A Visit From Grandma B and Uncle Bill

My mom and her husband Bill came to visit us for almost 3 weeks. They just left on Thursday and I'm going to borrow some of what they sent out in an email to summarize their stay.

They sat in on one of Ken's classes. It was about 10th century B.C. archaeology and they found it very interesting.
One evening they went to hear the Biola University choral group. The women were dressed in black gowns and the guys wore tuxedos. They were very good. Many songs were done acappella. We went to the park one day for lunch and we spent a few hours one day at the Fullerton Aboretum. We had a picnic lunch there, too. The plants, trees and flowers there were amazing!
We had birthday cake for Bill's 61st on the 26th. Bill's nephew, Nathan, called to announce the arrival of triplets on that day! Mom and babies are doing well.

Another evening we all went to a restaurant called Sizzler's for a delicious meal! (we had given Bill a birthday gift card for that place). We ordered the buffet and everything was so yummy. Of course, we enjoyed Golden Spoon yogurt several times! Actually many times! Gotta have our good bacteria! And we were able to introduce them to shaved ice.
Relatives Jim and Millie (Gram's cousin) came for ham dinner. They do not live very far from us in Long Beach. It was so good to see them and have an evening of enjoyable conversation and looking at my scrapbook of family pictures. Millie and Jim are such nice people!
One Sunday we visited Saddleback church which is the largest church in America. There are over 60,000 members. It was an experience! At announcement time during the service they invited anyone who didn't have a place to go for Thanksgiving to go to the church. Last year they fed Thanksgiving dinner to 600 people! My guess is that they served more this year.
That church is so large they have shuttle buses from the parking lots. It was amazing to see. Pastor Rick Warren was not there but the message we heard was very good. Baptisms were taking place outside after the service. It is always a great experience to visit there. It is quite a place!
We went to the Thanksgiving Eve service at a local church. It was very nice with people, one by one, stepping to the microphones to express their thanks to God for people, His provision, His strength through trials, etc. and thanks for Jesus.
One evening we enjoyed a ride around town while we looked at the Christmas displays in peoples' yards. We played Christmas music on the car CD player. Sky loves the Twelve Days of Christmas. We enjoyed seeing all of the lights but Sky eventually fell asleep from the car ride. Interesting to see strings of lights wrapped around the palm trees.
The kids really enjoyed having Grandma B and Uncle Bill here and spent time playing with them and reading books. When it comes to reading books, most of the time Sky wants to do the "reading" so they sat there and patiently listened. She loves to play doctor with her stuffed animals. Sometimes they were her assistants. A few nights they put Sky to bed. And they babysat one evening so Ken and I could go out. We spent uninterrupted browsing/reading at Barnes and Noble. It was heavenly!
Thanksgiving was great. We invited a few who did not have a place to go that day. It was a nice gathering. Everyone helped me with food preparation the day before so we were in pretty good shape on Thurs. Our friends, (Ken's students-former and present and spouses), brought food, too, so there was plenty and all delicious!
During their stay Bill tended to the outdoors--doing trimming, sweeping and watering. He really loved that and we loved him doing it! The place looks really great!
I have been very tired and somewhat nauseous from the pregnancy--good timing for them to be here to help. I haven't really blogged much because of the weariness but hopefully that will pass soon.

Snow Day!

It snows once a year in southern California, kind of... A local church imports 20 tons of snow (from who knows where) and provides lots of fun for the day. Sky loved the mild sled run but Brad wasn't so sure about the white stuff. He's such a California boy! Sky had fun doing the crafts, getting Christmas tattoes, having her face painted, and playing the games. Brad had fun on the playground, going down the same slide 50 times. There was also a chili eating contest, jump houses, snow ball fights, and Christmas pictures taken. We thoroughly wore ourselves out and look forward to attending Snow Day next year.

A New Way

A few weeks ago we were very surprised to learn that I was pregnant with baby Way #3. As some of you know, I have given away almost all of our baby stuff because we were done. We aren't concerned though because we know that God will provide everything that we need. One thing that we've started praying for is a vehicle that can accomodate 3 car seats. We really don't want to enter into another era of car payments (both of our economy cars are paid off) so we really do need a little miracle from God.

Yesterday I had my first doctor's appointment and sonogram. The tiny bean above is our new little guy or girl. My due date is between July 6-11 so I am about 8 weeks along. They heard the heartbeat and everything seems to be going well.

Ashes, Ashes...

There have been some really serious fires around here over the past 2 days. The fires were about 6-10 miles away but in a much more rural area. Even so, many people in these areas have lost their homes and all of their belongings. It's really sad. People were walking around wearing face masks today since the air quality is so poor. We woke up this morning to a very smoky smell and ash all over our cars, patio furniture, garbage cans, etc. (see pictures above). It looked like it was snowing-I guess that's the "snow" we get in southern California! Thankfully, the fires seem under control or gone by now.

California Sunsets

It's really sad to see it get dark outside by around 5pm every night now. But, lately we have had some of the most amazing sunsets. These pictures were taken right from our front yard (and, no, nothing is on fire). It's such a strange place here. We start out our mornings totally freezing (the houses here don't have very good insulation), by midday it is so hot we have to change into shorts, and by the evening, it is soooooo cold again. I guess it's one of the effects of living close to the ocean but it's still weird.

Brad's Dedication

Today we dedicated our sweet boy Brad at church. He was looking so handsome in his dress up clothes! Of course he crashed into the table this morning, leaving a big red stripe on his face. The dedication was pretty low key as we went up on stage and one of the pastors asked us if we were wanting to raise Brad in relationship with Christ and then he said a prayer over our family. Brad was good up on stage, he didn't cry or fuss. I think he would have liked to get to the drums though.

We received a certificate of dedication and also a children's Bible from the church. We had our friends the Denhams and the Jensens there with us and then they came over to our place afterward for lunch.

Voting Observations

On Tuesday, I exercised my right to vote. Ken and I studied up on all of the California propositions and we watched portions of both of the conventions (as well as some of the debates)and I felt more informed than I have ever been as I went to the polls. Now I have voted in Chicago, Cincinnati, and California.
I went around 11 am and walked right in, no wait whatsoever. In California, they don't require you to present any identification. So, I simply told them my name and they gave me my ballot. I wondered what would stop people from looking at the list of names (which is clearly visible as I checked in) and coming back to vote under another name that wasn't crossed off yet...
My polling place was at a local church but I had some friends who voted in people's garages. That seems a bit wacky to me. Also, I voted with an ink stamp rather than the punch card ballots of Ohio and Illinois. Oddly enough, California doesn't have a universal voting method. Some of my friends voted electronically, some by mail and some voted by this dial thing that they turned.
All in all, it was a good experience. I hope to work at a polling place at an election in the future. I did that once in Chicago and it was really fun and exciting. I worked from 7am-7pm and learned a lot about the process there.