Christmas Nativity 2009

We drove up to Sean's parents in Casa Grande for Christmas (I liked the 5 hour drive we used to have much better than the 10 we now have....but the kiddos were pretty good). We rolled in at about 2 AM on the 23rd and stayed until Sunday morning (the 27th). Caelan and Ben and Megan have been playing with our little plastic Nativity set all month. On a couple of occasions they wanted to be the characters ("I'll be Mary," and "I want to be the Shepherd," etc). I mentioned something about acting out the Nativity story, and they just thought that was the greatest idea. Ben talked about it several times from that moment until Christmas Eve. So, we decided it would be fun to have all the little kids play the different parts in the Nativity. We were with all of Sean's family as well as his Grandma Dick and Uncle Garry and Aunt Jera. Jenny and I and Sean's mom pulled together some costumes and the kids acted out our very BRIEF version of the Nativity....and loved it. Caelan played Mary, Ben and Logan played the Wisemen, Megan and Hailey were Angels, Corbin was a Shepherd, Brooklyn was the Star, and Nathy was supposed to be Joseph (but he pretty much wouldn't cooperate at all). It turned out really cute - I think we might start making this a regular Christmas Eve tradition.

Family Pictures

Each year we try to take a simple family snapshot to put on our family newsletter. Nothing fancy or professional (in fact we just use the timer on our camera at home usually), and yet every year we take probably 30-50 shots trying to get one....JUST ONE picture with all of us looking forward and looking somewhat happy. We never get a "perfect one," but we sure get some comical ones in the process. Here are some of the gems from this years attempt.Oh Ben - he was the highlight of the "funny pictures" this year. Man, he had a bunch of them...

Family Fun

We had a fun family night at the miniature golf course. It was pretty crazy trying to get all 14 of us through the course (especially with so many youngsters), so eventually it became a pretty relaxed game. Ben was pretty good about trying his best at actually putting the balls at the beginning. By the end he was just messing around - he could care less about taking his turn to get the ball into the hole. We also took another trip to the zoo. Grandpa even paid for the kids to have their faces painted...and he joined in with them, and then walked around like that all day long. What love. Ben doesn't love to have paint on his face for an extended amount of time, so he went with a pattern on his arm. We rode the skyway buckets this time (which was a little chilly, but very fun to be so high up over the park).

Halloween 2009

We raided Grandma Sorensen's costume box and she found a great super hero costume that was perfect for Ben. With two different nights of candy-collecting he really stocked up. We went trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. The kids enjoyed it for about a half an hour and then they started getting tired. We went over to one more neighborhood. It took some real convincing for Ben to carry on for much longer. He started removing all parts of his costume: the mask, the cape, the gloves. After a while I knew we had to head home. People probably couldn't even tell that he was dressed up at that point. We had collected a bunch of candy and even the older kids were ready by then, so we made our way back. I can't decide whether to let them gorge themselves for the next two days or to spread it out over the next two weeks. We'll see.

Air Show

Yesterday we went to the Miramar Airshow. I've always enjoyed going to this airshow (we used to go as a family when I was younger). It's fun to get all sorts of food and blankets packed up and then go and spend the day on the base and watch the awesome airplanes do their tricks. Yesterdays trip wasn't as relaxing as other airshow events for the following reasons: *It took almost 4 hours to get from our house to where we parked our car (it should usually take about an hour - the traffic was HORRIBLE) *Both Caelan and Ben threw up *Megan had an accident (and there are only port-a-pottys) *Nathan spent the first few hours crying (he's been sick, and he was just exhausted but was fighting off the nap) Despite how bad it sounds, it was actually a fairly fun day. We went with my dad and Andrea and all the boys, and then we met up with Erin and David and Jennifer Mason. The kids were mostly good and had fun (minus their couple of incidences), and the fun air stuff was awesome. I always love the Blue Angels. It's amazing how close together they fly. The firework show was great (Nathan was completely mesmorized) and then I always love the Wall of Fire (very cool). You can feel the heat from it all the way to our seats.

Disneyland

Well, I made a deal with Caelan at the beginning of the summer that if she would read 100 books (all by herself) then she could go to Disneyland. She finished her 100th book on Wednesday. Thursday was Sean's birthday (so he could get into Disneyland for free) and so we spent the day at the Magic Kingdom. It was a perfect day to go (bad economy, weekday in October = very few crowds). The lines were so short. We got to go on everything we wanted and the kids had a blast. Caelan and Ben loved all the rides from the roller coasters to Peter Pan and the Carousel. Megan's favorite was the teacups. They have a great Halloween firework show, and I love the way that they deck out the Haunted Mansion "Nightmare Before Christmas" style. It was great. We had a blast and were thoroughly exhausted by the time we got home. Good day!

Ford Galaxie

Once upon a time there was a car. There was also a boy. The boy loved the car and bought it from a friend (for a real steal - $350). The car was old (1962) but filled with personality. One day the boy met a girl and they struck up a conversation about the car. The boy married that girl. They drove that car all around the streets of their college town. A couple of years later they had a baby girl. They drove her home from the hospital in their old car. It went with them as they moved around within 4 states and as they added three more kids to the family. They had other cars during that time (lots of other cars, actually), but their '62 Ford was their old faithful, always there when the other cars broke down. Years passed and the boy and girl decided that is was time for the old car to find a new home. So, with sadness they passed their old faithful onto new owners to make great memories of their own. Goodbye Ford Galaxie - you've been GREAT! We'll miss you

Stair Sliding

Grandpa and Grandma Sorensen have a big staircase in their entryway. It doesn't have any landings and it gets wider at the base of the stairs. The kids loves to get inside their sleeping bags and slide all the way down. A few times they have even gotten mattresses and slid down on those.

Summer Fun

We had a great trip over to Sean's parents house in Arizona last week. It made us really appreciate the southern CA summers...Man, it's HOT there. We had a blast swimming, swimming and more swimming. Ben got brave and wanted to try swimming underwater - after one time he was a fish for the rest of the time we were there. One night we even put on a movie on the projector while we swam in the pool. Fun times! We also got to attend the Mesa temple with Lindsay (Sean's youngest sister) which was a special day, and go to dinner with all the adults afterward. While we were in town we also took advantage of our Dentist Grandpa/Dad (Sean's dad) and all of us got our teeth cleaned and checked. This was a first time for Ben, and he had to go back to get two tiny cavitites filled (he was still and calm - I was pretty surprised). Ben and Caelan also LOADED up on goods from the treasure box (I mean like 10 toys each)- I guess it's okay when your Grandpa owns the office, right?

Partying in CA

Always a Party in CA Here are some of the fun things we've done during the past month and a half that we have been in CA: *Spent the 4th of July at a park in Long Beach with the Taylor family (Grandma Sorensens extended family): we ate and played baseball and hit a pinata. Good times. *Went to an Angels Game *Went to the Del Mar Fair: What a blast. We saw Monster Trucks, Motorcross Riders, and real Transformers in a show. We also saw "The Music of Abba" - a very fun music group singing Abba songs. We saw elephants, lots of livestock animals (and the kids even got to pet and feed some of them), ponies, pig races and a garden show. We rode lots of rides (carousel, huge ferris wheel, airplane ride, mini roller coaster, spinning rides, teacup rides, jungle train, high swings and little boats). Ben has grown into a ride-lovin' boy (much different from his last roller coaster experience at Disneyland - which he did NOT like at all). This time he loved it! Megan also wanted to ride every single ride (she was a little too small for some of them). Caelan went on it all. We ate a HUGE delicious Mexican Funnel Cake (huge pile of churros with chocolate and whipped cream and strawberries) - YUM (and big enough to feed 9 people). We had lots of fun! *Went to the March Air Force museum and checked out all of the cool army planes.

Beach

Since we are staying in Southern CA for the time being we like to take advantage of being so close to the beach whenever we can. Ben LOVES the beach: he loves the waves and the sand and roasting hotdogs and getting buried and building sandcastles and chasing the water and getting wet and eating sandy chips and walking along the Pier. It is one of his favorite places to go. When we were still in Kingman he would often talk about going to Grandpa and Grandma Sorensen's house so that we could go to the beach. The last time we went Dad buried all the kids in the sand. They thought it was pretty great.

New Home

Well we officially said goodbye to our house in Kingman. Dad has been working with Grandpa Sorensen since February in CA, and so he was down there a LOT and I was in Kingman with the kids. It was tough to be away so much, so we knew that once Caelan was done with school we would make the move to CA. So we did. We are currently staying with the Sorensen in Murrieta until we know for sure what area Dad will be working in and therefore where we want to be for a while. We think it will most likely be here in Murrieta, but we shall see. Anyway, we got everything together to move the week after Caelan finished school. We ended up getting a storage unit in Kingman (MUCH CHEAPER than CA) for all our stuff, and then we drove down to CA. We drove back to Kingman with my dad's huge van and a trailer to get the stuff we were going to take with us(beds and clothes and such). And then we said goodbye to our house. Even though I knew this was a good move for us it still was tough leaving that home behind...especially with all the work we put into it. I really love that house (and I think there is even more of a special feeling about it because it was our very fist home (that was ours)). So we are onto our next adventure. Good times. Dear 1820 Broudy Drive, We're sure going to miss you. We're going to miss the huge Mulberry trees in the front yard and the view of them from the living room window, and Caelan is going to miss climbing way up into their branches. We're going to miss the wide open living/family/kitchen area where we did lots of good old "living." We're going to miss the red master bathroom and the handprint painted border in the kids room. We're going to miss the huge fireplace and the wood floor in the kitchen (that we laid ourselves). We're going to miss the ceiling fans in EVERY room. We're going to miss the workshop in the backyard (especially Dad) and all the storage in the garage. We are going to miss the circle driveway and the apple tree in the backyard (that the kids would pick tiny apples from in the Fall). We're going to miss the roses in the front yard and the fence around them (that Ben broke part of when he put the Galaxy in drive one day and rolled down the driveway). We're going to miss the huge kitchen counter and the little shelf around the kitchen cupboards. You've been a good house for us, and we're going to miss walking into your doors every day. Love, The Dicks

Memorial Day in Southern Utah

We went to Southern Utah again for Memorial Day with the Dick family. Actually it ended up being an Anderson reunion (Grandma Dick's parents and brothers and their families as well as Great Grammy Dick). It was a houseful, but what a fun time. And we don't get to see this bunch of family very often so that was a real treat. Uncle Kelly took the kids to the playground a couple of times, we spent the afternoon in the pool one day. The kids got on the fireplace hearth and sang Primary songs, which was pretty sweet. We ate food, played with bubbles, took LOTS of pictures and loved being together. We brought Logan home with us afterwards. He and Ben were little buddies for the next week.

Spring Break

We spent a fun-filled week in California during Spring Break. We went to the beach twice, played at a train museum, celebrated Ben's and Grandma's birthday, went to the park a couple of times, enjoyed Easter at Grandpa and Grandma Taylor's house, watched movies, and just enjoyed time together. Ben wanted a jungle cake for his birthday. He was pretty happy with how it turned out. I think one of their most favorite parts about picking a cake is choosing one that we can put little toys on (and then they get to keep those toys afterwards). Ben is totally infatuated with the beach. He doesn't go way out in the waves, but he plays in the water and digs in the sand and rolls in the sand and loves every minute of it. We even managed to fit in the flu (yep - Megan, Nathan and I all got a good case of the throw-up flu, and then Caelan caught something the day we

got home). But, overall it was a great week.