New Year's Eve 2012!

WOW! Can't believe 2012 is already coming to an end!

 

We hosted a youth party before the youth dance on New Year's Eve.  Here are a few of the partiers.  We had plenty of goodies, games and I made them some fruit smoothies that they kept wanting more of.  I heard the dance was "good."

After the big kids left (Ethan) and (Matthew spent New Year's Eve with his friend Brennan), we (the rest of us) headed over to the neighbors for another party with some Just Dance and Karaoke and LOTS more goodies.  The countdown to 2013 was accompanied by Ricardo and a very nice blessing and sweet wishes for us all in our new year.  Love our neighbors!

 

HAPPY 2013!

Christmas Visit To Great Grandma

Our Christmas Adventures wouldn't be complete without a visit to see Great Grandma. 

We Love you Grandma!!

Christmas Adventure #4

Our last stop before we were really on our way home. We stopped off at Vasquez Rocks. I don't remember much, but I do remember my parents bringing us kids here when we were young and we used to shoot balsa wood airplanes off of them and then try to go and find them. 

This is what Wikipedia says about these rock formations. "These rock formations were formed by rapid erosion during uplift about 25 million years ago and later exposed by activity along the San Andreas Fault.^[1] In 1873 and 1874 Tiburcio Vásquez, one of California's most notorious bandits, used these rocks to elude capture by law enforcement. His name has since been associated with this geologic feature."

They are located just outside of Santa Clarita Valley.  And they are famous for being in many many  films, television shows, music videos and video games. 

Our kids had just as much fun as I remember having exploring and hiking up and down these big rocks.  We tried the airplane "thing" but just had more fun running around and of course taking pictures.

Christmas Adventure #2

This Adventure was for our sweet Jacob who is in LOVE with CHOO CHOO TRAINS! We went to the Filmore and Western Railway Co and rode the North Pole Express. Santa's Elves were there to help  us on the train and then they sang lots of Christmas Carols with us and served us cookies and milk.  We were taking Santa to the North Pole, but before he got off the train he gave us each a great big shiny gold jingle bell. 
Jacob was in Heaven.  Ethan was a little annoyed.  One of the elves really bothered him because he was listening to his ipod and the elf kept walking by and taking them off his ears just for fun.  I thought it was hilarious. 
The train was definitely an old antique as it had that lovely "old" smell and we were a little bummed we really couldn't see were we were going as it was dark.  But all in all it was great to help us with that Christrmas Spirit. 

Christmas Family Adventure #1

This was totally awesome. I think the kids would have stayed here all day if they could. Our first stop was at IFLY Hollywood -Indoor Skydiving.  It is located at the Universal Studios City Walk.  Everyone of us did it but Jacob.  They took us into a room were we watched a video that gave us a quick training on what to do and even learned some special hand signals to help us get the most out of the experience.  Then we were off to another room were we put on our new attire.  Those jumpsuits, white shoes, big glasses and helmets were sooo coool! We each had 2 turns of a whole 2 minutes each. Ethan thought he was the coolest.  Matthew felt like he was on top of the world.  Rachel was impressed.  And Lauren surprised us all, she got a little flip in at the end.  We have a video of us all.  WAY COOL!

Indoor Skydiving at IFLY on Universal Studios City Walk