The New Year, & some of the old...

Updike Reunion 2008/9

We have been happily busy with life the past week. On the 29th of December my family came down to San Diego (that's a nice change) and went to the New Children's Museum. The kids loved the rock wall and the pillow fight room. We came over to our house after that and played at Jerabek park. Dinner was fun, but a little crowded. It was nice when the family festivities were done for the day that we didn't have to drive home.

During all the holiday merry making we had a baby blessing (Dec 28th) where our new nephew was blessed. It was nice to finally be all together for that special occasion. My dad was all excited to have his 4 granddaughters together. The youngest one actually looks more like my baby pictures than my own kids do. She was so cute and I loved spending some time with her. We haven't seen my brother's family since she joined it. (look pookie, your on my blog!)

Lily has been sick off and on for a month so we have been lying low. Noah was able to go to Redlands with his cousins. We drove up for New Year's Eve and stayed there until the 2nd. The kids brought in the New Year from 8-9pm with smores in the fire pit, crackers (not the food), a game of Disney Scene It, and watching the ball drop. Then they went to bed. The adult food came out with fun drinks and lots of calories. We played games all night and watched the ball drop at midnight.

My new year started with a 6.1 mile run at 7:30am. It was hard and I really thought I would die or stop or walk, but the person I ran with is kind of a zealot and kept me going. We finished it in 51.04 minutes. His goal for me was sub 50 minutes, but the last half mile or so I really slowed down. During the run he kept telling me the distance and I was all excited when he said 4.1 until later when I realized he was telling me distances in kilometers and not miles. That was a bit of a blow, but I still finished. I was dead the rest of the day. We just played at my sister's for the rest of the weekend and ate lots of food. Damon joined my sister, brother in law and the zealot on a bike ride to Huntington Beach on the 2nd. He was dead the rest of the day after they got back. Thanks to my sister and brother in law for hosting all of us at her house. We had fun.

I wish school was starting for us like the rest of you, but alas, We still have 3 weeks left of break. I am sure there will be posts about it later.

Picture of Damon's Parents and us from Christmas Eve

Here are our pictures from our ant field trip.

'Twas the Day After Christmas

"Twas the day after Christmas and all through the house tiny creatures were crawling, they're smaller than a mouse. After fighting for weeks to evict them from here we threw up our hands and said, "the end is near." The professionals came and took care of the ants and to our relief there were no more in our pants. (figuratively speaking).

With all the rain we have had ant problems and I finally got tired of dealing with the problem myself. So yesterday we signed up to have the ant guys come over every other month to take care of the problem. I am totally OK with that. The only downside was that we had to be out of our house for two hours. So we piled up the kids and took them out to lunch, to run errands and then to get a treat. Everyone enjoyed our family time together. (Pictures to follow. I can't find the cord to hook up my new camera to the computer.)

We had a great Christmas day. It was kind of an adventure. We opened presents, had breakfast and left for Damon's aunt's house. We have spent every Christmas there except the 2 we stayed in Oregon. It was nice to see all the family. We had to battle the weather the whole drive to Riverside as well as Noah getting car sick. After Aunt Sue's we went to Redlands to spend Christmas evening with my family. The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins. We ended the evening with some very loud rounds of PIT. It was fun to see my mom participate. She usually doesn't like to play games with her over competitive, cut throat family.

The nice thing about the ant man coming was it forced us to clean up all of our Christmas stuff. Our house looks like it did before the addition of 20 million new things. (again figuratively speaking)

We hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas too. Now, bring on that New Year!

'Twas the Night Before

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature under 10 was stirring in the house. All the adults were stirring. Some in the kitchen, some under the tree and another were still driving down to our house.

It was a fun and busy Christmas Eve. It started with a trip to the auto body shop because our car was having issues. Water is leaking into the back lift gate. This was caused by the accident. Hopefully everything is functioning properly now.

Damon's mom and I were in the kitchen baking for our family Christmas party tomorrow. She is a trooper. She worked all day in the kitchen. I hope we didn't wear her out. We had yummy clam chowder for dinner. Damon and I ran over to one of my piano student's houses so I could play a Christmas duet with her during her family's Christmas program.

After we came home we had our Christmas program. It was fun to do now that the kids are old enough. We sang songs, played the piano, did some readings, Nana and Papa shared stories from their Christmas's on the islands. It was really nice.

When it was bedtime, Lily, who was so exhausted by the end of the day, got a second wind and was so excited that Santa was coming. She was running around telling everyone to be good and quiet. She got the cookie plate out with the cookies on it. She set them by the fireplace and got into bed. She wouldn't settle down though so I had to stay with her until she fell asleep. It was funny to see her like that. The boys went to sleep right away. Damon and I were able to sneak a way for a nice long walk. Damon's sister, Dara, finally arrived from Salt Lake after 10pm.

Now everything is ready for a perfect Christmas morning. Hopefully Adam's cough won't be anything serious. He is sitting outside right now with Damon breathing in some cold night air. That usually calms down his inflamed throat.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

Christmas Cheer!

Sunday the kids and I got to baking. We made banana bread and 3 types of cookies. We had lots of fun and made lots of messes. We didn't have to clean up. Damon did that. We assembled our plates of cookies and wrapped our banana bread. Last night we were able to go out and deliver them. The kids loved it. Isn't that what Christmas is all about?

The weather right now is very reminiscent of our Christmas's in Oregon. They are getting lots of snow right now, so I am happy with the rain, but wish I didn't have to be out in it. I thought I had to volunteer in the library at school so Lily and I got all bundled up and found the umbrella and went to school. We found out after we arrived that they kids aren't having library this week. The umbrella didn't do much good because the rain is coming in all directions and not just down. After we got home we had to change our clothes. I don't miss being out in the rain all the time.

Things I have to remember before the big storms start...

1. After wind storms empty gutters.

2. Hang up gutters before rain starts.

3. If you don't have to go out, don't.

4. Make sure all drains are unclogged.

5. Turn automatic sprinklers off or you end up with a swamp

6. Make sure your garage is clear so when the rain comes you don't have to park in the driveway. What a pain.

None of these are fun to do in the freezing, cold rain. I still don't know how I am going to get my kids home from school today. We don't have rain gear. At least it is not snow.

Here are some pics of the improved living room. Curtains will go up next weekend.

It's beginning to look a lot like...

CHRISTMAS!!!!!

(sorry the tree is sideways. I haven't figured out how to rotate pictures yet)

Finally. It took us a while to get there, but we had a busy and productive Saturday. Damon finished the fireplace and we had a beautiful fire in there this morning. We rearranged the furniture to make room for the new stuff. We cleaned. We picked up the tree yesterday and brought it in. Then we decorated. There were only 2 casualties this year. I broke one of my favorite bulbs by accidentally dropping another ornament on top of it. Then Noah knocked one off the tree and it shattered. After that we had a lesson on how to properly hang ornaments on the tree. I finally got a small tree for the hallway and bought some plastics bulbs for it. The kids call it their Christmas tree (and it is) and they got to decorate it however they wanted.

After we were done with the inside we headed outside to hang up lights and clean up the garage a little bit. The lights are up and working and look great. We have been dealing with a bit of a rat problem in our garage. We finally found where they have been hanging out. I had no idea that rats eat snails. We found a whole bunch of empty snail shells next to large quantities of rat pebbles. Lovely. So we cleaned that all up. Next comes out the snail poison closely followed by rat poison. I figure if we get rid of the snails the rats will go away. I also tried to convince Damon that this was the perfect time to get a cat, but he didn't buy that. So I asked my neighbor to start letting their cat back out to go hunting. Hopefully the problem will be taken care of soon.

The house is warm and cozy again. For a week it looked so stark after taking down all the fall decor. We are all excited to finally feel like Christmas is near.

A Happy Thanksgiving

We made the trek up to St. George, Utah for Thanksgiving. It was cold and wet, but we had a great time. Damon's mom really spoils us when we are there. We were able to take the kids to see Madagascar 2. They thought it was hilarious. We did some shopping with the kids too. It rained for 2 days while we were there so we had to spend a lot of time inside.

Thanksgiving was great. Dara and Brian (Damon's sister and husband) came down from SLC and the kids loved seeing them. Angie and Doug (Damon's cousin and husband) came for dinner with their twin daughters. Lily was so happy to see the twinsees again. She hasn't seen them since we were in Samoa. We had yummy food and a relaxing day. Damon even humoured me with a walk later that night after the kids went to bed. Funny things the kids said on Turkey day... Lily and Noah wanted to see the Turkey while I was carrying it outside to cook it. Lily asked, "Is it dead." I responded, "I certainly hope so." Then she asked, "well, who killed it?" I told her the farmer killed it so it could fulfill it's purpose in life as our Thanksgiving dinner. That seemed to appease her. Then Adam wanted to make sure we payed special tribute to the turkey by thanking it for dying for us. Sometimes my kids are hilarious.

It finally dried out on Friday and the kids got to go to the park by Nana's house. They loved it. We enjoyed the nice cool weather and dressing in jeans and sweaters. Damon was being super sweet on Friday and went shopping with me at 5am. Then that night he took me to see Twilight because he knew I wanted to see it again. What a sweet guy. I sure do love him. And he even enjoyed the movie.

The rest of my Thankfuls...

27. I am grateful for Thanksgiving and for the pilgrims (who I actually am direct descended from) who braved the unknown to blaze new trails. I am also thankful for the turkey.

28. I am thankful for early bird shopping. It was a lot of fun this year with Damon. We got some smokin' hot deals.

29. I am grateful for being able to stop at my sister's when we drive back from St. George. We seem to do it every time and she always feeds us. After hitting some horrible traffic it was nice to get out for a few hours and hang out.

30. I am thankful for my blog in which I can write and share my month of Thankfuls. What a great month it has been.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Now, Bring on Christmas.

To the Man

We celebrated Damon's birthday on Sunday. We are so very glad he is a part of our lives. We are also happy that he loves us. Damon and I are almost a year apart. We spend a month at the same age. During that month he is not old. Now he is an old man again. We had a nice relaxing day for Damon with a yummy lunch and dinner. Instead of cake we had chocolate pie. Happy Birthday again to the one I love. I couldn't imagine life without you.

I have some more thankfuls to catch up on. Here are some more...

20. I am grateful for the internet that I can watch my shows on when I miss them on TV. Also for survivor so that I have something entertaining to watch while I am on the treadmill.

21. Yea! I am thankful that the Twilight movie finally came out and it wasn't bad. I am really thankful that they are going to do the other two now. I am really thankful for Melissa for demanding that I read them after I laughed at my little sister for months when she told me to read them. I won't put another twilight pic on the blog because I think Damon would go ballistic.

22. Well it is hard to be thankful after the loss that BYU suffered to the Utes. But I am thankful for the opportunity I had to go to BYU. I had lots of fun and met some super people. You know who you are because you are reading it. So I guess I am thankful for good roommates. (I would post a picture of you guys, but those pics are before digital days. Maybe someday I will figure out my scanner)

23. I am grateful for Damon again. It's his birthday. I am also grateful for all the friends and family who called to talk to him. It is nice to know the spouse is loved.

24. I am sooooooooooo thankful to have filled up my car today for $1.85 a gallon. I never thought I would see that price for gas again. Yippie.

25. I am thankful for my challenges because they help me to grow and they keep me humble.



26. I am grateful for my treadmill. Without it I would be out of shape. I can't even count the number of miles I have logged on that thing.