Christmas Vacation Part 4

Day 5:
Margee & her family went to Sea World on Saturday. The rest of us went to the beach! We packed lunches, sunscreen and towels and headed out for a fun-filled day. On our way to the beach, we crossed a draw bridge and had to wait for some boats to go under. It was rather exciting for those of us who live inland. We had a lot of fun at the ocean except for the fact that our boys are afraid of the ocean. Asa almost liked getting his feet wet. They just had fun playing in the sand. The other problem was the weather. It was really windy and not quite hot. Once you got out of the water it was pretty chilly. James decided to feed the seagulls. That was nearly a really dangerous decision! They're pretty vicious when they see food.
Overall we had a great day at the beach! Here's one more picture of our family:

Christmas Vacation Part 3

Day 3, Christmas Eve:
James and I decided that we should go to the beach the first chance we got. We found the closest spot was about 30 minutes away. We put the kids down early for nap and headed out after the woke up. We were planning on a short trip since we wanted to go to a Christmas Eve service somewhere. So we got to the beach and put the boys in the water a little bit. They weren't the biggest fans of the water but they loved playing in the sand. James was playing in the water with Asa when I heard his yell something. I ran over to see that his glasses had fallen off. In the ocean. We realized that the glasses were gone. James is pretty much blind without his glasses. I went to the lifeguard to leave our number just in case the glasses washed up later. James used his iPhone to find the nearest Lens Crafters. They would be able to get new glasses for him as long as the prescription wasn't too strong. So James called our eye doctor to have his prescription faxed. A couple hours later James had new glasses. I was shocked that our eye doctor's office was still open on Christmas Eve. I was surprised that the glasses were so cheap. And I was happy that James bought me a Christmas present while wandering around the mall nearly blind! After all that excitement we rushed back to the house to shower and get ready for church.

Day 4, Christmas Day:
Our day started the typical way. We opened our stockings. The older girls had to wait a while until our babies woke up. Asa and Judah enjoyed their books and candy in their stockings. James and I got candy and ornaments! My ornament is a little bit less than cool. James thought he would be funny and buy me a lame Hannah Montana ornament! Later we opened presents as a family. The other family units had already exchanged gifts among themselves so our little family was the only ones with gifts to open. Judah got a bowling set. Asa got a big magna doodle and a puzzle. James got a pillow and the movie Slumdog Millionaire. And I got two pair of pants.
Again our kids had an early lunch followed by naps so we could go swimming in the afternoon. James and I ended up going down with the older cousins and Asa before Judah woke up. The weather was great and the water was warm, perfect scene for Christmas day! Asa loved the pool, especially jumping in. He wasn't a fan of getting his face wet and coughed up a lot of water. We ended the day with a Christmas dinner of steak & chicken, courtesy of James the grill master. And of course, we played some pitch!

Christmas Vacation Part 2

Ok, I'm not with the blogging thing this trip. We're having so much fun. We'll see how much I can remember.
Day 1: We left home at 6:00 PM and drove until we could drive no more. And then we kept driving. We met one of my sisters in Mount Vernon, IL and caravanned the rest of the way. The trip was pretty normal until day 2.
On Day 2 we met up with my other sister in Atlanta. We stopped at the welcome area in Florida for lunch. It was a nice break from the drive. Then we had a slight problem. Judah and his cousin Lea (2) were walking along. Judah tripped and Lea fell on him, causing his head to slam against the concrete. He screamed! And then he threw up on me. Nice. James went to find someone to clean up the puke and the guy showed James to a water faucet so he could clean it up himself. Lame! Anyhow, Judah finally quit crying and we got everyone cleaned up. Several hours later we arrived in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Our condo is pretty nice: 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, kitchen, 2 eating areas, screened in porch and a neighborhood pool. We settled in, ate some pizza and went to bed.

Stay tuned for more....

Christmas Vacation

This year we are doing something a little different for Christmas. We almost always travel to be with our family, either in Iowa or Arizona. (I'll include Texas in the list as well even though we don't have immediate family there anymore.) This year we're going to Florida with my family. We have rented a house in Port St. Lucie for a little over a week. I think it will be a good time. How can you go wrong when there's a beach nearby? We will be leaving tomorrow evening around 5:00. I'm hoping we'll be in warm Florida by 5:00 Wednesday evening. We'll see how the driving goes! Stay tuned for the journey!

PS: Someday I'll have a "Christmas Card Blog." Someday......

Christmas at the Light House

Since it's starting to be the Christmas season, I thought I would share a few of our family traditions.
Tradition #1 Pick out a live tree. Usually we cut down a tree from a tree farm. This year, however, that was not possible. We decided to decorate early since James' parents were here for Thanksgiving and we will be gone for Christmas. We wanted to put the tree up early and enjoy it for a while. Since we put it up before Thanksgiving, Santa's Tree Farm wasn't open. We drove by a few places to price trees. The ones at Earl May were $75! Luckily Home Depot had nice trees for about $17. Here is our tree before we took it inside:

James & Asa putting the star on top:

The finished product:

We've had a bit of trouble with our tree since we have two little ones. Judah likes to pull the ornaments off. He is usually fine but for a while every day he gets it in his head that he needs to play with all the ornaments. I'm afraid to put presents under the tree. Who knows what he will do with them! The other problem with the tree is related to the cat we're watching. He's been eating the icicles (those little silver stringy things). James found a hairball laced with icicles and I saw Baby eating some more today. I hope he doesn't die!


Tradition #2 Drive around and look at Christmas lights. This exciting event took place just this evening. Asa wanted to get into his jammies for the ride in the van. We made popcorn and brewed some coffee and drove to a neighboring community known as Lakewood. It's a fancy neighborhood and a lot of folks hire people to put up their lights so they look really good. Asa was happy to point out all the lights. He said, "Look, there Christmas lights on that house." I'm not sure that Judah enjoyed much other than the popcorn on our little trip. While we drove we listened to one of the Point of Grace Christmas albums. Suddenly Asa said, "Oh I love this song!" and then sang, "Joy, joy, joy!" I was impressed that he knew that song; it's also one of James' favorites. Then Asa said, "Junior sing it." Oh, it's one of the Veggie Tales Christmas songs! Now I understand how he knows that song.

There will be more traditions to come, we just haven't done more Christmassy stuff yet. The fun has only just begun!

Extreme Makeover

A little more than three years ago James and I moved to Lee's Summit. He was taking a few seminary classes in Kansas City and we found a cheap place to rent. James looked on the Church of the Nazarene's website to find the nearest Nazarene church. We went that first Sunday with hopes of finding a place where we could be involved and grow in our faith. Three years later we have the closest friends we've ever had. Keep reading to see what I mean.
A couple weeks ago we went to Tipton to visit my sister (Melinda) and her family. It was a pretty short trip but we had a great time. We ate a lot of good food, saw most of the rest of my family, went to the super fun library and played games. Asa and Judah loved playing with Zoe and Lea. I also went to the high school with Melinda as she taught a class. They have a really cool high school, especially for such a small town. Melinda & Ryan had recently moved into a new house and it is awesome! It's an older house with really cool features like built in storage and beautiful wood-work. They have so much space!
As we drove home, I was talking to my sister and was still on the phone with her when we pulled in the driveway. I noticed that outside lights in the front and back were on as well as a light inside the house. I was a little freaked out because we never leave lights on when we go out of town, especially three lights! Melinda told me that something was going on and we should just go inside. What on earth? James and I walked in to see our living room and kitchen completely made over. As we were crying and I was trying to explain to Melinda what had happened, a few of my friends walked in the door. We were filled in on the little scheme as we looked around at our new home. We walked back to the bedrooms and found Asa's room without purple carpet and with blue walls. They had pulled up the carpet and refinished the hardwood floor. It is so beautiful! Asa also has a new comforter and end table. There were a couple new outfits for the boys as well. Then we went into our bedroom. Can I just say amazing? We had mocha colored walls with our blue & white striped comforter. Now there are gray walls with a beautiful light blue-gray & dark brown comforter set. Then we went downstairs and found an organized basement with some of James' artwork on the walls.
During the whole tour I was wondering how they did so much work in two days and how they got into our house. Apparently there were a lot of people in our house while we were out of town. My oldest sister had been down for a visit in October and stole a key to the back door for our friends.
Here's what I'm thinking: We have great friends! We are loved more than I ever understood. These people gave up a lot of time and money for us. I don't really get it! The timing was perfect. This week we hosted James' parents and we have a beautiful house. They also cleaned and stashed away all the clutter. It was so refreshing just to have a clean house!
I'm not doing a very good job explaining everything but I've added some pictures. They don't even show the beauty but it's close. Please excuse our luggage; it wasn't there when we walked through the doors! I don't have a good picture of Asa's room. There are also beautiful pictures of our kids as the focal point in the living room. I think part of the greatness of this makeover is the previous state of our house. We hadn't painted or decorated at all since we moved in back at the end of August.

Living room with new TV & TV stand:


Living room, new curtains and recliner:


Dining area of the kitchen, new paint, table, place settings, mirror & curtains:


Bathroom with my friend Amy's great painting:


Our bedroom:


The bathroom off our bedroom, wallpaper gone, beautiful paint, towels and a sink that works: