Christmas Eve

We attended Christmas Eve service where Bre is the children's pastor. I didn't bring my camera in - here are a couple phone shots. 

Bre kneeling with music

I assured her she was grown up enough to hold a candle this year

Francie sent Krista a great map with local houses to check out.....this neighborhood in Springfield was amazing. These two houses were beautiful with  lights going across the street.....

But...their neighbor stole our hearts! 

This house was also amazing....angels up in trees, stars, nativity....on and on it went. 

Merry Christmas to all as you celebrate the gift of God coming to our mess - and providing a way for us to be in relationship with Him. Jesus - the light that shines in our darkness. 

Random Shots

A few random glimpses of life this week at Krista and Arielle's home. 

Games

 In addition to games we've watched movies and Krista has introduced us to Leverage and Person of Interest. Now, if we could only get streaming capabilities back at the trailer we'd be set for long winter nights.

Wrapping - always wrapping for a family of 11

Yuuki continues to crack me up as she deals with OR rain 

I cannot tell you what a dream THIS oven is after my small trailer stove/oven. I cannot even fit a normal cookie sheet in my oven. LOL 

Dream oven topped with 4 Veggie Pot Pies

Christmas Adam Tea

Note - a friend shared her children call Dec 23rd, "Christmas Adam" because it came before "Christmas Eve." I decided to run that by this family and it seems to be sticking. We love the quirkiness of Christmas Adam, and it gives us one more special day to celebrate instead of trying to fit everything into Christmas Eve, Christmas and New Year's Eve.....of course the 12 Days of Christmas accomplishes the same. Did I mention we love quirky?

My mom collects tea cups, plates, tea pots, nativities and elephants. There may be a few other things???? These are the ones that stick out to me. Grams also collected tea cups.

 

Mom hosted a Christmas Adam Tea for all the female relatives who were in town. This would be me, her daughter; Sherri, her daughter in law; my daughters - Bre, Krista, Arielle and Stacia;  Sherri's grand-daughter Harmony; and Heather's (daughter in law overseas) daughter Elizabeth.

Cousins - yes, these are the girl cousins (minus Amy) 

Elizabeth, Bre - the elder, Krista holding Arielle, Stacia and Harmony

De'Etta, Arielle, Krista - Arielle missed her chewing cue! 

 Stacia had spent the night at Will and Sherri's with Harmony. This is a HUGE treat - we don't typically do sleepovers.  This morning they made cookies and cut out sweet little tea sandwiches for the tea. Harmony is technically Stacia's 2nd cousin (is that right? She's her cousin Amy's daughter). I love that there is a "cousin" young enough for Stacia to enjoy. Being the caboose, most of Stacia's cousins are close to 20 years older than her.

Mom shared the tea was our Christmas present this year. As we got started, we each drew a number, and then chose a tea cup from her collection. I suggested we allow 3 steals - Mom vetoed.

As we chose a cup, Mom told us where she'd gotten it and a bit of its story. Many of them were cups from Grams. Grams and her friends used to host weekly tea parties. They'd each bring a cup and exchange them so they took a new cup home weekly. They'd bring demi (demitasse) cups and their girls would trade them with each other.  I believe the only two who chose cups which were not Gram's were Harmony and Krista.

One for Bre, one for Baby Girl - both cups Grams had given Mom 

Stacia chose a purple one Grams had given Mom 

Love Elizabeth's choice of blue roses

Harmony chose this one Gpa gave Gma 

Gma and Arielle

Harmony and Grandma Sherri 

Krista chose a unique square one Mom had purchased

Being together highlighted those who were not with us - Heather is overseas. We're all looking forward to seeing her and Nate this summer. I was happy Elizabeth was with us.  Amy, Will and Sherri's daughter, is finishing up her time at Teen Challenge. We will be house-sitting for Will and Sherri as they travel, with Harmony and Andrew and Matt to visit Amy for a week.

The tea cups will always be special.  The afternoon with each other and Mom will be a favorite Christmas memory. It was a chance to slow down and visit in a smaller group....you know... without our rowdy men-folks around. ::wink:: ::snort:: ::gasp::

  

Mom does love hosting a tea table

Seven of the nine of us

Pure Joy

 I suspect a Christmas Adam Tea has become a new tradition for this branch of the family - together if we are near Mom and alone if not. It was a wonderful breather in the midst of the busy-ness of family and holidays.

Thanks, Mom. 

Tis the Season

What fun we are having just "being" in the same location as so  much family. We've played games, visited, watched movies, had dinners together....you know...family life.

Last night we headed over to my brother Will's and his wife Sherri's. Our purpose - to enjoy some fun visiting and to give their granddaughter presents. Arielle got off in time to join us. We were happy to see Izaak after he's come out of the master's homework/work cave.....and Bre stopped over after the children's Christmas Eve rehearsal.

Once again, I neglected to bring one of the "real cameras"  - but here are a few shots from my phone.

Dad gives Bre a gift from the church

Fuzzy Crowd

BreZaak and our Grandblessing - 24 weeks

Michael is a great photo bomber

Good food, good fun, good times. Thankful to Will and Sherri for opening their home. We'll be house-sitting for them starting on Christmas day. They've opened their home in more ways than one. 

Church Community

I've not written about church in a bit of time. Yes, we miss living faith in community. We DID continue our search for a church in Yuba City. We found one that "fits" us....they incorporate youth into their worship team, they are very welcoming, the worship is authentic, the preaching is solidly based in the Word - The Rivers Foursquare Church. We've been two or three weeks and all have decided we'll not look further. This will be our church until we move in March - and when we come back for UC Davis visits every 3 months. It has  made us very happy to find a place to worship.

And now......in Eugene, we have an abundance of "body life" opportunities.  Each of the girls attends a different church.  Sunday, we went to our "home church." I was dedicated in this church, came back here on "furloughs" while growing up, attended it in college, Michael did an internship at this church, BreAnne serves as Children's Pastor here, Mom and Dad have attended for eons and Dad is an elder....Calvary Open Bible.  I love, love, love worshiping with A.J. He combines talent with humility and he REACHES the throne of grace each and every time - it's amazing. The message was great too......Pastor Kirk has been talking about the Messiness of Christmas. He shared how sometimes we find ourselves in messes BECAUSE we are obedient to God's call. It was good to consider God's glory, affirmation and provision follows us into the mess. Blog readers are aware life is a bit messy for us right now. ::grin::

We went out to breakfast with Mom and Dad after service.  A group of friends from the church go out for breakfast each Sunday. That's community. Mom and Dad were willing to take a second table, rather than eat with their friends this week. ::grin::

Sunday night, we attended the Church-wide Christmas Party at Lively Stone Fellowship. Krista is an associate here and works  mostly with children and middle school kids. This is  a very welcoming body. There is something REAL and AUTHENTIC about the faith in this church. We always love the Sunday school and services here.  Pastor John and Francie are also Krista and Arielle's landlords. This allowed them to live in a very nice home at a price they can afford.

Here is proof that they were able to get Michael up on the platform....He and Krista (along with Melanie) act out Christmas song titles. 

"I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas," perplexed Michael and stumped many of us. 

The gift exchange was a lot of fun.......I scored a gift for my adopted CA grands.....

 

 We rounded out our day in Church with readings from Ishtar's Odyssey. We are RIGHT ON TRACK to finish Christmas Eve.

I think Yuuki likes Ishtar too. 

In the next weeks we'll visit Arielle's church - Eugene Japanese Baptist Church. 

One Hundred and one Caches

Our goal is to find 100 caches by the end of the year.  We had 98 finds and decided to head out and see if we could find two more geocaches. We picked ones near Arielle's work so she could join the fun and still make it to work.

Do we look inconspicuous? 

I take random photos so passerbys think we're just crazy tourists and not geocachers. 

"Dressed to the Nines" - our 99th find.

 

 We had the coordinates of two more - surely we'd find our 100th.

It was odd to us that all of these were in residential areas - in people's YARDS. This is new to us. We're usually out at parks, woods etc.  Our next cache was titled, "For the Birds." It was a puzzle cache. We found it!  The owner came out to talk to us as we signed the log. This was also a first.  She gave us several ideas of other caches to check out in the area.

Our One Hundredth Find

Our last one was across the main road - but fairly close. We knew it was in someone's yard and our clue was "H2O."  Our gps sent us to a yard which had a pump handle for the mail box.....the gentleman working in the driveway didn't seem friendly and we were leery to start looking around his mailbox. It turns out the cache was across the street in a water meter......

 Our One Hundred and First Find! 

Success! We texted to see if Dad and Mom wanted to meet up. We didn't hear back, so we stopped by. Mom's house is Christmas central. We had a nice visit. Dad gave us little, tiny, teeny lights for our trailer tree.

Arielle headed to work. We headed home for dinner and Ishtar.....and spent some happy time watching the Carbanaro Effect You Tube Channel.