SoCal 2010 part 3: Christmas in Cali

Alright, sorry for the delay in the Christmas post - it was a busy week!

* Christmas Eve Highlights
- Yummy dinner w/ ham, veggies, potatoes and then I contributed homemade rolls and a chocolate/peppermint dessert.
- Finished this 500 piece puzzle! We all helped a little, even though it was originally bought because Nan {Lynnie's mum} likes to do puzzles.- Christmas music... LIVE! This is always a highlight. Sean on the piano {keyboard this year}, his Dad on guitar, me on violin and Cassie {and whoever else joins in} on vocals. Good times!- New jammies!! It's tradition, ya' know. I love this picture of Ethan in his new p.j.'s - all different emergency vehicles, very fitting.And here's our family in our new jammies. In case you can't see, Sean's t-shirt is the kid from the Christmas Story movie - which he loves and I despise! * Christmas Highlights!!
- Read Luke chapter 2 with Todd's family while waiting for the festivities to begin. It was a very nice way to start the day.
- Ethan was the most excited person in the whole house!! Old enough to know that there were presents waiting for him to open upstairs and young enough to care about it more than food or sleep!! {Auntie Cassie is a senior in high school and she was the next youngest in the house.}
- Traditional Christmas morning picture on the stairs.- Santa came!! And ate the cookies and drank the milk that Ethan had left out. Such a nice note he left in return: "Thank you SO much for the cookies. They were delicious!! The milk really hit the spot, too. Have a Merry Christmas! Love, Santa" I'm impressed he has that kind of time. ;)- At Nana and Papa's house, Santa always leaves a small, unwrapped present for the kids on same table as the milk and cookies. To all the adults, it was "obvious" which toy went to which little boy - a fire truck toy and a tow truck toy. Obviously, the fire truck was intended for Ethan, right? I mean, he loves fire trucks! Well, Ethan went straight for the tow truck and Spencer went straight for the fire truck! Ha ha!! And they were both perfectly content with the toy they picked. - Stockings. I love stockings. They're always one of my favorite parts of Christmas morning. It's fun to see what little treasure and goodies fit in the stocking. This year I got a football cookie cutter! {And it's already been put to good use, as seen in this post.} Plus, our stocking candy often lasts us at least until Valentine's Day.- So. Many. Presents!! Holy moly. Though, not too surprising considering the 14 people we had in the house!

Loren (Sean's Dad) surveying the damage so far.

Spencer {in his cute Mickey jammies} opening his big tub of play-dough fun!

Cassie w/ her new Perry the Platypus tee. In this family, we all heart Phineas and Ferb!

The boys {Spencer and Ethan} both got this remote control Lightning McQueen.

Lynnie's mum and niece were visiting from England {so fun to meet them!} and brought LOT {and I mean LOTS} of English goodies {Cadbury is a major supplier} with them. They were a big hit.

- Games! With no major events this year to be planning and preparing for {last year was Blake and Alysha's wedding} we got to spend lots of time playing games - including the new ones that Todd got for Christmas. In fact, much of Christmas afternoon was spent lounging in p.j.'s, munching on yummy leftovers and treats and playing games.

Playing Snow Trails. This was a fun one, requiring lots of careful planning. There is no half-paying-attention in this game! Todd's expression in this pic cracks me up! And did you notice Blake's t-shirt? The baby in the front carrier. Yeah, I was doing double-takes all day!The boys playing an English version of the game Hungry, Hungry Hippos. This one was with frogs. Super cute.

* Sunday, aka Boxing Day, aka the day after Christmas
- Ethan wore his new church clothes. Daddy helped him tie his first tie. Such a stud! {And he loved having his own belt - just like Daddy.}- Went to church in Sean's family's ward.
- Ethan's last official Sunday in Nursery.
- Ham and cheese sandwiches with the leftover ham for lunch - Yum!
- More games.
- Father/Son time as Sean helped Ethan put together his race car from the kit he got from Ashley from England. Seriously, so cool. It came with its own power drill with 3 different bits to turn the screws. Ethan was in heaven. And now he can completely disassemble and reassemble it without any help. {Thank you, Ashley!!}- Thoroughly enjoyed spending more time with the fam!

Next up... Disneyland! Oh, yeah - you don't want to miss that! :)

SoCal 2010 part 2: Yreka?!?

A little background info... When we left for our trip we thought we were very prepared: new tires on the SUV, oil changed, transmission flushed, etc. - everything seemed to be in working order. We left Springfield and were on our way to Simi Valley. Next stop, California!

As usual, I took the first driving shift - all down the 5 through Oregon, including going through the Siskiyous with no problem. We had a little bit of snow, but nothing that really slowed us down. But then, coming down the pass in the snow, we noticed a weird noise - kinda like a knocking sound. And coming from our car! But only when we braked. But the brakes were still working. What the heck?! Everything was absolutely fine unless we braked. Finally we passed the border and were slowing down for border patrol....
The knocking noise coming from our car was horrible! And when we actually came to a stop our car died. What the...?! Are you kidding?! It's 1am! Deep breaths. Try not to panic. Turn the key and restart the car.... It drives fine! Phew. And then I try to brake again as I pull off to the side. Same horrible knocking sound and it dies when I make a complete stop. Oh, great. We pop the hood and take a look. Nothing out of the ordinary. Brake fluid is a little low, but that's about it. Border patrol guy suggests backing up and then pulling forward to see if we're dragging anything. Nope. Finally we decide to carefully drive to Yreka - about 16 miles down the road. We make the journey slow and steady and pull into a 24hr. gas station to get some brake fluid - hoping and praying and crossing fingers that it works, but knowing it probably won't. It doesn't. At that point it was about 2am Sunday morning and we decided it was time to get a hotel and re-evaluate in the morning - luckily there was a Super 8 just a couple blocks away. We unloaded what we needed, got in jammies, made a couple calls to parents to let them know of our stranded-ness and went to bed.

The next morning we got our free breakfast and went to work looking for an open repair shop. Yeah, right! On a Sunday in a small town. Not likely. So Sean suggests we see what time the local ward starts and go to church [hotel had free wi-fi]. I have to be honest, going to church was kinda one of the last things on my mind, but since it looked like we wouldn't be going anywhere that day I decided it would definitely help pass the time. We called a cab and hurried to get ready - we would actually only be a few minutes late for sacrament meeting. The pick-up time came and went. No cab. We waited. Nothing. Sean called the cab company again. Turns out, despite Sean giving our exact address in YREKA, the cab was in REDDING -over an hour away. Oh, boy. Well, that wasn't going to work. So we bundled up, I changed into my Nikes and put my dress shoes in a backpack, double-checked directions and started walking to church. That's right, we walked. And get this.... It started snowing. And, after the first 3/4 mile on main street, we turned onto the street the church was on and kept walking. And furthermore, get this.... the street was on an incline. That means we walked UPHILL IN THE SNOW to get to church!! Ha ha ha!! It's true. Granted, we did have shoes on and we only walked uphill one-way, not two. But still!! We walked UPHILL IN THE SNOW to get to church! We were miserable, but I still had to laugh. And then it started to rain. Ugh. I liked the soft, quiet snow better. We got to church just as Sunday School was starting and we were soaking wet. And let's not even get started on how my hair looked like a wet dog, plastered to my face. A real thing of beauty. But one of the sisters put two and two together and took care of us right away. She got Ethan to Primary and directed us to Sunday School.

As Relief Society was preparing to start I had a number of sisters with questions and it wasn't long before everyone knew our story and that we were there "by accident" - an unplanned stop. I have no doubt that it was not an accident that if we were going to have car problems, it was purposely in Yreka on a Sunday. That ward took such good care of us! By the end of church, we had more lunch and dinner offers than we could go to. Someone gave us a ride back to our hotel to change, someone else picked us up for lunch at their home {thank you, Killians!!} and someone else picked us up for dinner at their home {thank you, Hills!!}. We didn't spend a dime that day. Unbelievable. But here's the real kicker... In the Bishopric of this ward was an auto mechanic with his own shop. We went to bed Sunday night well-fed and with a mechanic {we felt we could trust} all ready to work on our car first thing in the morning. Awesome!!

Another free breakfast and then we loaded the Explorer and slowly made our way to the repair shop. After a test drive, some tear-down and diagnosis the problem was discovered: our brake assembly was completely missing a huge, 4-inch bolt and another one was really loose. Seriously?! No wonder it was making so much noise coming down the mountain. Sheesh. But while they were in there, we went ahead and had new brake pads put in and the rotors turned. 3 hours and about $300 later we were back on the road. And how did we spend our three hours?? Confined to a 6' by 10' waiting room we browsed old magazines, I cleaned out my text message inbox and Ethan watched movies on the DVD player.
Gotta give a shot-out and thanks to Finwall's repair for taking such good care of us and getting us back on the road so quickly. We filled up the gas tank, stopped at McD's for some grub {I was jonesing for some hot chocolate} and finally, after a 36-hour "layover", we were back on the road!! The entire length of CA loomed ahead of us and we were raring to go!Despite the car problems, I think Yreka will always a hold a special little place in our hearts. The view there was beautiful - surrounded by snow-covered mountains.We made very few stops that day because we were so anxious to get to Simi Valley. Timing-wise, it was kinda nice to hit Santa Nella just in time for dinner and a pit-stop at Pea Soup Andersen's - chicken salad sandwich for me, BLT for Sean and a plate full of favorites we brought from home for Ethan.
About four hours after that we were finally in Simi Valley! Yay!! Family, hugs and this comfy bed were greatly appreciated!

Next up: Christmas!!

SoCal 2010 part 1: Pitstop in Oregon

Alright, I think I'm finally ready to start blogging about our trip. Y'all ready for this? Because I think it's probably going to be a six part mini-series! Of course, a lot of time and effort and energy goes into preparing for the holidays. Throw in a 2-week roadtrip and leaving a week before Christmas [which means I like to try and have everything done by the time we leave] and you've got a crazy-busy first half of December. And just because we wouldn't be home for Christmas, does not mean that we skimp on the tree, decorating, baking, etc. I think you can tell from previous posts that Christmas still came to our WA home, even if we weren't exactly there the whole time.

This was taken the day before we left - I wore that poor kid out!

And this was the tree we had to un-decorate before we left [didn't feel like living on the wild side this year and risking the fire hazard]. We worked our booties off, packed up the car - poor Ethan was so excited to go that he insisted on first sitting in his carseat and then being strapped into his carseat while we continued to load up the car. First stop, Oregon.
"Christmas Eve" with my family.
Ethan was allowed to open two presents that first night - his "Christmas" jammies from Sean and I and a toy from Grandma Julie and Grandpa Greg. This dragon goes along with his "dragon castle" that he got last year and he was super excited to get it.
And here's the little stinker thinking he's going to sleep on my comfy air mattress. Nice try, bud!
"Christmas morning" with my family.
Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Chuck stopped by in the morning to wish us a Merry Christmas and see us before we continued on our trip. Ethan got to open more presents. To say he was excited to get his GeoTrax train set from Grandma Julie and Grandpa Greg would be a severe understatement. He loved it!!
And insisted it be opened and put together right away!He also got to open one more gift from us [for now].A new winter coat and hat!! I am such a mean mom. I had been making him bundle up in his slightly-too-small fleece and raincoat for the past couple weeks since his new coat was a Christmas present! At least I let him open it early, right?!

And here's a better shot of his Christmas jammies - he's holding up some cute, err... studly new shirts from the great grandparents.

One of my main objectives that day was to get a family picture in the red sleigh at Oakway. We got there just as daylight was slipping away. While we waited for our "photographer", I snapped these pictures of Ethan...

And here are the family shots we got....

This is the one we used for our Christmas card.

"Christmas night" with my family.
This is when we did our actual gift exchange - minus the annal photo calendar I had made, but had sent to CA in case it didn't get to our house in time.

Lizzy and her own DVD copy of 17 Again.

Ethan helping Christine open her gift.
[Ethan will give absolutely anyone gift-opening assistance - whether they want it or not!]

Annual new Christmas book - 2010

Ethan's first board game.

And with that, we re-loaded the Explorer late that night and headed off to Southern California, or so we thought......
Stay tuned for the next part in our exciting adventure!!

GOALS

I am always making goals for myself. Goals are a good thing. Goals help get things accomplished. Goals help you keep your focus. Goals... are something I haven't written down in a long time. So here they are. For you all to read. My goals, in no particular order, for 2011:

* As a mom
1. Get. Ethan. Potty. Trained!!!! [Fully, that is. He's getting there - it's just not 100% every day.]
2. Start at-home pre-schooling.
3. Get down on my knees and play with Ethan more, letting his imagination rule play-time.
4. One word: Patience.

* As a wife [and mother]
1. Plan and prepare healthy meals as much as possible.
2. Budget and stick to it.
3. Organize and stay ahead of the clutter! [Hopefully this will include much tossing and donating!!]
4. Three words: Regular. Date. Nights.
5. More cuddle time. :)

* Spiritually
1. Find the time of day that works for me to read scriptures daily. Make daily reading a habit. This has always, always, always been a struggle for me.
2. Read and begin prep for Primary lesson any other day beside the morning of.
3. Begin family home evening and at least semi-regular family scripture reading.
4. Go to the temple at least quarterly, preferably every other month if not monthly.

* For a healthier me
1. Limit (not cut out) treats.
2. Eat healthier for all meals.
3. Strive for near-daily exercise - 3-5 times/week.

* Blogging
1. Try for at least 10 posts a month - this means roughly one every 3 days.
2. Try to ignore lack of comments. I know I am guilty myself of reading blogs, but thinking I will go back later to comment.
3. Turn 2008 and 2009 blog posts into a book [probably using Blurb].

Sunbeams

Well, there's no denying it any longer - my baby boy just isn't a baby anymore. This last Sunday we walked right past the Nursery room and straight into the Primary room where my little handsome sat down with his new SUNBEAM class for singing time and sharing time. Where did the time go?! It seems like just a few months ago that I was counting down the Sundays until he could go to Nursery and now he's a big boy going to Sunbeams. Sigh... And the first week went great!! I was a little hesitant because at home, as we tried to prepare him for this upcoming change, he wanted nothing to do with Primary and I was so afraid it would be a battle for the first couple weeks. Nope! He was good. Even got to participate in the song-picking for singing time. These pictures are not from last week, but I still love them. Ethan got new church clothes {dress pants and shirt, tie, handkerchief and belt} for Christmas from Nana and Papa and the first picture is Sean tying on Ethan's first non-clippy tie! One of those father-son moments I was so glad I was able to snag {because I hadn't thought about taking a picture until after Sean had already started helping - luckily the camera was handy}.

Seriously, how handsome is this little guy?!
Show of handsome.
{Have y'all seen the Jimmy Kimmel Handsome Mens Club?? It is hilarious! Here's the youtube link - I strongly urge you to check it out and don't be put off by the length.}

1-11-11

Reality is slowly setting in. The BCS championship is over. And the Ducks lost. Big pouty face. :-C With my lower lip stuck way out. Sigh.... But they held their own - against the #1 team in the nation - and it came down to a field goal in the last 2 seconds of the game. And I have to say, that TD and 2-point conversion at the end to tie it all up was AWESOME!!! I am still proud to be a Duck!!

These are the shirts we wore for game day - Santa Duck brought Sean and I new BCS Duck shirts! Of course, this picture was taken at D-land, but you get the idea. Oh, and Ethan was in his green "I Love My Ducks" shirt that {unfortunately} is getting too small.

Some friends from our ward were able to go to the game - so jealous! But a text to Sean from them when the game was over said it best: OOOOooooooooo Crap.

Anyway. We had just a small gathering at our house - the oldest Coleman boy and his Dad. Of course, you've gotta have game food - pizza, mozzarella sticks, chips and nacho cheese dip, soda and my game-day cookies! I got the football cookie cutter in my stocking and couldn't wait to try it out! Oh, and I love the Wilton food-dye gels - I added the brown one to my collection and they are totally the way to go to get deep, rich colors.

GO DUCKS!!

No Stitches, just a mom who feels rotten

1 Week into the new year and you can sign me up for "mom of the year". Oh boy, this one was all my fault. Yesterday, Ethan was sitting on my lap while I was at the computer and then decided to reach behind me and attempt to adjust the thermostat. I yanked him away, tickled him a little while he was on my lap and then went to toss him over my shoulder like I often do... I thought I was taking into account that I was not standing and tried to factor in the chair I was sitting on. I failed miserably. Poor kid got smacked right in the eyebrow. :( The crying was immediate, as was me rushing him over to the sink area. The blood from the wound was a delayed reaction - dark, dark red but luckily, not gushing. Phew. Got a fresh rag out and ran it under cold water. Ethan, of course, wanted nothing to do with it. I gave him the option of cold rag now or going to the doctor. He chose the rag. Finally I was able to get a better look at it. Oh, and did I mention a little breath-holding spell in between all that? Yeah, that made me feel even more like a world-class mom. Anyway. The wound was just borderline. Inverted "V" shape, only about 1/4 inch long and not too deep. But, it's on his face. Anywhere else on his body, and I would've just cleaned it, bandaged it, gave Ethan whatever treat he desired to attempt to ease my guilty conscience and moved on. But it was on his face! His beautiful, perfect little face that I LOVE. At best it would require just a stitch or two. I took a couple pictures and emailed them to Sean along with a text that said only, "Check ur email." Then I called my mom. Then Sean forwarded the email on to his brother - Dr. Ryan. {Seriously, how sweet is it to have a doctor in the family?! Let me tell you, it is very sweet!} In the mean time, I called Ethan's doctor hoping to talk with a nurse and get another opinion before I decided whether or not to bring him in. Really, I was still 50-50 about it. Well, they went ahead and just made an appointment for less than an hour later. I got ready and got our stuff together and then Ryan called and I was able to get his opinion. Of course, it's hard to see much in the photos and I finally decided I just didn't want to make a judgment call that had to do with a scar on my little boy's face. The $20 co-pay to have a professional assess the damage was definitely worth the price to ease my stress. Of course, Ethan had no desire to go to the doctor but remembered they have a magnet table to play with. So we got shoes on and went. We were sent to the "minor injury" area of the clinic. Guess which waiting area of the clinic does not have a magnet table? And can you further guess who's hurt and lacking-a-nap child went into hysterics when he was denied playing with the magnet table? Oh, it was a long, long wait. With many tears and many attempts by mom to change the subject, offer fruit snacks and offer a poor-excuse-for-coloring from whatever I could find in my purse. I even attempted to make him laugh by telling him I got to talk to Uncle Ryan on the phone and that he is also a doctor. So, should we call him "uncle dr. Ryan" or "dr. uncle Ryan"? That got no response. Ok, how about, "dr. uncle silly-pants"? No? "Uncle dr. crazy-face"? Still nothing. And seriously, there were NO TOYS in this waiting area. Did I mention it was a long, long wait? And that you could pretty much hear Ethan freaking out throughout most of the building. The poor nurse thought it was all injury-related when Ethan's name was finally called and he was still crying and throwing a fit. I had to laugh. And said, "Nope. This is all not-getting-to-play-with-the-magnet table-related!" Well, and a little the lack of nap. Doctor came in next and was super-nice. I always love when doctors not only are good with patients, but are good with kid patients. Yay! He looked it over, had Ethan raise his eyebrows and then furrow them and finally decided it was superficial enough to not need stitches. He said that putting a stitch or two in would probably do more damage because there'd also be the scars from the holes where the stitches were. He also decided that the derma-bond stuff would probably pull on it too much, so it was best just to leave it alone. Ok, so hydrogen peroxide and Neosporin? I was surprised when the answer was "no". Doctor said it would keep the skin too moist to allow it to heal. Well, huh. That definitely went against my instincts. Good to know. Basically, just vitamin E once it starts to heal to minimize scarring. With that and a dinosaur sticker, we were sent on our way. And on our way out the door, we headed straight to the magnet table! Had it all to ourselves too. We sat and played at least 15 minutes. Then went home, after the promised pit-stop at 7-11 for slurpees, that is! Ethan is doing great and did not even want any Tylenol - I assumed he had a headache, but he said he was good with just the slurpee. And as Ethan has already reminded me several times in the past 24 hours: "Mom, don't put me over your shoulder when you're sitting in the chair. Ok?" Lesson learned.

We're HOME!!!

So, I didn't announce on our blog that we were leaving, but yesterday morning [at about 2am] we pulled into our driveway. We had such a great trip - with both highs and lows - but it is nice to be home. We had also made an extra effort to leave for our trip with a clean house. Beds were made, laundry was done, dishes were clean and put away {even the dishwasher was empty!} and we literally mopped our way out of the house. It was a lot of work, but so, so nice to come home to! I will be blogging about our trip in more detail over the next month or so... look forward to a 6-part mini-series!

In summary:
* We logged 2,700+ miles on the Explorer and laid tracks in SEVEN different states!
* Our main stops were 1. Springfield, OR 2. Simi Valley, CA and 3. Provo, UT with an unexpected and unplanned 2-night stay in Yreka, CA - but more on that later.
* Weather ranged from sun, blue skies and flip-flop weather in SoCal to snow, winter coats, hats and gloves in Provo. Temps were high 60s/low 70s and down to NEGATIVE 8 going through the mountains on our way home. Lucky for us, there was no moisture in the air, so the roads were clear.
* We had a blast hanging out with our Southworth family!! Chatting and playing games into the early morning hours, showing off our true rock-star-ness with the Wii Beatles rock band game, doing all of the necessary Christmas Eve/Christmas morning prep-work and just enjoying the company.
* Took almost 250 pictures of our 2-week adventure - aka, I have a lot of editing and careful choosing to do before I post anymore!

Anyway, hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and great New Year!! I'm finishing up the laundry from our trip, organizing Ethan's new toys while he plays with his Geo-Trax train, making some goals for the new year {something I haven't done for a few years!} and getting ready to box up all the Christmas ornaments.

First Family Pic of 2011