These Three Things We Shared:

Another of the many blessings of having Kyle here last week was all the special events we got to share with him.  First, we shared our Thanksgiving church service, dinner, and traditions with him.

In a year where our (immediate and extended) family saw spinal and arm surgeries, changed jobs, moves, loss, and retirement we had much to be thankful for!  We listed health, family, co-workers we love working with, jobs we love doing, good teachers, God's grace, and guinea pigs as some of the many specific things we thank God for this year.

Included is all the many rounds of Trains and cards we shared with Uncle Kyle, both on Thanksgiving Day and the rest of the week.  He kicked our butts for most of the games.  

The next thing we shared with Kyle was the annual Christmas tree hunt and decorating.  Though, this year we actually broke tradition a bit and shopped for our tree from the grocery store lot instead of the tree farm.  Partly because of the drought and quality of trees at the farm...partly because of the lack of time in our schedule...and partly because of the great the price...this was just the way we went this year.  Hot chocolate from the drive-through and giggling in the back seat about holding on  REALLY TIGHT to that string that tied the tree to the car roof made this family tradition still fun, even though it looked a little different.

And the last thing we shared with Kyle and was Ella's Profession of Faith at church on Sunday.  A few months ago, Ella read the entire Action Bible we got her cover to cover, When she finished it, she was crying about how good, loving, and powerful God was.  She wanted to make a commitment right then, having read God’s story in its entirety for the first time.  She started asking us about making her Profession of Faith.  Dave led her through the preparatory classes and then listened with pride as she articulately spoke about her faith and understanding of Jesus’ love and sacrifice for her in front of our Council.  Last Sunday she stood before our congregation to promise that she’d serve Him and be an active member of our church.  It was a special time for us and every one in our congregation and we just loved that Kyle was a part of this event as well.  Actually, it's likely you had a part in this step of faith for Ella too!  One of the blessings of living in Christian Community is the many voices my kids get to hear besides mine.  At some point, if you active in our lives (and you probably are if you are reading this blog), you have been a voice to Ella.  You may have shown her God’s love, or demonstrated what a life of service to the Lord looks like.  You have probably prayed with and for her.  Perhaps you have answered questions, and given encouragement.  Ella was ready to stand before a room of men and a congregation of many to declare her faith with confidence because you have had a role in developing that in her.  And I cannot express a deep enough gratitude for this--  thank you for investing in the salvation and spiritual health of our girl!

Jumpin' into a Week with Uncle Kyle

Last week we had the great pleasure of hosting Uncle Kyle for a week!  When Kyle is here, life is especially sweet.  He fits right into our routine perfectly and it is truly is a joy having him here to make our day to day more fun.  The day before Thanksgiving we had a day off school, so we took a fun little outing to the new trampoline place.  Now, last January, when it opened, I thought, "This place is awesome!  We are going to be here all the time!"  So I bought a couple Frequent Jumper Passes, having NO idea that a second broken arm would keep us from visiting for 6 months!  With the passes about to expire, we decided to put them to use having all FIVE of us participate in the jumping, and oh, what fun!  I think we adults may have enjoyed it more than the kids even...

The jousting pit had me taking on Ella (where I was brutal and refused to lose, thinking I wouldn't be able to get out of the foam pit!) and Kyle taking on Dave (where the younger brother claimed the victory!).

 Dave perfected his backward Michael Jordan slam dunk.

And we had waaaaay too much fun with the slo-mo button on my phone and the trampoline runway...

A Night of Music

A few weeks ago Ella had a piano recital of sorts.  Miss Sara's Night of Music was more informal than what Ella has performed at in the past and it was great!  Ella had 4 songs ready to play on the piano (a video of "Freight Train Boogie" is at the end of this post) and one song to play on her saxophone.  Since it was casual and in her teacher's home, there were not as many nerves.  Everyone got into the spirit and we had a lovely time hearing all the different performances, including a few duets by Miss Sara and her daughter Anja, who I babysit each week during Ella's lesson, and even one from Delia tapping out "The Black Keys Song" with Ella and her teacher.

Monterey Getaway with Mom and Dad

We're just returning from a couple perfect days in Monterey, a trip which is lovely all by itself.  But, this time we got to share this favorite spot with Mom and Dad, making this getaway even more special.  The things you will see in the following pictures are not things you haven't seen many times before on this blog: ocean, wildlife, monarch butterflies, the aquarium, Carmel Mission, Pebble Beach's Lone Cyprus, but again, they are things Mom and Dad have not seen in person, so we took great joy in showing them off and sharing them.

We started our long weekend at the coast with a stop in Moss Landing, where we looked for whales, but didn't find any.  We did find plenty of otters, seals and pelicans though!  The girls haven't run around the beach with their toes in the sand since summer, so they got excited to just do that too.

At the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary, we are never disappointed!  Our hotel was right next to this spot, so we got there first thing in the morning when the butterflies were just waking up.  Some were still clumped in the trees, but many were fluttering all around.

We had a genius plan for enjoying the aquarium this time.  We broke our visit into two days.  On our first Monterey day, we visited for the last 2 hours they were open.  On our second Monterey day, we visited for the first 2 hours they were open.  On both days we felt like we had the place to ourselves!  One thing that is different about the aquarium pictures you'll see in this post is that they have almost no other people in them!!  Above, another active octopus, putting on quite the show for JUST us!

 Playful otter playing "whack-a-mole" by continually popping up at the glass right in front of us.  So fun!

 Grandma working up the nerve to pet a ray.  She did it!  Again, no one else around...

 How many times have we been to the aquarium?  Would  you believe we've never actually seen the kelp forest feeding?!  It's always too crowded.  On this trip, though, we enjoyed a front row view from the second floor and thought it was pretty cool watching the scuba diver give all those sharks and fish their breakfast.

A friendly penguin above and a unique view from the downstairs window of the Open Seas tank below.

After our few morning hours at the aquarium on our second day, we took Mom and Dad to see the Carmel Mission.  They like this kind of history stuff and Ella was excited to go back to the mission she now knows everything about after doing her 4th grade mission project.  History or not, project or not, this is just a beautiful place to walk around!

We really packed in the sights!  After the mission, we did the Pebble Beach Scenic Drive with Mom and Dad.  This is a great and easy way to get in lots of breathtaking views of the coastline (and all those ritzy golf courses and mansions!).

 Dave continues to make me all sorts of nervous as he and his little followers practice their rock-climbing skills RIGHT by the churning ocean!  But, I know I can trust him and I know they love it.

As the sun sank a little lower in the sky, we saw the iconic Lone Cyprus.

And then we tried something totally new, based on the suggestions of friends.  (Yay for pictures of things you've never seen before!)  Every night at sunset, I guess following some old Scottish tradition, a bag pipe player roams the greens at Spanish Bay (SUPER fancy golf resort) playing and closing out the day of golf.  The Inn at Spanish Bay has a gorgeous patio area right off the golf course where you can sit on a bench by a fire pit, order a drink from the bar, and watch the sun set while listening to the bag piper play.  This was SO COOL!

The bag piper was fantastic!  His playing was perfectly synced with the sun so that the exact moment he hit his last note of "Amazing Grace", the sun disappeared from sight.  After the sun had sunk on the horizon, he made his way closer to the crowd on the patio to put on a bit of a concert for us.  The girls were excited to get up close, thinking he was some kind of bag pipe playing rock star! :)

Everything we did in Monterey these past few days was really great, but the bag piper at sunset was definitely a highlight.  We're so thankful for things like a few days off school, no crowds in our favorite spots, and perfect weather. But, mostly we're thankful that we got to share a favorite place with some favorite family members.

Catching You up on October

See that little drop menu to the left that files my posts by month?  Well, for the first time ever, I think, I will have a month with just this behind it: (1).  One blog post for all of October!  And I'm squeaking it into the VERY last day of the month, otherwise it would say: (0)!  So, this post will catch you up on a whole month of life, and it is for my sister, who is probably the only one still checking our blog! :)

 This fall we made it to every football game but one.  What a fun Friday night tradition this became!  The kids loved running around with all their school friends in our brand new, state-of-the-art stadium, while Dave and I enjoyed cheering for our almost-undefeated football team.  For about half the games, we'd meet friends beforehand and go out for dinner-- making Fridays even MORE fun!  Above, Delia is dancing on the field with one of our babysitters/cheerleaders, Kara.

Being a 5th grader, Ella also took up the call to join the band this fall.  She chose to play saxophone and has already made tremendous progress in playing it!  When she first started, there was much honking, squawking and cringing (by me).  Now, on her own, she is playing recognizable Christmas music from her piano books!

 There has not been much blog posting, because there are not many spare hours in a weekday!  Ella's homework load on some nights is pretty heavy, and every now and then, she'll work straight from afternoon to bedtime.  This was a particularly frustrating homework night.  The guinea pig on her shoulder helped a bit.

 On top of school responsibilities, we continue to let the girls do one extra thing each.  Ella is hanging in there with piano lessons, and Delia wanted to try a second year of dance.  She switched from a ballet class to a jazz one this year and is enjoying it a lot.  The music is peppier and there is more sass and booty-shaking in the choreography (even though this picture makes jazz dancing look like serious business)! 

  

 I had a lovely birthday way back in September.  My expectation was for a totally normal day, full of all our normal responsibilities, but I was abundantly loved and spoiled all day by family, friends, co-workers and students.

In the middle of life's craziness, I treasure these quiet moments too, when we all get to just slow down, cuddle up and be together.  I'm trying to be more intentional about keeping our weekends as free as possible so we can just relax and recharge. This (above) was one Saturday night and it was perfect.

 One weekend we did take an outing to my friend Dorina's house, though!  This was a special trip because it allowed us to spend time with and get to know Shawn better.  The story of Dorina and Shawn's relationship is one of the Lord's amazing Glory Stories.  I'll just say that one year ago Dorina was organizing Ericlee's funeral, and this year she's planning her wedding to Shawn, who was one of Ericlee's best friends.  If you want to read about it in Dorina's own powerful words, click here.  Grab some tissues first, though!

  

 We had to take advantage of our yearly invite to Pastor Appreciation Day at Funworks!  A blast, as always, we raced each other around the go-kart track, smashed into each other in the bumper car room and set the girls free on the huge play structure so we could watch the Cubs playoff game on Dave's phone! Pizza with our new youth pastor and his family rounded out this super-fun night.

Fifth grade and third grade are shaping up to be AWESOME years for the girls!  We just had parent-teacher conferences and Dave and I are glowing with pride over all the wonderful things Ella and Delia's teachers said about their kind, servant hearts, attitudes, behavior and grades.  Nearly perfect report cards were rewarded at Krispy Kreme, where they give you one free donut for each A.

 Just this week, our life finally got exciting! :)  Grandma and Grandpa made a special visit to California to celebrate Grandma's recent retirement.  While we finished up school for the first few days, they toured Napa.  Then we shared a couple beautiful days in Monterey with them as we were off school.  To show them how excited we were to see them, Ella came up with the idea and design for this huge WELCOME sign to sprawl across our driveway last weekend.

And since our Wednesday kind of felt like a Friday with no school for the rest of the week and since Grandma and Grandpa were just returning from Napa, we decided to test out the Halloween costumes with an outing to a nearby church's Trunk-or-Treat.  The girls were SO excited about this costume idea they thought up!  Yes, Ella spent the whole night in her roller-blades.  Yes, Delia confused a lot of people by dressing as the Stanley Cup ("Are you Jiffy Pop?"..."A satellite dish?").  And yes, they plan to do it all over again tonight for our own church's Harvest Party.  But, we had a great time sharing this taste of Halloween with Grandma and Grandpa.

More of our adventures with Dave's parents coming soon...

(No, I won't make you wait a whole month!)