Christmas in San Diego 2007

We spent Christmas this year in San Diego at mom and dads house. The kids had fun with all their cousins. We played at a park in Coronado, walked around the tide pools at sunset cliffs, saw the lights on pepper drive, walked around the san Diego temple to see the lights, all the girls got pedicures, silver stand beach, ate at el indios of course, sea port village, got yogurt mill yum, christmas eve dinner at the Cahoons, had a pajama gift exchange christmas eve, Sea World, and hung out at the house the rest of the time to let all the cousins play together. And of course food, food, food, when Dad goes shopping for food he comes home with enough food for an army. We had a great time, the cahoons, monsons, jensens, nelsons, thunstroms, dyers and mom and dad were all in San Diego to spend the holidays together. Everyone was there but the Petersons and the Storrs. So it was a ton of crazy fun. Christmas was great the kids had a blast opening up their presents. Its always fun to see what random present they like best. Kenzies was probably her shopping cart, baby doll and high school musical DVD's. Ethans was probably the Disney pixar cars, and the fire engine truck that grandpa storrs bought for the boys. The weather was beautiful and sunny! These pictures should show you why I love San Diego so much and why they call it one of Americans finest cities.
to me it is kinda weird to have christmas in a place that does not resemble the cold or have any links to anything cold other than ice cream and frozen yogurt. when it is in the 70's though you can't beat that. maybe this weekend we will head up into the mountains and get our fix of snow for the season. we drove down to San Diego on Friday the 22nd and we were there for an entire week before we came back for a few days and headed back down for new years. gathering a large family together in any place is always full of some sort of drama but that aside it was a blast to see all who made it down. with all of the preparation on getting down on Friday i managed to leave my bag of clothes at home. although i could have roughed it and purchased a small thrift store wardrobe they voted that i head back and get my bag, and not to forget the toothpaste and pit stick. it was fun to see the kids playing with each other, a few fights but that was just mainly between ethan and makenzie. oh there was one time when ethan decided to show his cousin chase what teeth have come in. from the mark on chase's forearm it looks like almost all have come in. karma came back to ethan when we were at silver strand and ethan managed to trip right as a small wave broke in front of him and he got soaked. that was after joe and i had walked down the beach a quarter mile away from the group. justice would have been served if chase had pushed him but either way his goose bump body. i stripped him down just to get him out of the wet clothes and then i plopped him in his car seat when we finally got back. oh yeah we even had a lauren sighting. she came down and brought her "dyer" treats. a bunch of holiday candy that she whipped up. we got in some basketball christmas day. no boyfriends were hurt in this years game. i did come to the realization that i am older and slower than i was in 1995, but who isn't.

christmas lights

so we finally got up our tree and just last night i was able to put up the final strand of lights for the house. saturday we started on the lights for the exterior and with the help from the two part time elfs it took a little more time than i would have liked, and was not completed. i started by getting out the lights and trying to sort them out, detangle them, and figure out which ones needed some attention (fuse, light, etc..). i ended up climbing onto the roof to put some lights up above, as soon as i was off the top rung ethan scampered up the ladder to join me. he made it all the way to the top before cherisse had to yank him down. not a worry in the world for him as he was hanging out ten feet off the ground. eventually when i was up the ladder the old child makenzie regulated who went up and down.
cherisse decorated the tree with the help of the two elves again. luckily so far they have only broken one ornament each. i suspect that before the 25th reaches us that ethan will break one or two more but that is to be expected.

west coast tour

-3 = temperature (Fahrenheit) on the display in the expedition in southern ID
0 = car sick incidents, number of speeding tickets, times we had to get out of the car to get gas in OR
1 = drivers who drove through the snow in northern CA and southern OR (Cherisse)
2 = times we crossed the golden gate bridge also the number of hours it took to get out of San Fran at rushour
3 = times that we saw the sun in Oregon
5:30 = time in the morning we got to Heathfield Lane as well as the Peterson's house
7 = states we visited on our trip (CA, OR, WA, ID, UT, AZ, NV)
11= temples seen on our trip (Oakland, Portland, Boise, Ogden, Bountiful, Salt Lake City, Jordan river, Mt. Timpanogos, Provo, St. George, Las Vegas)
14 = days away from home
30 = minutes spent in WA
40 = family members that we saw on the the trip (Dyer, Smith, Peterson, Storrs, Monson, Jensen, Jensen, Cahoon)
94 = years old Grandpa Jensen is that we got to see, acts not a day over 70
1,350 = approx. number of fireworks that went off in font of Norven's house on New Years
2,800 = approx miles traveled

we started off our trip on Wednesday night. we were up most of the night packing and getting things ready. Makenzie and Ethan helped the packing process by having an uncontrollable amount of energy and stayed up with us into the early hours of Thursday. they finally went down and so did we.
wanting to get a head start on our day we left around 7am. so much for leaving early. it was cold and the temperature on the display said 30 degrees. that was after we jump started the expedition that mysteriously died over night. made it up the grapevine before Makenzie or Ethan even made a peep.
making our way into the bay area we came across some rain. jumped out at the Oakland temple to see the nativity scene. not much to see from that perch where the temple sits with all of the clouds. we then hopped back in the car to head into SF. it was over the bay bridge and across treasure island and then dropping into the city. we rolled down the windows for the kids so that they could see the city as we got closer. headed down to fisherman's wharf to find some parking to take a ride on the cable car.
more to come....

cherisse's memories of 06 christmas in the OR

your dad saying guys you can download!!!!

trip to coast and Tillamook

makenna and kenzie are friends and ethan and damon are friends

rain rain rain.... 5 out of 7 days we were there....kenzie asked me where the sun went. mom its not night time where is the sun....I said it was hiding behind the clouds....a 3 year old even notices that the sun doesn't shine in oregon.

happy new year

we have been all over the west and our trip is about 2 more states from being done. it all started out thursday morning, before christmas to head up to oregon. hit up san fran and saw the highlights and then made our way through the snow and up to t-town.
i hope that you all had a great new year and we had a blast at christmas being there in oregon. hopefully we can all meet up at the end of november to enjoy some turkey, gossip, trash talking and hanging out.

santa v. ethan 2006

so last night we went to the ol ward party to eat some food and hang out with the other ward members. the highlight of the eve was a visit by the gift bearing Santa Claus. that is right Santa showed up for the kids and brought with him some fruity candy canes. so we took makenzie and ethan up to see him. makenzie after waiting her turn sat still on santas lap only to hold out until the cane was placed in her hand and then she made a quick exit. ethan looked at him with an almost look of disgust with the white facial hair being the focal point of his visit. once he got his cane he too made a bee line for dad to free his four/five teeth on the sweet surprise that lay hidden under some Chinese plastic wrapping. dad was too busy taking pictures of kids to help the young man along on his journey to ignite his sweet buds on his tongue. so on to mom who unwrapped and returned to Santa's new friend.

next thing i know i am being handed Ethan with some remnants of pink candy cane shrapnel that seemed to get left behind on his shirt. it was mostly gone from existence, that cane with the only history of it being on his spider man sticky fingers. i set him down and he makes his way to the only way of passage to and from the stage, the homemade stairs. he made short work of the 4 steps and a couple of interruptions in that part of his trek by the kids who had come and seen the jolly man. he then maneuvered himself to the front of the short line to confront this guy in a green "comfy" chair from the foyer. he stood in front of him and did not say a word. it reminded me of some sort of mid day talk show confrontation between judge Judy and the plaintiff. Ethan wanted another shot at what was rightfully his, one of the candy cane from the little brown wicker basket that held them all. Santa acknowledged his presence there and one of his helpers offered him a choice of a pink one and multicolored one. as she held them out to him he took the opportunity to seize both of them from the twelve year old and hold on tight. she tried to retrieve both of them but he was not having any of that. she then tried to talk to him, what was he going to do start explaining to her that one was for his sister and that he needed both now. i had to pull him away before it got ugly but he was not as dejected as i thought he might be.
so this was his first interaction with Santa Claus. i am glad that we don't take him out much because he would probably be outside the store staring down the Salvation Army bell ringer until he was able to produce a sweet treat.

less than 2 weeks to go

so as it looks now this might be one of the last christmas' that we are all together, knock on wood that i don't jink it. less than 2 weeks to go and we will all be sipping egg nog in Oregon. any predictions on a white christmas on heathfield lane or are we going to be freezing cold with a hint of fog on the 25th. so everyone has their lists in and we are done with our gift shopping for the most part.
some things to look forward to:

• food
• seeing everyone
• watching the kids play, makenna, makenzie, damon, ethan, joel, ashton, rachel, and emily
• scenery
• and so on