April 2014

 For Jacen's 18th birthday we bought him a skydiving experience. We went to Hollister for the weekend and it was so fun watching him skydive! He loved it and I felt a little jealous. I need to go someday.

 This guy was his skydiving partner/expert. He was really cool. He said he wished his mom would have taken him skydiving for his 18th birthday.

 On the way to the skydiving field, I saw these huge metal dinosaurs on the side of the road and had to take pictures to show Micah, who loves dinosaurs.

 Leif and Jen and their family came to visit and we went to the Fresno zoo. Above is Haley and Gavin looking on at the elephants.

 My niece, Erica, moved into an apartment with two pools that we have actually used a TON all summer long. But back in April we went for the first time with Leif's family and enjoyed it on one of the first warm days.

New Year's Day Hike At Millerton Lake

 For New Years we met up with my Mom and brother and his family for a picnic and hike at Millerton Lake. It was a perfect sunny day and we had so much fun. I love that the lake is only 25 minutes away. The lake is really low right now during winter. Hopefully we get some rain/snow this winter so it will be higher in the summer!

 We came down on this beach and we all skipped rocks. The kids (me too) were so excited when they were able to skip rocks!

 Gollum (Garet) below

 lots of climbing on rocks

 My studly brother. He says he dresses for a workout every time he takes his kids out because it is a workout. (: He's right! I learned that when he asked me to watch one of his Autistic kids once at the zoo and I had him nicely cornered where he couldn't escape and then in a split second he had jumped over a fence and climbing down some rocks. I headed after him in my non-running shoes. He was way ahead of me and a little child passed by and asked his Mom why I was climbing in the restricted area. She quickly said, "We don't do that." If only they knew I wasn't just climbing there for the fun of it! Anyhow, I digress... That was another day.

 Pretty cool tree huh. And a very cool kid.

Lesson Learned

 This is what I came home to after church. I had left our dog, Henry, in the house and apparently he was bored and figured out how to open the cupboard doors where the trash and recycle cans are kept.

Lesson: Don't leave the dog in the house for an extended amount of time alone.

But we still love him.

Christmas

 Christmas Eve was a bit of an adventure. The Sunday before my van broke down on the way to church and then Monday I didn't have a vehicle to do any "getting ready for Christmas" errands. So Tuesday on Christmas Eve, I waited for Albert to get home for work at noon and we went out car shopping. We came home by 4:30 with a new Nissan Rogue, which I love! Everyone had been telling me it was time for me to get a new car and I didn't want to. Frugal me wanted to avoid another car payment and make do, hoping that my van would last me through Jacen's whole mission. Oh well. It didn't happen. I am grateful that paying a little extra each month on Albert's trailblazer paid off in being able to pay it off a year early. So in doing so, we will pay off the trailblazer this January and our new car payment on the Rogue will start in February. I'm grateful that their isn't any overlapping. Anyhow, I felt a bit unprepared for Christmas Eve and Christmas with all of that going on. We made it over to my parent's house that night and ate dinner there. We had a nice nativity play with all the children. The sweet sister missionary read a nice Christmas story. It was nice to have both the older sister missionaries there and the young Elders. I was thinking that next year Jacen will be somewhere in the world in someone else's home for Christmas.

 Christmas morning the kids woke up and had presents at home.

 Then that afternoon we went to Coalinga and visited with Albert's parents and brothers.

It was a nice Christmas. I'm kind of glad its over. The next day I took down the Christmas decorations and was glad to get rid of the clutter and clean house.