Visitors

A few weeks ago, we had Jordan, Allyson, and Evangeline come visit for the weekend! We enjoyed having them and spending time with them so very much. Evangeline is talking so much now and we couldn't get enough of listening to her say all those sweet words. She called me "annie" for auntie and called Matt, "ma." It's so hard not being around our 2 beautiful nieces more often, but that also makes any time that we get with them so special. We drove about an hour and a half up north to an apple ranch. They had farm animals, a hay maze, an adorable playground, and train that gave rides, and of course lots of delicious treats!

This way, guys!

Peek-a-boo!

On our way back we stopped in historic Jamestown and explored the old train station and trains.

She is pointing to me as I take her picture because I asked, "Where is Auntie?"

Sunday we hungout most of the day, playing video games and card games, eating good food, coloring, went for a walk and took Samson to the dog park.

Jordan took this, but it's super cute :).

Auntie Erica and Uncle Matt loved letting Evangeline help us with anything and everything that we were doing... making breakfast, playing ddr, coloring, playing with Samson, etc... And actually, Samson did quite well with her around too. He's great with kids, but we've never had him with any that small before. Hopefully we can keep kids around him enough that he stays that way!

Helping uncle Matt make breakfast

We can't wait until Christmas when we get to see Lucca too, and hopefully she'll warm up enough so we can hear her sweet words as well. It's crazy that we only have 3 weeks of work before Christmas break! I have missed having a Christmas break the last couple years (although I took them anyways with vacations, but I still had to work right before and after Christmas). Although that means that I don't get paid for a couple of weeks, but oh well, we will make due.

Thankfulness

We had a very nice Thanksgiving with Matt's grandparents and aunts and uncles in Visalia. I feel so blessed to have family close by to celebrate holidays like this with. And it is so fun to get to know them more each time we visit, since I hadn't spent a whole lot of time with any of them before we moved here. We drove down on Thursday morning and stayed the night. It was fun to have a good sized group (about 20) of people on Thanksgiving, because I miss the big get-togethers that my family always has. My mom asked how it was compared to "our" Thanksgivings (they had almost 40 people this year), and I was like, I don't even know, I haven't been to one in 6 or 7 years! It amazes me how time goes by so fast.

On Friday we went for a hike in Sequoia National Park on a trail called Ladybug Camp, then a bit on a trail called Whiskey log after that. The ladybug trail really did have ladybugs! At the end of it, there were piles and piles of ladybugs covering the plants and leaves on the ground, what a unique thing to see! And what a refreshingly different way to spend black Friday, in God's beautiful creation (not that I'm not a little bit sad that I didn't get to do any shopping :-P).

That last picture was of some redwoods that we came across at the very end of our hike. Redwoods always make me feel so very small and insignificant, and God so very big and powerful for creating them. Thank you Lord for those humbling reminders.

I am so very thankful for the schedules of our jobs right now and the time that that allows us to spend together. When Matt was working at Costco; I would often have several days of around holidays like this, but he would usually have to work some of them. But this year we got this wonderful long weekend to spend part of with family and still had part of it left to relax and get things done at home. I, of course, busted out my Christmas decorations on Saturday. I was extra excited because my parents had bought me houses to makes a light up village for Christmas last year, and then some more for my birthday in June, but I haven't ever gotten to set them all up together yet! So yesterday I got those and the rest of my decorations set up. I feel like my mantel is lacking though, because we had a holly bush in GR that I would cut branches off of for it. Our neighbors actually do have a holly tree, but I haven't decided whether or not it's kosher to ask if I can cut branches off of it or not ;).

We also finally bought a fireplace screen (to keep Samson out) and some duraflame logs to have fires with :). Today we got our tree, which I LOVE decorating, but hate putting lights on... so we'll see if I get around to that today yet. I have to say that I am a little bit sad that we don't have family or friends nearby to have over to use my Christmas dishes with and to see our Christmas decor. Someday.

New House Pics...

Here is a link to my facebook album with pics of our house. The first ones are from before we moved in, and then there's a bunch of new ones after that, enjoy!

Napa Valley Weekend

This past weekend, we went wine tasting! We stayed with the couple that I met on the plane on the way to Seattle in September (they also went to Calvin). They live in Fairfield, which is about 30 min from Napa. Nick and Ann have 2 adorable little kids who are 3 and 4. We brought Samson along and they LOVED him! It was so cute to watch them run around the house with Samson chasing after them... boy was it noisy with all the running and giggling :). We got there Friday night in time for a late dinner and had a wonderful evening chatting with them.

Saturday, Samson stayed and played with the kids, while we headed out on some country back roads (Nick showed us the scenic route!) to Napa Valley, wine country! It was so beautiful :). We mostly went to the St. Helena area, north of Napa. We went for one tasting, then headed to another winery for an amazing lunch of a turkey and cranberry sandwich and meatball sandwich. After that we went to a sparkling wine winery and did a tour and tasting to learn about how they make their wine. We went to one more small family winery for a tasting in what can best be described as an old farm house. Along the way we stopped at a couple of others with pretty views to take pictures.

It was a very nice day spent enjoying God's creation, wine, and my hubby :). We made it back to Nick and Ann's for another yummy dinner, and then headed out on our 2.5 hour drive home. We only bought 2 bottles of wine, and are saving them for something special! Especially considering they were quite a bit more than the normal 2 buck Chuck that we buy....

OK, blogger is STILL not letting me post pics on here for some reason. I am really sorry, I tried! Every time I select the pics and then after a few min of uploading, it says, "bad request." I will try to put them on facebook with a link soon, I guess.

Moving and Beyond!

It's been a little bit crazy around here for the last couple of weeks, hence the lack of posting. Last Saturday was our big moving day. We brought car loads over the entire week prior to that, but Saturday we did all the big stuff and the rest of the small stuff. We weren't sure how much help we would have at first, but we ended up with 2 adults, 5 high schoolers, and even a big service truck that we could borrow. God is continuing to provide for us. So that was a week ago now, and we have gotten everything except for the guest room/office unpacked and getting stuff up on the walls. We have even started painting! We can paint so long as we paint it all back to white whenever we leave. That made us think twice about exactly how much painting we wanting to do, like in our big living room. So we ended up painting one side of the living room (which includes the dining area) the same brick/barn door red that we had in our dining room/kitchen in GR, and half of the kitchen we painted a coppery orange color. The kitchen is drying as we speak. Our goal is to get the main part of the house decorated and the guest room unpacked before Jordan and Al and Evangeline come in just under 2 weeks. And that's with us being gone for at least part of next weekend too!

Samson is loving having a yard! He is getting more and more used to it and learning that he is not stuck out there forever. We're slowly building up the amount of time that he'll play out there before whining or barking at the door. But we LOVE having a yard to send him out to when we need him out of the way and not having to walk him down the street to go to the bathroom. We enjoy him so much more now :).

Our neighborhood is great! We had a next door neighbor come over and introduce herself, and then a down the street neighbor bring us food and a card and introduce herself and her kids. How awesome, we've never lived in a friendly neighborhood like this :).

This past week we went to the ACSI convention with my school, Merced Christian. We left at 5 am Thursday and got back Friday night. We learned some good stuff and enjoyed eating out at PF Changs with everyone and staying in a nice hotel :).

Things in the library are going well. I have been working almost full time the last couple of weeks, because I have been getting a lot done in the library, and I also have been getting pulled out a lot to sub or help with other things. Hopefully I can get caught up with organizing and getting all the new books inputted in our system by Thanksgiving, because after that I will be working on stuff for the school auction as well (inputting data and organizing who is donating what). Then I really will be working full time hours.

La Jolla/San Diego

We had a wonderful weekend in La Jolla and San Diego. We stayed at a condo of a family at Stone Ridge. It was right on the beach and boardwalk of the bay, and absolutely beautiful. They had a tandem bike that we rode a couple of times on the boardwalk; which was a lot of fun, but hard work too. I got booted to the back seat because I couldn't steer it very well, ha ha. Matt did a much better job. We went to Mission Beach/Boardwalk on Friday and had a great time walking on the beach, putting our feet in the ocean (oh the glorious ocean!), and checking out the shops and Belmont park. I had been wanting to go to Mission Beach because I had been there in 9th grade after a mission trip... and then we realized that it was only 5 min from the condo :).

On Saturday Matt had his AP Chem conference, and I hung out at the condo and read in the sun. I picked him up when he was finished around 3 and we headed to La Jolla Cave Beach. I had also been here before on a different mission trip in high school, and remembered it being a really cool beach. It didn't disappoint. The tide was coming in and waves were crashing against the rocks. There were several tide pools to check out with sea urchins and crabs... reminded me so much of growing up in Washington. Now I need to go to the San Juans or Deception Pass to see those tide pools again! We also walked around La Jolla and got dinner at some brewery restaurant that Matt LOVED (his favorite food and drink: burgers and beer!).

We left early Sunday morning to pick up Samson and get home by afternoon. We were SO PLEASED to find out that Samson did wonderfully for Matt's aunt and uncle! What a good puppy we have :).

Here's a link to pictures from our weekend.

A Clean House

Well, we spent most of Saturday doing some serious deep cleaning at the new house. Let me just say that there were a lot of ants and spiders taking up residence while no one was living there. We sprayed them with cleaners, drowned them, and squished them as best we could. Matt even came across a black widow spider! He really doesn't like spiders in the first place, so he was kind of freaked out... and I don't mind normal spiders, but big ones or poisonous ones... no thank you! I wish I had a picture or video though of Matt spraying it with a bottle of 409; he had it aimed like a gun, and kept spraying until it stopped moving :).

We also found fruit trees in the back yard! We aren't positive what kinds because they aren't 100% ripe yet, but we think there's a lime and an orange tree. I feel like a true Californian now; in a stucco house, complete with fruit trees... now if only we also had a palm tree; that would be perfection.

Please pray that we will find more people to help us move our big items on Saturday, we don't have any confirmed yet.