Good Times at Home

Kris and Eric are some of the funniest people we know, so our visit with them included plenty of time to just catch up and laugh.  After so much activity during the week, Sunday was the perfectly relaxing day.  At church, our guests got to meet some of our church family and hear Dave preach a sermon that included a special illustration about Kris, Eric, Cole and Miles.   Ella helped me make her favorite chicken tortilla soup to serve for lunch.  Then she set up a "Buty Salon" with foot soaks, lotion massages and manicures for the ladies.  After being online friends for a while, Kris and my friend Amy finally got to meet face to face.  We took Lily for a walk all around our neighborhood.  I taught Kris how to make stroopwafels.  We carried a giant bag of Mexican goodness out of the taqueria and ate while watching the Oscars.  It was a good day.

Today has been full of random moments where I just break into smile thinking about funny conversations we had.  And I can't get the "Ain't Nobody Got Time for That" song out of my head now. Thanks, guys.

Auntie Kris Meets the Pacific Ocean

Today we put a nervous Auntie Kris back on an airplane to Chicago.  She and Uncle Eric had a nice time in California, but are ready to see their boys, so we're praying the flight home will be smooth, peaceful and fast, with a wonderful reunion at the end of it.  They take off in 10 minutes (2:00 pm pacific time), so feel free to pray with us!  Kris and Eric spent a few days celebrating their anniversary in Napa and then spent all of Saturday and Sunday with our family.  We thought a trip to the Pacific would be the perfect thing for a first time visitor to CA to see.  

Our day started at the wharf in Monterey where 100 seagulls put on a sky show for us.  It is a guarantee that you will see wildlife when you head in this direction and this day did not disappoint (though, the animal sightings did get way cooler than seagulls!).

We passed about 3 of these signs, which cracked us up.  Poor Kris just couldn't escape terrifying fears around every corner of this trip! :)

The rocky ledge at the end of the wharf was the sea lion hot spot.  Our guests thought this was pretty cool.  So did we.

We had lunch at our favorite place on the coast, Pizza My Heart, where our nephews got another CA souvenir-- the restaurant's logo surfer shirts.

A big part of our day was spent soaking in the gorgeous scenery on the 17 Mile Scenic Drive.  With Monterey's many other attractions, we haven't done the scenic drive since Ella was born.  The weather cooperated and showed us the bluest skies we've ever seen over this stretch of the coast.  It was perfect for someone seeing the Pacific for the first time.  Kris and Ella were even brave enough to dip their toes in the icy water.

Harbor seals and pelicans and starfish, oh my!

The scenic drive's dozen suggested stops end with a walkout to the iconic Lone Cypress of Pebble Beach.  Beautiful!

And since we were driving right by it on the way back home, we decided to quick take a peek at the Monarch Sanctuary.  The butterflies are scheduled to end their migration to California's coast at the end of February, so we weren't expecting much.  But, there were our butterflies clumps still hanging out in the trees! We never grow tired of experiencing this cool thing either.

The list of great day trips in our area is always extensive.  We had a lot of discussion about what would be some must-sees on Kris and Eric's list.  I think they got to experience some of our favorite places and might even consider a trip back some day to keep working on that list.  Maybe we can start planning after that return flight home, huh Kris? :)

She Made It!

Since yesterday afternoon, our home has been bursting with laughter and joy.  Auntie Kris and Uncle Eric are visiting CA for the first time!  Dave's sister Kristen has a legit fear of flying and has avoided airplanes for a decade now.   But for her 10th wedding anniversary, she faced her fears to spend a week in CA with her husband (and us!).  She and Eric have all sorts of fun anniversary trips planned this week (Napa! San Francisco! Touring Silicon Valley today!)  and we're sure enjoying their company in the downtime they get to spend at our home.  The girls couldn't be more thrilled to have this fun pair in their home.  Auntie and Uncle been hugged about 370 times, now possess a whole refrigerator's worth the art work to haul back to Chicago with them and are learning every detail of the girls' daily life.  We have a long list of things to share with Kris and Eric, like Knight's Ferry, Redwood trees, the Pacific Ocean, real Mexican food and our beloved church family.  Unfortunately, we know that the day for them to get back on that plane will come way too fast.  But, like Kris, I am going to choose to not worry about that yet! :)

      

Family Cruise Memories

Exactly 7 years ago Mom and Dad treated the whole VM Family to one of our best vacations ever!  We went on a week long Caribbean Cruise.  I've been thinking a lot about this cruise this week.  From now until the beginning of June, we have continuous family activity on the calendar.  Anticipating the time we'll soon get to spend with Kris, Eric and Dad in CA and then the whole family when we head back to Chicago and Michigan for 2 weeks makes me reminiscent of the good times we've had in the past.  

So, will you indulge me?  Enjoy the following favorite pics from that cruise in 2005 (no kids for us yet, but I was 5 months pregnant with Ella).  

 Bon voyage in Miami!

 Marvelous meals!

 Tons of great quality time with each family member!

 Formal nights!

Fabulous Ports of Call...above and below, Cozumel, Mexico.

The bluest and warmest water we've ever swam in at Grand Cayman Islands.

 Pina Coladas from Margaritiville in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.

And...here are some shots of the boat.  Check out our boat's name-- Carnival Triumph!  If you've been following the news this week, you'll recognize that the ship you see in the following pics, the one that was our home for a week, is kinda famous right now.  Last night its 4000 passengers and crew were brought into an emergency port in Alabama after an engine fire knocked out all the ship's plumbing and electricity on Sunday, leaving it completely stranded in the Caribbean Ocean.  The reports have been pretty horrific-- no working toilets or showers, raw sewage running down the cabin walls, rancid air, people sleeping like packed-in sardines in make-shift tents on the deck, fights over a running-low food supply, a 5 hour disembarkation because only one elevator was working.  Google it for more reports.  I totally know that people who paid thousands of dollars for a luxury vacation and then got the farthest thing from it is not the saddest story in the news, but since we have a personal connection to the ship, it's been on my mind a lot.

Did you realize, siblings and parents, that Carnival's news-making ship this week was OUR cruise ship?  

And do you know how much we miss you? :)

Almost Too Good to Be True!

Months ago when we heard Disney on Ice was coming to our area, my good friend Jetta asked me to look into tickets for us and our eight daughters.  When I learned that a block of 10 tickets would cost hundreds of dollars, we quickly abandoned the idea.  THEN we saw a little flyer at the library explaining how the completion of a simple winter reading program would earn us one free ticket for each child.  We easily met the reading requirements and exchanged our charts for 8 valuable Disney on Ice tickets with great disbelief in this amazing deal!  Maybe the librarian did arch her eyebrow at me when I told her just how many tickets I wanted, but no other catch!  We went on the day and time we wanted and had great seats.

So here's our Girl Club, plus Dave, about to pile into Jetta's big 'ol Suburban this morning.  He debated about going along, but decided this would be a special experience to share with the girls and Jetta and I were happy to have him be our chauffeur and escort with 10 kids in an unfamiliar and very crowded place.  The rink full of ice skating princesses had the girls mesmerized.   Dave was glad he went and said watching each kid's very vocal and excited reaction was the best part of his day.

The hour and a half show told 3 popular Disney stories-- The Princess and the Frog, Cinderella and Tangled.  It was all fun to watch, but we agreed that the stunts Rapunzel and Flynn Rider did while danging high in the sky from Rapunzel's long "hair" were the most spectacular.  At the end, every Disney princess made an appearance with their prince for a grand finale involving lots of fancy skating and fireworks!

Once we safely navigated our way out of the stadium, and its myriad of vendors and little girls dressed up as princesses, we made our way out to a fun lunch.  This whole day was a blast and went off without a hitch.  And it all happened because of the generosity of our public library.  We can still hardly believe it!  :)

Hands-On Hamster

The pet shop folks told us that we had to give little Cutie plenty of time to adjust to the whole new world we were about to throw her in.  They suggested 3 to 5 days of just getting her used to us by talking to her through her cage bars.  So, with great restraint, this is what the girls have been concentrating on.  Cutie knows all about Ella's second grade class, friends and teacher.  She's listened to Delia "read" her stories each afternoon.

Since our home life can be pretty much summed up in one word right now-- "Hamster"-- we decided to go with the minimum number of suggested days to not hold her.  This means today was the day to finally release Cutie from her cage into the eager hands of the fam.  

To make her as tame as possible, we're supposed to hold her at least once every day from here on out.  I don't think this will be a problem.

  

I've never had a pet hamster either (though I remember having great fun with one belonging to a grade school friend), so I find myself getting just as much of a kick out of our new addition.  We also tried putting Cutie in her ball to run around the room and this was completely delightful!  She only got about 10 minutes of practice before the girls were designing obstacle courses for her!  

Meet Cutie Pie

The VM Family is now plus one-- a fluff ball of a Syrian long-haired hamster named Cutie Pie, Cutie for short.  

I am happy to report that this new addition was brought to us thanks to a book!  Each night, as Ella reads a chapter aloud to us, we've been falling in love with Humphrey, the title character of this Humphrey the Hamster book series we recently discovered.  Humphrey lives in a classroom and tells hilarious, first-person (first-hamster?) narrative of all the lessons he learns.  Humphrey is so amusing and we are learning so much about the proper care of hamsters.  Dave and I agreed that we're in a good place to add a new pet to the mix.

The girls were thrilled when we walked out of the pet shop with this fuzzy friend in her ventilated cardboard box, along with everything she will need to be happy in our home.  In the time that we've been home, these excited kiddos have not moved from this watchful perch outside Cutie's cage.

 We have to wait a few days to hold her to give her time to adjust to all the change in her little life-- but once the no-hold time expires, watch out!  We are going to have one spoiled hamster on our hands!

The girls have promised complete responsibility for their new hamster, and we actually believe she won't be very hard to take care of.  She's expected to live for a few years and when the time comes to say goodbye to Cutie, we might be ready to go back to our first loves in the rodent family-- guinea pigs!

Two Weeks of Life...Abridged

So, since it's been almost 2 weeks since I've posted, I thought I'd give you the past few week's VM Life highlight reel.  Here is what's been keeping us occupied and happy these days:

1.  Downton Abbey.  It was about time I got addicted to this show.

2.  A new Bible Study on James.  It's so fantastic, I can't wait to do the lessons each day.  On Tuesday mornings, my beloved Women's Bible Study co-coordinator and I jump up and down celebrating God's amazing Living Word.

3.  Marshmallow shooters.  Dave had a junior high lock-in this weekend and we spent Friday afternoon cutting and sanding enough PVP pipe pieces for each of the 25 students to make, decorate and use a marshmallow shooter while they stayed up all night at church.  The girls each got to make one too and thus Lily has been eating way too many marshmallows.  They're okay for dogs, right?

4.  A new ECE class on Preschool Curriculum.  I'm one week in and I love it!  I can use every single thing I've read and written about so far.

5.  Collecting freshly-laid and still-warm eggs and staying up late to play American Girl Dolls.  Though the girls had a day off yesterday, I did not.  Jetta was so wonderful in insisting the girls go home with her family after church on Sunday night and stay at their house until yesterday afternoon.  It's been a whole year since Dave and I had this kind of break and it was awesome!  I got nearly the whole week's work done with all the hours of peace and when I picked up the girls they were running around outside in just their undies (in January!), with all their friends, covered in head-to-foot mud.  Who enjoyed Jetta's sleepover offer more, I wonder.

6.  "Malaria pills" and "typhoid immunization"--words that were actually a part of the conversation Dave had with his doctor today about his upcoming trip to Guatemala.

7.  Short haircuts for us 3 girls.  I tolerated long hair for about 6 months, but just had to go back to what feels most natural and comfortable-- the wash-and-go, chin-length bob.  From the back, or when snuggling under a blanket together, Ella and Delia are indistinguishable with their matching hairdos.

And here's a random picture to match the random vibe of this post.  While Dave caught up on the sleep he lost staying up all night, I took the girls to Color Me Mine to get them out of the house.  We had vouchers for free studio fees and a free mug, so it worked out perfectly!

"Great Job, Dad!"

This week Dave had the privilege of being the elementary school's chapel speaker.  The girls' school theme this year is "Put on the Full Armor of God" and each of their chapel speakers have been addressing specific pieces of the armor.  Dave was assigned the Shield of Faith and felt he came up with some memorable and hands-on ways for the kids to remember the function of the Shield of Faith.  Dave does talks like this all the time and I don't usually post much about the day to day details of his job, but from this chapel talk came a funny conversation that I wanted to record.

On the way home from school, Delia shared her pride that her dad was the pastor in chapel and that he gave her and Ella a special shout-out.  Here is more of their exchange:

Delia: Daddy, you did a GREAT job today!

Dave: Thanks, hunny! What would you do if I did a bad job?

Delia: You wouldn't ever do a bad job.

Dave: What would a bad job look like?

Delia: Well...if you would have said that we should listen to Satan and do the things he tells us to do.  That would probably be a bad job.

And here is the card Delia made for him as soon as they got home.  Dave may not have done a bad job, but according to Delia, he was having a pretty bad hair day! :)

Snow Much Fun!

Without family visitors or a vacation planned for this break, we set a goal to enjoy three things specifically: 1.  A day in the city, 2.  Try ice skating and 3. A trip to Yosemite to play in some snow.  Yesterday we celebrated a Grand Finale to Christmas Break 2012 as we crossed the Yosemite trip off the list.  A trip to the mountains in the winter is always a challenge, but we quickly agreed at the end of the day that whatever slippery and snowy road conditions we had to endure were definitely worth the winter beauty and fun snow we got to see and play in.  It's been a while since we've been to Yosemite just the 4 of us and didn't have any visitors we needed to show falls or photo-worthy spots to.  The plan to have no plans other than to play and enjoy winter was what made this trip especially fun!

  

First stop at Yosemite always has to be the breath-taking tunnel view.   The pic below shows the impressive icicle clumps hanging off the tunnel.  

We were going to take a peek at Bridalveil Falls, but then watched others literally sliding down the path on their butts and decided it was a little too icy for us to brave.  We've already had one wipe-out on this path a few years ago!  The half-frozen creek was really cool to see, though.

We ate our lunch with Yosemite Falls in the background.  Upper Yosemite Falls was just a trickle that seemed to be accumulating in giant snow pile at its base-- another cool thing to see.

I think this little church is one of Yosemite's hidden gems.  In the winter it really looks like a postcard!  Admiring it yesterday, the girls made plans to get married here.  :)

Another stop was at Curry Village where we watched the ice skaters on the rink and warmed up by the fire a bit.

 A stroll through the Ansel Adams Gallery inspired me to try converting some of our pictures into black and white.

 As we took a little hike through the village, we stopped to check out the Ahwahnee teepees.  This made us feel thankful again that we live in the day and age when we do!

Our hike was supposed to end at lower Yosemite Falls, but a fun-looking snowy meadow at the base of Half Dome distracted us.  We played here for a long time, making snow angels and snow men and having a kids vs. parents snow ball fight.  When we tried to get our hike going again, the girls said, "Do we have to see another waterfall?  Can't we stay and play in the snow?"  Yosemite Falls is one of the world's most magnificent waterfalls, but Dave pointed out that, to our girls, snow was the greater novelty.  We skipped the falls and let them keep playing.

On the way back up and out, we stopped a few more times.  The above meadow was full of white trees and was just starting to get this cool fog rising over it.  And the river below was full of snow-covered boulders and was looking especially beautiful. 

  

With Anna and Heather a few years ago we discovered that the Tuolumne Meadows is a super place to sled and play in the snow.  It's a higher elevation, so the snow is crazy deep.  While walking around, I fell in up to my waist at one point.  

Because the snow is SO deep and fluffy here, it made my attempts at one last family pic via timer extra challenging!  The best picture of the day (and possibly ever!) was caught when I tried to get into the picture by taking a flying leap over a HUGE snow mound, sliding into Ella and knocking her into a full-on face plant right as the camera clicked (above).  Don't worry, she was fine and found it as hilarious as we all did.  The pic below shows a more successful attempt-- notice how she chose to stand by a more solid Daddy in this version, though! :)