Christmas Past

It's unbelieveable that Christmas has come and gone, almost in a flurry of excitement and the exhaustion that comes with it. We had a really nice Christmas, even though it was busy and went by too fast!

My parents came up on the 21st, and so began our family festivities. We had fun playing games with Grandma and Grandpa, and just hanging out. My brother arrived on Saturday night, and it was good to see him after a year gone by!

Christmas Eve was a pleasant day, with church in the morning, and relaxing in the afternoon. We went over to the Betti's house and got to see Trish and Caleb which was a nice treat! We enjoyed hanging out over there for a while, and then came home to let the kids open their stockings. That is one of our family traditions...the kids open their stockings on Christmas Eve (has to be after dark, and after dinner!) We all went to bed fairly late, after playing cards (Nathan got to join the adults for cards).

Christmas morning was a busy time; everyone was excited! Tim organized a little game where we drew names to open our first gifts! The kids received lots of nice things; as did we all. I think my favorite gift this year was my new kitchen faucet that Kenny put in as a surprise! I know, not the most 'romantic' gift, but some of you KNOW how much we needed that new faucet! :) We had our big, traditional breakfast and then later our traditional dishes for dinner. The cooking and clean-up involved with Christmas Day food traditions keeps ME very busy! We even used my grandma's china...as we usually do. :)

Now, the family has gone home, Kenny is back to work and life is slowly getting back to normal. Most of the gifts have new homes and are put away, and we're gearing up for New Year's Eve and a NEW YEAR! We are very thankful for the many blessings that God has bestowed upon us in 2006, and look forward to the new year that is about to dawn.

So, with that...I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday week! Happy New Year! :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We've had a busy week here! Our weekend was nice, and rather quiet...gave us time to recharge for this week. :) Monday evening, Nathan and Tim played in a piano recital and they did really well. Their teacher has 30 students, so we heard lots of playing!

Tuesday was cookie making day and today was...well...an interesting day. The Stevensons took all four of our kids to spend the night last night, and then kept them all for the day to play (this was Christi's idea, so don't go thinking that I asked her to do this!!)(she said it was 'fun')! :) Anyway, my house was quiet and it was weird. I had a bunch of errands to run and such, so I got a lot done, but it was still strange to have the kids all gone. I missed them! But, they had a fun time today...so thank you Stevensons for having them all over.

Tomorrow, Grandma and Grandpa will arrive, so Christmas will officially 'begin' at our house. Everyone is excited and hyper. Lizzy keeps reminding me..."I know what Christmas really is Mom. It's Jesus' birthday!!" She is right...in this time of busy-ness and presents...let's keep reminding ourselves that Christmas is the day God sent his Holy Son to us. The perfect gift!

It's Friday!

Again, the week is flying by!! Today is our last day of school until after the first of the year! Hurray!! The kids are excited, the teacher-Mom is excited...is it time to have some fun now? :)

We've had a busy week, with lots of stuff going on. Plus doing a full week of school, and getting my shopping done...well, I am pretty tired out! And Christmas is just around the corner!

Today we are heading to Livermore for Nathan's last speech class (until January) and the kids in the class are doing a "Book Reading Party" for the 4-8 year olds. They are going to read Christmas kids' stories to them and do a craft of some sort. Sounds like fun! Tonight the kids have TaeKwon-Do and then we are going to have pizza and watch a Christmas movie when they are done.

I'm anxious to start baking too! Anyone made anything yummy!? Besides Trisha and her apple pancake thing...(that I am not even going to try to spell! Check out the Thomas family blog - link on left - for her recipe!)

So, this is a pretty boring post huh? :) Hope everyone has a fantastic Friday!

~jac

Oh Christmas Tree!

Just for fun...a picture of our tree! Harry is snoozing in the chair to the left of the tree.

Merry Christmas! :)

Moving on....

Okay, Stef reminded me that I need to update our blog, so here we go!! :) I guess I'm still living in a dream-cruise type world, but life moves on.

So, we had a busy week last week; nothing out of the ordinary, but just getting back into "life" in general. I had a nice, welcome home 'surprise' by a few friends for my birthday (and no, I'm not upset or anything...it was FUN!). Being 40 doesn't seem too bad...yet...

Kenny and I both had trouble getting back into the swing of things. I finally got the laundry caught up, and the schoolwork corrected (well, most of it) and put away AND the Christmas presents/shopping under control.

Highlights from last week:

~My birthday - even though we didn't do anything "special" on my actual birthday, I got a couple of phone calls, emails and a visit from Jane and Emile that made the day special. Plus, Kenny went and got dinner for us all, so I didn't have to cook. :) We also put our tree up that evening, and it looks very pretty!!

~Prayer Meeting - it was nice to be back at LRBC and see everyone...including Chris and Shirley! It's nice to have them here; even if it's for a short time.

~Friday - the kids put on a show at church, with singing and skits (see picture above). Lots of cute stuff. Pauline and Peggy did a great job with the choir! And Tim played piano up in front at the big piano at church; he was nervous, and made some mistakes, but he did it! Good job Tim! And thanks to George and Christi for dinner that night!

~Saturday - I went shopping...not so fun, butI got a lot done and enjoyed my time out by myself! Then we all watched The Santa Claus as a family in the evening, by the fire and ate pizza!

~Sunday - I stayed home in the morning with Lizzy, who had a runny nose, but we listened online...great sermon in the morning! We all went in last night for church for the Lord's Supper service. It was a good day.

Soo...now we embark on a new week, and it's going to be a busy one too! We have something going on EVERY day this week, through next Sunday! It's all GOOD stuff though, so it should be a fun week! Hope everyone is doing well, and enjoying the holiday season!

~jac

Final Thoughts

Overall, we had a truly wonderful and blessed time together. We will definitely we going on another cruise someday!

The sunsets were amazing from the ship; especially while leaving Mazatlan! The picture here is while our ship was pulling out of port from Mazatlan. Gorgeous!

The ship was all decorated for Christmas, which helped to remind us what time of year it is! When it's 80 degrees and you're wearing shorts, it's hard to remember that it's November and December!

Our room steward hung ballons on our door, to help me celebrate my birthday! That was a fun surprise to wake up to!

BIG thank you to those of you who prayed for us! Thank you to the Kempers for watching our house and pets, and thank you to Caleb for helping us get our cruise reserved many months ago! Thanks also to Mom and Dad for taking care of our kids for a whole week, and letting us relax knowing that they were being well cared for. We love you all! :)

Cabo San Lucas

Cabo San Lucas was just beautiful! We only had a half day here, which was unfortunate because this was our favorite port! We had a fantastic time snorkeling...neither of us had ever gone snorkeling before, but we loved it! We saw some amazingly beautiful fish, and they would swim right up and eat out of your hand! We saw an eel, starfish, lots of anemones and many, many colorful fish! An hour was too short...we would have loved longer in that warm, salty water! We enjoyed the sailboat ride too! This was all a truly unforgettable experience for us. We had a little time in port after our excursion to shop, but had to be back on the ship early to sail out. We hope to go back to Cabo some day!

That night was our second formal night dinner, and we had lobster to our heart's (and tummy's) content! Delicious! It was fun to get dressed up and pretend like we were fancy folks! ha!

Mazatlan

Okay, I just realized that these are going to be posted in reverse order, so if you start reading at the top you'll be living our trip backwards! :) Oh well...



Mazatlan...our Wednesday stop...was a nice port, but our least favorite of the three. We took a fantastic walking tour though, of Old Mazatlan, where we saw the famous cliff divers, many of the older parts of town and even visited a little bakery in a lady's home! Our tour guide, being a resident of the town, was great at taking our group down little back streets to see some great parts of the town that we would have certainly missed had we just struck out on our own. After a stroll through the open air market, complete with raw chunks of meat all over the place and peddlers who practically come up and grab your arm to come in their shop, we took an open air taxi to the Zona Dorada. We shopped a little bit here, but again, the shop owners were a little too "pushy" for our liking! We grabbed a ride in a 'pulmonia' taxi and went back to the ship. Again we found our lounge chairs and enjoyed the sunset as the ship pulled out of port.

Puerto Vallarta

Puerto Vallarta was a fun port. We took a bus tour of the Dona Engracia Hacienda where Tequila is made. Interesting process, and free tequila samples too! Kenny tried it, but I did not. I don't care for tequila much, unless it's mixed in something. :) After that, the bus took us on "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" through Puerto Vallarta; we drove down streets SO tiny and narrow that I thought the bus was going to have to jump the sidewalk! It was fun to see the more rural parts of the city though; stuff away from the tourist areas. We also drove through Nueva Vallarta, where the rich live in large, luxury homes. We were dropped off in downtown Vallarta, near the beach where we enjoyed a DELICIOUS lunch at Senor Frog's. We enjoyed walking around, looking in the shops and walking on the beach. The water was so warm. A big iguana caught our attention, as he lounged in a tree. We headed back to the ship at around 3pm in a taxi...another wild and rattly ride! Makes me thankful for our transportation and traffic laws here! :) After a nice swim in one of the ship's 5 pools, we called the kids to say HI and then found our favorite lounge chairs on deck to relax.

Where do I begin?

I don't know how to begin to describe our cruise...or how to keep it short! :) Our first three days were at sea, and it was the most relaxing three days I have spent in a LONG time. We were really able to just let things go...not worry about anything! We knew the kids were in good hands, the cats at home were being taken care of, and NO cell phones or computers were around as a distraction. It was a great time of just being together and hanging out. :)

The weather was incredible...warm sunshine, with clouds floating across the sky. The sea was calm and oh so blue. We spent a lot of time on those first three days walking...around the ship! It was HUGE! We had trouble finding our way around, but we had fun running up and down the stairs. We ate lots of yummy, gourmet food, got really dressed up one night for a 'formal night' and enjoyed several shows in the Princess Theater in the evenings. Lots of fun and lots of hand holding. :)

Time to return to 'real' life....

Hi all...we're back, and heading home tomorrow. So, hopefully I'll get some pictures on here soon and some descriptions of our experiences on our cruise. For now, I'll just say that we had a FANTASTIC and WONDERFUL time!! :) It was SO nice to just spend time together...just hanging out and relaxing. Our favorite thing...the snorkeling. Too fun; we hope to get to do that again! More after we get home on Tuesday! ~jac

Greetings from Mexico!

Hola todos amigos y familia!

We are having a fantastic time aboard the Diamond Princess and in Mexico! We just finished our dinner of Alaskan crab legs...all you can eat! Kenny ate plenty! :)

We spent yesterday in Puerta Vallarta and today in Mazatlan. Currently, the ship is sailing on calm seas toward Cabo San Lucas, where we will pass the day tomorrow snorkeling.

At .50 per minute, this is all for now...we will blog a long entry when we return, complete with pictures and more details. Thank you for your prayers, and thanks Mom and Dad for keeping the kids!

Thank you also Caleb Thomas for getting us this fantastic deal; it's been a great blessing and time of relaxation for us.

Love and hugs...hasta luego!

~jac and klc

Family Thanksgiving

We had a very nice Thanksgiving! Hope everyone had a special day!

We're off on our adventure tomorrow. Pray for Jill's parents and the kids too! :)

~Bon Voyage~!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We wish all of our friends and family a very blessed and HAPPY THANKSGIVING!  May we remember to give thanks to God for all that He gives us!  We are truly a blessed people, and we are fortunate to live in a country where we can freely thank God and celebrate His mercies to us!

 

Enjoy your turkey!

 

~love Jill and Kenny and kids!

Bridge Cam

For anyone who is interested, you can check the live feed "bridge cam" for the cruise ship we'll be on, starting this Saturday. The link is under our "links" section. Our ship is the Diamond Princess! :)

Please pray for us while we are gone 11/25 - 12/2...that God would richly bless our time together as a couple. Also for our kids, that they would be well behaved for my parents!

More later....
~jac

Busy!

Happy Tuesday!  We are busy getting ready to leave today to head down to Southern CA for Thanksgiving!  The clothes are packed, the school books are packed and the CRUISE bags are packed!  We are pretty excited!  :)

Congratulations to our boys...Nathan, Tim and Dan all passed their color belt tests on Saturday!  Nathan and Tim are now black stripes and Dan is a green stripe.
Nathan and Tim are one level below Black Belt now, which they hope to achieve by this time next year!!

Sorry this is short, but I have to get busy so we can leave on time!  Pray for us, as we make our way down I-5 later today.

More later ~jac

One week away!

Nothing much new with us! Just our normal stuff going on around here, with piano lessons, dance class, TaeKwon-Do and such. Today Lizzy and I spent a couple of hours at Stef's house, with Jess and Jackson, and Jane and Annaliese. Lizzy enjoys being the "big kid"...her favorite thing of course, is to hold baby Rachel. :)

Tonight I'm going to our church's Women's Bible Study...so I need to go get dinner ready for my family. Hope everyone is having a great week!

Thanksgiving is ONE WEEK AWAY!

Monday...

Monday again already! We had a very nice weekend. Friday night we spent at the Betti's house for a yummy dinner with our Brentwood friends (Arnolds, Kempers, Bettis). It was a nice evening! Saturday we just hung out at home, having pancakes for breakfast, running errands and doing stuff around here. I actually go to work on my Creative Memories album for a few hours, off and on! That was a treat! Saturday night Kenny and I got to go out for a bit by ourselves, which is always a nice break. :)

Sunday we had a good day at church, and heard a sermon in the morning that was excellent! In the evening we had a guest speaker from Kenya...very interesting and good to hear him speak.

So, all in all...a good weekend! Today it's cold and chilly, so we're staying inside...until Dan's piano lesson this afternoon.

~jac

Happy Birthday!

Today is Kenny's dad's 85th birthday!

Tomorrow is Kenny's brother Brian's 40-something birthday!

Happy Birthday to both! :o)

Can it really be Friday again already?!?!

Why does time go by SO fast?? Here it is, Friday again already and another week behind us. We had a good week, and now Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away!

Wednesday we had to go on a kitty hunt. As we were pulling out of the garage for Prayer Meeting, Belle went running at full speed out of the garage. For those of you who know our cat Belle, for her to run at top speed is quite a feat b/c she is a big, fat princess cat. :) So, we stop the car, Kenny and I jump out to grab her...but she is no where to be found. After looking in the bushes for a good 10 minutes, Kenny left for Prayer Meeting with the younger three kids and Nathan and I kept looking.

Now before you think "why go to all that trouble looking for a cat...cats come back when they're hungry" keep in mind that she has no front claws. If she got into a fight, we can't afford the vet bill right now! So, my main motivation was to get that cat before some other cat picked a fight with her. To make this long story short...she finally came back about 45 minutes later, waddling down the sidewalk as if she owns the street. Silly cat! We used to have a cat named Ernie who would do the same thing...escape.

Tonight we're going to the Betti's house for dinner, with our Brentwood friends. Knowing Jane, it will be a delicious feast! And for Emile, I promise not to make a Weight Watchers dessert with disappearing cream cheese filling! :)

Have a good day!

Back from the Dentist

Lizzy and I had an excellent visit to the dentist this morning. No cavities and no other problems. Thank the Lord with us for His kind mercies. This xray is not mine. It just makes the post more interesting.

Keeping it up to date

Greetings All,

In order for a blog to be read, it must be kept up to date. Therefore, I'm keeping it up to date. Jill cut all the kids' hair, plus she'll do mine in a bit. Observe the various shades. If you're bored, you could determine the order of the haircuts by the layering of the hair on the floor. It wasn't done in age order, and remember, mine's not there.

On another note, I had the privilege of visiting San Francisco today. I should have taken a picture from my phone to share. It was a beautiful sunny day, in the 70's. And, I wasn't accosted by homeless people nor did I get a parking ticket, having spent $5.00 on parking meters.

If you squint your eyes at the picture above, you can faintly see an upside down teddy bear face, or perhaps it's a Chupacabra.

The kids!

Good Monday morning! Well, someone requested some pictures of the kids; maybe a good idea huh? They are all doing well. Nathan is 14 and in 9th grade this year. Tim is 12 and in 7th grade. They are both still taking piano lessons, and really play quite well! It's such a blessing to hear them play. They also are both hoping to be Black Belts in TaeKwon-Do by next year! Pretty cool!

Dan is 8, and in 3rd grade. He also takes piano lessons (from Stef) and is doing well. He is going to be testing for his green stripe in TaeKwon-Do soon. Elisabeth (aka Lizzy Lou) is 5, and in Kindergarten. She enjoys her dance class, where they practice tap and jazz.

The picture of Kenny, Jill and Nathan was taken at our church's 20th Anniversary Banquet last month. It was a wonderful evening to celebrate God's blessings! :o)

Now it's complete....

Greetings friends...here is my offering; more pictures from the camping trip.

Yesterday I worked on my truck all day; replaced the power steering pump so that it doesn't drip oil all over our driveway anymore. It took a long time, but it was fun. I reflected on the successful operation and thanked God for His mercy in sparing me injury - not even a bloody knuckle!

This is for Jason....

Okay Jason, here's a good fire picture just for you. From the camping trip, of course. I guess it's for Jeff too, since he took it. Katy will be impressed especially. haha

I need to get Kenny set up with his OWN name now...I'm off to figure that out!

Still testing

Now I'm testing out how to publish from my email! :o) Maybe when we go on our cruise in 21 short days, we can blog from sea!?

Meeting new friends...

Last night we had our first meeting with our Keepers of the Faith groups. This is the Christian equivalent of Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. We had the girl's group meet at our house, and made beautiful journals for the girls to start to learn to journal. This is not something that comes easily to ME, but I hope to encourage this good habit in my children while they are still young. Maybe I'll start one of my own! :)

The boys met at another family's home and made marshmallow guns out of PVC pipe! It was a fun evening, and we are looking forward to getting to know these other Christian, homeschooling families!

Still trying to figure this out! :)

Okay, now we're learning how to upload a picture! This one was taken on July 4th at the Kemper's house! Happy Belated Birthday America! :o)

Test

We're trying to figure out how to do this! We aren't very computer "savvy!"