Christmas and SNOW for us!!

Christmas day was pretty laid back for us. We opened up presents in the morning and the kids had a ball, as you can see. Later that day some friends came over for a very low-key soup and appetizer dinner. I always miss our family a lot around Christmas, so in some ways that was hard for me.

Two days after Christmas we went to the mountains to see some Christmas snow!!! The day we drove up it was perfect. It was raining when we left Fresno, so it changed to snow when we got high enough. As soon as we got to the snow I said, "It's Christmas!" I love to be there while it's snowing. The kids just loved it too. Elizabeth just kept throwing herself down in the snow to make snow angels. That night we stayed at a hotel with an indoor pool near the mountains. Then today we went up into Yosemite. It was a gorgeous sunny day and the snow was beautiful. The kids love to run and play wherever we are. I am thankful for snow at Christmas, even if it's not at our house!!

The Chaffee Zoo

On a nice day in December, when W.I. has suddenly changed their vacation policy to a "use it or lose it" just before the end of the year, what to do? Go to the zoo!! Now, our kids get to go to the zoo ALL the time, and it's not that big of a zoo. But they still LOVE it! Usually Luke takes them and it's an "adventure". They love to go on adventures with Daddy. Often on Luke's day off Caleb will be yelling "bencher, bencher" which is his version of the word. So we all headed to the zoo yesterday after my usual Wednesday morning "coffee with the ladies" which is what Elizabeth calls Women's Covenant - the time when our staff ladies have coffee at a coffee shop every week and just talk, encourage, share advice, vent, etc. It was a fun time. Coffee and the zoo.

stolen cars and such...

Yesterday morning a nice truck showed up in the car port of our neighbors' house across the street. No big deal except that they moved out a couple months ago and no one has lived there since. Later in the morning some guys walked across our yard and then went over and took out the battery and some other parts of the truck and walked down the street with them.

"Huh", I thought, "I bet that truck's stolen." Wanting to be a good citizen, I called the non-emergency police line to report it. I could not believe the run-around I got and I eventually hung up without reporting it as I was on hold for yet another department.

Earlier today the daughter of the home's owner came by and wrote down the license number and called it in. Wouldn't you know it. Right now a cop was looking at the car and a tow truck just showed up to tow it away.

So much for trying to help out.

Christmas fun!!

One of our traditions is to walk down Christmas Tree Lane every year. It's a 2-mile stretch of road through a neighborhood of OLD houses, mostly very large, with huge tall pine trees along the road, and there are lights strung in the trees all the way to the top all the way up and down the road. Plus the houses are all very elaborately decorated. THe last house at the end is insanely decorated, and this year they added 3 fake snow machines!! They close the road to traffic 2 nights each December for a walk-through, and it's packed. It's very fun. We walked all the way from start to finish and back, and the kids did great!

Some more fun pics

Hey everyone! I figured out how to put slide shows on here, so now you can see lots of pictures! Yay!!!! Hope you enjoy it! If you click on the + sign, the pics will move faster, and if you roll over them, the titles will show.

Operation Nineveh

Hey! Check out this website. If you know of any college students who are interested, it would be an awesome opportunity. Hint: Click on East Side or West Side and then play the video, it's cooler than the website.

http://www.worldimpact.org/nineveh

Cuttin' Down the Tree

Once again we headed out to cut down our tree at Cobb's Ranch. Here are Luke and the kids standing by our tree. Caleb picked this tiny, 2-foot tree that reminded him of the Charlie Brown tree, and that's the one he wanted. Sorry, Caleb.

So this was decorating weekend. It is done! I even put together some things I'd bought previous years and made a wreath. And today I made whoopie pies (or gobs). Yummy, not so healthy. We're going to share them with the staff tomorrow when they come over for our weekly staff fellowship.

Last week we had several nights with temps in the 20's here, which is cold for us, and the citrus growers were worried. I think they came through it okay. They run warm water through the groves when it's cold like that and use fans to draw the warmth up to the tops of the trees. Interesting...

Tomorrow starts about 2 weeks of busy-ness. In some ways I'm looking forward to it, in others I'm not. In the midst of it all I really should send our Christmas cards. And presents. Yikes! But after the 16th things will slow down till Christmas, which will be nice. Fun days...