was chilly.  We watched an hour long Circus Lights show featuring amazing acts and performers from around the world.  I couldn't feel my toes by the end of it!  But, besides battling some initial no-ice-skating-disappointment and some numb extremities, this night ended up being one of our favorites of Christmas Break!

DRAWING 2014 to a Close :)

In years past we've played Minute to Win It.  We've danced.  Last year it was about the drama.  This year, our New's Year Eve tradition of celebrating at the home of our friends Phil and Jetta continued...with ART being the theme and focus!

The art game that brought us hours of laughs this year was Telestrations, a fabulous group game combining Pictionary and Telephone.  In this game you draw a word from a card, pass your pad, guess what word the person next to you drew, write it, pass your pad, and make the person on the other side of you draw the word you guessed.  You do this for 12 rounds until your original picture has made its way around the large group circle.

As you can imagine, hilarity ensues!  An original word like "Hearse" becomes "Barfing" (below), "China" gets interpreted as "Evolution" by way of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle" or, our favorite of the night, "Walkie-Talkies" eventually becomes "Abraham Lincoln".

Add in friends who are artistically challenged and daughters (ahem, mine) who can't guess a single word, but instead write a whole story, and the confusion grows!  Our NYE Game Testing Crew gives Telestrations another thumbs up!  This is not a competitive game.  The rules actually state that you determine who wins by asking who had fun!  In this spirit, the prize I found to send everyone home with was pencils stamped with the sparkly words, "I'm a Winner!".

Good food, good fellowship, and great laughter.  This last night of the year is becoming something we start looking forward to well before the holiday season is upon us!

Thanking God for a 2014 full of fun and friends and wishing you, Dear Loved Ones, a blessed 2015!