Christmas in California

Christmas 2014 was spent in Camarillo with my family. Michael was able to take off nearly 3 weeks from work. Which was great since we had 2 days in driving each way. We traveled there on the 12th and 13th of December. Nothing too eventful happened, which was good, it was just long. By dinner time our second day of driving I (and Collin) were done in the car. We stopped our first night in El Paso, TX and stayed with Michael's old mission president. It was nice to finally be able to meet him (Michael stayed with them when we moved out) and hear some mission memories from Ecuador.

Family selfie as we pulled out of San Antonio...Can you spot Collin?

 

Our (pretty) happy traveler



We had a great time in CA. Unfortunately, Collin got a cold our first week there and it was kind of downhill from there as far as our health went. But we were still able to fit in some fun things, even if we didn't get to do everything we wanted. No matter what it was much more enjoyable being sick in a house full of family rather then home all day with just Collin. Its always more fun to have company when watching movies all day ;) And I was really grateful it was just bad colds and not the flu.

 

Its been a couple months now so I am struggling to remember everything we did. But here are some of the things that I felt were worth documenting. And all the good quality pictures were borrowed from Anie's blog- she is the best at documenting in the family!

 

• Playing with Cousin Bailey. This two were so cute together...except when it came to sharing ;) My parents had just gotten a new microwave and the box made a great toy. Love the picture of the two hugging!

 

 

Can you spot Michael?? Hint...look for his fingers!

He started a game with them where they would pass blocks through the hole and then he would build a tower. We all took turns hiding and building towers. The kids loved it!

 

• Watching Elle in her school nursery rhyme play. She did such a great job, and it was fun going out to lunch as a family afterward. Then after lunch Michael took Collin home for a nap and I got to spend the afternoon shopping with Corinne and my mom. So much fun! I honestly almost forgot that I had a baby at home. It was nice to be free for a few hours, plus I came home with a few cute additions to my wardrobe.



Elle played Little Miss Muffet in the red and yellow





• Family night at Gemini Street. Followed by an adults only white elephant party at the "Broken House" aka the Terry home. Such a fun night. I was already loosing my voice, and a night of laughing certainly did not help my cause, but it was so much fun. Thanks Terry's for hosting, and Brittany for babysitting. Let's make it a tradition....those placemats need to make an appearance again ;)

 

 

 

 

 



• We celebrated our 4th anniversary on the 18th. Which I guess I didn't document :( But we went out for a lunch date to a delicious teppanyaki place in Thousand Oaks. So fun to splurge a little and such a fun atmosphere having them cook it right in front of us. Then we went out that evening after Collin went to bed for a donut run to Rolling Pin. We did this last year for our anniversary and decided to keep up the tradition. Also its great payment for our babysitters (thanks Mom...and family) Collin was starting to get sick around this time so we also stopped by Spencer and Anie's to borrow a humidifier. We ended up staying and talking to them for a while. It was fun just to catch up on life and hang out for a bit.

• Of course Christmas Eve and Christmas Day festivities.
• Christmas Eve the whole family was together- 10 adults and 10 kids age 15-1. It is always a fun, (crazy) party!
   
   
   
   
  
   
   
   
  
   
   
   
  
   
   
   
   
• Then Christmas morning the S&A family joined us after stockings for brunch and that evening the L&S family came to exchange gifts. I loved watching Collin open presents this year...so much fun! He loved taking the wrapping paper off one little piece at a time and then had to hand us each piece. Santa brought him some Duplos which he was so excited about. He also got bubble bath, so naturally he had to have his very first bubble bath Christmas morning. I got Michael some Lodge cast iron skillets, and a new dutch oven pie cookbook. Michael got me a new purse. Santa also gave Michael some stick on mustaches in his stocking. The boys had fun with those. 

Christmas morning we had to wake up Miss Sleepyhead. I caught Collin mid-blink but he loved waking Bailey up!



 

 

 

 



• When we are in town we always stay at Mom and Dad's but I like to make time to hang out at my sibling's house at well. Its always been just Spencer and Anie, but now we get to add Lindsay and Shaun's place to the list as well!
• We spent a Saturday morning over at Lindsay and Shaun's. They had waffles for breakfast and then we all hung out in the back and the kids showed off their Christmas spoils- dirt bikes. Collin got to have his very first ride on a dirt bike. He loved it. But there may have been a few reminders for Michael to go extra slow...he was carrying precious cargo ;)

 

 

And a highlight of the Terry home was Cousin Brittany's new baby chicks.



• Spencer kindly volunteered to give Collin his first Flowbee haircut. More like he insisted and kept saying his hair was too long ;) I finally reluctantly gave in. I was really sad to see all his soft baby hair go, and took me several days to get used to his new big boy look! Anyway Collin did great with the flowbee, a little hesitant, but mostly curious. Then we played with cousin's and joined them for dinner. Favorite memory from the night was Elle (or maybe it was Madi) picking up Collin and carrying him across the room. He is quite big, and they aren't much bigger. Collin hated it, but I thought it was quite comical. There was also some rough housing that happened. Its good for Collin to have some interactions with bigger kids!

• Dinner at Andria's. Best seafood in town :) We had no idea that S&A, and some of Anie's siblings were going to be there at the same time. It was a fun surprise!  

 

 

We walked around the harbor after dinner.
Unfortunately, this trip we did not make one trip to the beach to put our toes in the sand.



• Breakfast with Auntie Chlo at the airport café. Always fun to see her! It was a first for us, and very yummy. Just wish it hadn't been so windy so we could have enjoyed the planes.

 

• And some random fun things we did around the house.

Exercising with Boppi in the mornings. A nice 30 lb weight addition :)  

 

 

Collin's favorite toy at Boppi and Owie's.
Thankfully it was on sale after Christmas so we were able to get one for our house too.

 

Apple pie lessons from Mom

 

Wouldn't be a trip home without dinner at Olas. Collin wasn't so sure about the lime.

 

Truly and Miso. Sadly this was our last time seeing Truly.
She was a good pup and we were lucky to have her for nearly 16 years.

 

Beautiful Camarillo sunsets

 

My home stake put on a huge Christmas program. Collin was mesmerized like this for a good portion of the performance. A rare occurrence for this busy boy ;) He especially was in awe of the bag pipers.

 

Snuggles with Boppi and Owie....and Miso. This was our last night home and a long day of fevers and not feeling well for Collin. Poor baby. This was not a good trip in the health department for us.



• I should add that Michael had the chance to go sailing with most of my family on our last day in town. I was feeling better at that point and would have gone, but Collin came down with a pretty high fever that day so I took one for the team and stayed home with him so Michael could enjoy a day on the seas. Sadly I should have had a better attitude about it, but thankfully most of my bitter feelings toward missing out on the fun have faded now. And there will always be more sailing trips. No pictures though- I am the photographer in the family, not Michael ;)
• After a couple weeks of fun it was time to hit the road again. Love my handsome traveling buddies! Unfortunately, Collin didn't sleep well and his fever came back during the night. Eventually, he ended up in bed with Michael and I laid down in the other bed. Good thing he is cute!



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spend it till it's gone!

I nearly forgot to blog about our second to biggest purchase in our 4 years of married life (our car is first)...our new front loading washer and dryer!  

 

The weekend before heading to Houston our washer decided to flood our living room. It was a Sunday afternoon, we had spilled something on our kitchen rug so I decided to throw it in the wash real quick (ha, last time I do laundry on a Sunday!). Anyway, Collin was napping (thank goodness) and Michael and I were just cooking in the kitchen. I walked out a while after starting the load and notice a huge stream of water come from the washer and across our living room! Thankfully our apartment is old and funky and the floor slants down. So all the water was gathering against one wall instead of the entire floor. And we don't have carpet! It took pretty much every towel in the house to clean up the mess and we finished right as Collin was waking up. After some investigating and not being able to find the source of the leak (all pipes were dry and we did find some oil dripping underneath- we think it was an issue with the drum) we determined it was time to buy a new washer and dryer. We had bought these ones used, 4 years ago when we were first married for about $250. We hadn't had any major problems with the washer until then and the dryer took a few cycles to dry a load, but at least it still dried. But we had already determined that we would not be taking this set with us next time we move. They had served us well, but I was more then happy to get new ones! Thankfully there were some early Black Friday sales and we were able to get a great deal. Only downfall is they couldn't deliver it for a week :( Thankfully, Becca let us use their washer and dryer as needed...such a huge lifesaver!

Out with the old...

 

...In with the new!
I felt silly getting excited about a washer and dryer. But aren't they beautiful?!

 

Collin loves to watch the clothes spin round and round. One morning when we should have been packing for our trip to California we sat on the floor for a while and just watched the clothes get clean. He loved it!

 



Oh and the same week we purchased the W&D we took our car in because it was making a funny noise. Turns out there was metal showing through on one of our tires! Yikes! We were really grateful we caught it before something happened, and that it was an easy (although expensive) fix.

 

We spent so much money that week it was stressful, but all I could do was laugh! Costco's deal for Christmas cards was ending that week as well and I was deciding between a couple types. I finally just said who cares, I am spending the extra $15 and getting the nicer ones! Spend it till its gone is what my dad always says. Probably not always the best mentality, but when you had already spent $1500+ that week, what is an extra $15, right?

 

So a washer and dryer, 50 nice Christmas cards, 4 new tires and an alignment later...Merry (early) Christmas to us! Yay for being an adult ;)

Thanksgiving 2014

Our original plan was to go camping at the beach with some of our friends for the Thanksgiving weekend. But we all had some degree of a cold. Remember how Collin was starting to get sick the weekend before in Houston? Well we all got it, some of us (Collin and me) worse then others (Michael...he always gets off easy! Lucky duck!) Anyway we decided it would be best to stay home and not expose ourselves to the elements and try sleeping on the hard ground when we weren't sleeping well at home to begin with. Thankfully we weren't sick enough to make our Thanksgiving weekend at home totally miserable and had a lovely little weekend as a family.

 

Neither of us our the biggest fans of turkey and other traditional Thanksgiving foods. So we decided to try our hand at making lamb. Originally Michael wanted lamb shanks, but those are quite hard to find! So we settled on a different cut, browned it in a pan and then finished it off in the crockpot. I even had to buy my first bottle of wine for this recipe. I felt like such an adult, but self conscience too! I ran into one of our friends while at the store and had to clarify that the bottle of wine was for cooking...not drinking! Didn't want anyone getting the wrong idea ;) We also made a quinoa cranberry orange salad (not a favorite, probably won't make it again) and a yummy potato gratin, recipe courtesy of William and Sonoma.  The cheese in it was $10! It was definitely a splurge dish, but so rich and yummy!



And all I wanted for dessert was a Costco pumpkin pie. I had been seeing them in the store for the past several weeks and couldn't seem to get it out of my mind. I even went right when they opened the day before to get it. And good thing I did because when I went back later that night (still trying to find lamb) they were sold out. I was happy knowing my pie was safe at home in my fridge. And to watch Collin try it for the first time made it totally worth it! That boy keeps us laughing and for that I am extremely grateful!



Can't remember much else from the weekend. I think there were a lot of naps involved. Michael did play football Thanksgiving morning, Collin and I spectated. And we did hit up Target Friday shopping to see if there were any deals left. We got a couple little things, but they were pretty picked over. Which was ok, we were keeping Christmas small this year.

Weekend in Houston

Its catch up time! Lots of big changes have happened in the few months since my last post. Now that life has settled down a bit, and we are getting into a routine, it is time to crank out some blog posts before I forget all the things we have been doing!

 

First, lets jump back to November when Michael took Friday off and we took a weekend trip to Houston to visit Michael's brother Dennis and meet his fiancé (now wife) Swati. Swati's family lives in Houston and they were visiting from Pennsylvania. Swati's mom was so kind to let us stay at her house. We had such a fun weekend with them. Swati is wonderful, and after only a few short days together I can tell we are going to be great friends!

 

We went to NASA, took a tour, saw some pretty big space shuttles, played in the kids area and learned lots of cool things about space!

Only picture I have of Dennis and Swati...sad! And we didn't know that the tour takes you outside and left Collin's jacket in the car. We improvised with the nursing cover. I felt like such a bad parent though- it was a rainy day and Collin was already showing signs of a cold. Guess we all have those times!

 

 

Bad quality pic, but they were both laughing and spitting. Collin's face in this one is priceless!

 

We went bowling. Uncle Dennis was so patient in teaching Collin how to bowl. Collin loved it and laughed every time. But by the second game was done and just wanted to eat his snacks.

 



We played at the park, went to breakfast with Swati's family, tried some yummy authentic Indian food, and just hung out and enjoyed being together. Come back and visit Texas soon!!

 

Swati and Dennis flew out Sunday morning and Michael and I decided to drive home to San Antonio via Lake Jackson. A small town a little south east of Houston right near the coast. Michael had just applied for a job there and we wanted to scope out the area since we were already so close. We hit up the local ward for Sacrament meeting and then drove around the town a little, and out to the beach before heading home. We thought the town was so pretty, lots of trees and well maintained. And the few people we met at church were friendly and welcoming. Overall we had a good first impression and thought that we could see ourselves living there if anything came from the job posting. Little did we know how things would change in just 2 short months! Stay tuned for more details on that story! ;)

Beach near Lake Jackson.
I sent it to my family and said "If I squint I can almost imagine I am in California"