A Whole Buncha Christmas Stuff

Today is our first official day of Christmas Vacation!  On my to-do list: Updating the blog.  So, here is a look at a few of the things that kept our December busy:

 Piano and dance lessons.  Now that I babysit Anja AND her little sister during Ella's piano lessons, I have been enlisting Delia to help!  Delia and Anja play creatively and hilariously together, allowing me to give Annika all the attention she needs.

 Fun with friends.  Our new youth pastor Patrick is a major 49er's fan.  We had a super fun Sunday having him over to watch the Bears game.  I was quite entertained listening to my two pastors scream at our TV all afternoon.  It was an awesome game to watch with a rival!

  

Parties.  We had a great time at an Ugly Sweater Christmas Party for our church's young married group.  We had a lot of laughs playing the bowl game and voting on who had the ugliest outfit.  And we SCORED on the white elephant gift exchange: microwavable slippers for me and a selfie stick for Dave!

Sinterklaas.  On December 5, Sinterklaas made his annual visit to our home, filling the klompies with small gifts that help tide the girls over until Christmas.  

Christmas Parades.  Delia's dance studio once again participated in our town's Festival of Lights Parade.  Being in an older class this year, she didn't ride on the big float, but instead walked behind it and performed a choreographed dance to the song "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree".  She was SO excited about this, it was fun to watch!

 Elf on the Shelf.  Jingles, the elf Delia bought with her marble jar money last year, has made her reappearance this Christmas.  Once again, we are each taking turns setting her up for one another.  One Friday night we finally watched the movie Elf together as a family, so this is how the girls found Jingles in the morning.

Sunday School Program.  Another annual tradition is our Sunday School students leading our congregation in a night of worship.   They dress up as Nativity characters, play instruments, sing Christmas songs and recite scripture.  It's adorable.  Ella played "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear" on the piano and both girls dressed as angels.  

 (This was a pic a friend sitting behind me took and sent of the girls hugging each other while singing.)

School Christmas Parties.  Ella, Delia and I spent our last days before break having lots of fun at school.  In preschool, I teach two classes, so I get two days to party!  On our party days we get together  as a big group to sing and play instruments (the picture is my preschool class ringing bells) and then we decorate cookies.  It is high energy, but happy, happy, happy!

 Gingerbread decorating.  As we do each Christmas, we got together with Jeff and Amy and their kids for a night of dinner, games and catching up.  Amy had this awesome gingerbread project ready to go for the kids and it was a hit!  

As you've just read, it's been a busy season-- and these are just things I have pictures of!  We start this Christmas Vacation feeling a bit weary and definitely ready for a break.  I've actually been leaning into Amy's perfect words this morning:  "I'm so thankful that Jesus already "did" Christmas  for us - even though I feel the weight of all the things on my to-do list, Christmas will happen without my help." 

San Francisco Tour

Then the next day we did an unofficial walking tour of SF.  We started at a place I've been wanting to take the girls for a while-- LucasFilms in the Presidio.

Because it was Saturday, there wasn't much we could do here besides walk around the grounds, but that was still fun and totally free, so we're glad we stopped!  We especially liked seeing the famous Yoda Fountain in person.

And we liked peeking inside the windows to the lobby (which is open to the public on week days) and seeing some cool Star Wars costumes and memorabilia.  LucasFilms reminded me a lot of a college campus, it was a pretty place to just stroll around.

Then we popped right next door to the Palace of the Fine Arts and continued walking.  Built for some World's Fair that SF hosted, and never taken down, it's become a pretty well-known landmark in the city and it was another cool thing to see.

Just a few minutes down the road was our favorite walk to take in the city-- the Fort Point Path.  We've started taking all our visitors down this path because the views of the Golden Gate just don't get any better.  A super treat on this day was discovering that Fort Point was actually open to the public!

We've never toured it and found it completely fascinating-- both the history of defending the Bay through various wars and the stories of how a modern day "army" of people keep the bridge painted, inspected, safe and paid for.  If you can time a visit to SF with a day Fort Point is open, we TOTALLY recommend it!  Again, all free!

The best part of Fort Point was climbing those 3 flights of stairs and finding yourself RIGHT UNDER the Golden Gate!  I actually got a little weak in the knees when we came out of the stairwell to this view.  It felt like we could touch the underside of the bridge!  And it felt like if we leaned too far over the fort's wall, we'd fall right into the Bay!

Exploring winding tunnels, prisons, and hidden gunpowder rooms were other fun parts of Fort Point and what kept the kids interested in what might have otherwise been boring history.

Unfortunately, after Fort Point, our plans did become thwarted by insane crowds on this second day in the city.  We tried to find lunch at a couple different places, but driving around for 30 minutes yielded not a single parking spot.  It was the Saturday of a holiday weekend and once we got back on the beaten path, we battled a million people.  So, we decided to just call it a day and head home early.  We stopped for both lunch and fancy ice cream on our way and, honestly, were not even all that disappointed.  The things we did get to see and do over our 1.5 days in the city were all really fun!

Day Off School; We Still Learn!

One fun thing we did while Kyle was here was an overnight in the city.  It's been several years since we've enjoyed San Francisco with Kyle, so this was a great outing!  We went on Black Friday and started at our favorite hands-on science museum, the Exploratorium.  When we described this place to Kyle, he said he was imagining a children's museum, but was surprised and delighted to discover that each exhibit (and there are, like, 6000 of them!) is interesting to play with, regardless of your age!

Love this one-- we listened to music with our teeth.



We had some fun with various mirrors.




We tried on some fun new hats!  (And also experimented with pinpointing the location of sound.)


We reviewed what we've been studying in school by checking out the models of cells.  (Things I never thought I'd hear my kids excitedly exclaim on a day off of school: "Look it's the mitochondria!!!!")


We experiemented with how distance changes perspective.


We learned about comets by observing dry ice replicas of them (a favorite of the day!).


We learned how color can affect our feelings.


We tricked our sense of touch with hot and cold poles.


We got all giggly slapping Dad at the slow-motion camera exhibit.


We watched math movies in the math cinema. And actually gave them a thumbs up!  On a day off of school!


We tried out some our dance moves with colored shadows.


We played "Papa Bear, Mama Bear and Baby Bear".


We creeped ourselves out by combining faces in the 2-way mirror.


We spent a looooong time watching the slinky walk down the conveyer belt.

And much, much, more!  A trip to the Exploratorium is exhausting because there are so many things to see and learn.  And using all that brain power all day really wears you out! :)



We found some neat places to eat too.  For lunch, I packed a picnic and ate on benches in the sun with a great view of the Bay Bridge.  And for dinner we discovered our favorite Napa diner actually has a location right next door to the museum!  SO perfect, especially since I've been craving the yummy food this diner serves ever since Mom and Dad got to visit it on their jaunt to Napa last month!



We ended our day with our hotel's Happy Hour (Ella's first Shirley Temple) and some time swimming in the pool.  This was a very nontraditional Black Friday, but it was fantastic.

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.