Family 1/11 - 1/15/2017

What better way to start out the new year but to have family here!  Four of our five kids took their families to Disneyland on Tuesday and Wednesday.  The Jace Felix and Hales families arrived Wednesday night, definitely ready for bed.  The Bowens and Travis Felix families were here in time for lunch on Thursday.  Jared's nephew, Ben, was included in the trip so we had 21 individuals here at the mission home.  The bedrooms had wall to wall (including closets) people.

It was a bit rainy and cooler so we went to the Channel Islands Museum.  It was better than I had anticipated.  Wells, who is nonstop, liked seeing the fish in the aquarium.  

Annie with her non-braces smile.

Dax and Brandon

Cooper (he still has his great laugh).

Tad and Maren

This pretty much shows how Rosie Mae was the center of attention.

Front:  Tad, Jared, Wells, Travis, Liz, Maren and Rosie, Shae, Brooke, Dax

Back:  Shelby, Tate, Ben, Annie, Kim, Jace, Nash, Cooper, Brandon

Concentration, 64, no repeats, topic is...(Liz and Travis did NFL teams).  They clapped in rhythm taking turns saying a different team.  The kids had fun doing it with Disney characters.

When asked what the family wanted to do while here, McConnells was the choice.  I think some of them went two more times.  The owner was there and had fun with us.  Fortunately there were not other customers in the store.  He played a song from a Disney show and the first one to guess the movie won a token for a free ice cream; Brooke won.  Kim won an orange for guessing another one correctly.

Papa played Simone Says with the kids.

Friday morning everyone just chillin'.

Here in Ventura we don't have people take off their shoes unless it's been raining or have been to the beach.  This must still be a habit for everyone.

We ventured to the beach in Ventura.  

Nash loved throwing and catching the football.  

Travis running on the beach.

Kids following to scare the birds.

This is what Papa does (texting with missionaries).

Racing to the water.

Knees, achilles -- yea he can jog.

Brooke was freezing.

Some wanted to leave.  I asked Dell if he wanted to but his response was "I'm the quarterback." Like are you kidding me?  They had fun playing on the beach.

Some were definitely colder than others.

Seven pizzas -- we didn't eat them all Friday night; one and a half left over for lunch.

The adults commented on how tired they were from Disneyland.

The family went to Carpinteria beach on Saturday while we went to stake conference in Newbury Park.  The sun was out and it was less windy and warmer than on Friday.

Sunday morning prior to driving back to Salt Lake.  The Travis Felix family left by 7:00.  We had family prayer with them and then they were on their way.

The Hales and Bowens had family prayer and got on the road after 7:30.

Jace, Kim, and Rosie went to church in Ventura while we went back to Newbuy Park for stake conference.  They had lunch with us and left around 5:00 to drive all night.  They thought Rosie would do better.  They got home at 5:00 on Monday morning.

We loved having the family here.  

We thought of Heather's family many times and missed them.  It was exciting though for them to put wood flooring down in their kitchen and living room.

White Christmas

I realized today that I didn't post about our white Christmas.  It started off with a bike ride last Saturday and this was the sunrise.  Amazing!  

Our white Christmas refers to driving to Santa Barbara and attending a baptism.  The meeting was in Spanish but while waiting for them to get dressed it was opened up to testimony bearing.  One sister bore hers in English which blew me away since she was Hispanic.  I think it was just for me.  

We drove back through Ojai so we could drop a thank you off to President Ashton who helped us with the writing on the water bottles we gave to the missionaries.  He had a name tag made for each bottle as well.  This is the scenery we saw and yes that is snow on top of those mountains.  Very far away but we saw snow for Christmas.

We were loving Christmas eve and the wonderful feeling.  We face timed with the Hales.  We had clam chowder in bread bowls along with shrimp and crangrape.  We didn't do as much with the traditional Christmas eve dinner but enjoyed what we had.  

Six missionaries came by caroling.  I made cinnamon cake roll just in case we had visitors and they stayed for that and hot apple cider.

Just before the carolers came the Assistants showed up and I could tell something was wrong.  They proceeded to tell President about two missionaries that had not made good choices.  The missionaries came so we then enjoyed them.  Our neighbors had told them Santa Claus was scheduled to fly over in a helicopter in two minutes.  They all stayed out to see him but I hurried to get the cider warmed up.  Sure enough I heard the helicopter and the others saw it all lit up.

After everyone left President called the two missionaries but no answer.  We decided to drive to their apartment.  Just before gettinig there they returned his call.  Business was taken care of and we got back home after 10:00.  

Dell woke up early thinking about the missionary situation.  He felt there was more to the story so he asked the two missionaries to come to the mission home after 4:00.

Christmas morning we were able to see Travis' family before going to our Sacrament meeting.  It was a very nice service with a lot of music.  

We enjoyed seeing the rest of the family.

We deviated from the usual Christmas dinner of ham and potatoes and had stuffed lobster.  It was yummy.

Dell met with the missionaries.  We call our sister training leaders every Sunday night and did that.

We commented that next year we will look back on this different Christmas.

Today, December 31, I experienced my first fall from the bike.  We were just in front of the driveway after climbing the hill and I was changing gears so the bike would be ready to take off with a new ride.  The first gear went well but I must have not been moving fast enough and the chain came off.  I stopped but my legs were spent and as I was trying to get off of the bike, I fell on my knee (don't worry, it's only a flesh wound) but I saved the phone. I use my phone to document the rides and time.  

This morning we were able to go to another baptism.  It was in Santa Paula.  He was a media referral.  They had gone to temple square in the Fall and enjoyed it.  The next day he was walking along the Jordan Parkway and loved the fall colors (we don't get that so much in California).  He sat on a bench and began to cry.  He had felt the Spirit and told his wife he needed to get a Book of Mormon.  That's how it all started.  The sister missionaries in Salt Lake kept in touch with him.  Our elders showed up at his door promptly after the referral.  His wife and grown kids were all there to support him.  I'm sure the ward will embrace him as well as her.

We're off to dinner at Cafe Nouveau with the Joneses.

Furniture

Monday, December 19 Todd from Varsity arranged for the assistants to help take the furniture out.  New couches and coffee table were delivered on Tuesday while we were up north doing zone conference.  We had no idea what was ordered.

We still need lamps and the green chairs will be replaced.