January 2010

I realized that I didn't take many pictures of Abi in January, I know, I know, weird, especially after taking one picture a day her first year.  So here are 2 good pictures of Abi, I promise there are many more in the coming months!

Welcome Micah Paul Coombs, January 6, 2010

Welcome Micah Paul Coombs, our Nephew
Please read my sister-in-law's blog for all the great info and stories about Micah:
http://godsaidgetmoving.blogspot.com/2010/01/home-sweet-home.html

Yosemite December 27, 2009

For our second year in a row we make our trek up to Yosemite for the day.  Our tradition is whoever in the family is free can come.  This year it was my Mom, Dad, Josh, me, Abi, Denise, my mom's cousin Donna Lynn and her fiancé David (which is also my dad's best friend).  We drove the back way through Mariposa and while we were on a one-way road, josh was driving a little too fast on the windy road to, Abi threw up.  Needless to say it was tons of fun cleaning up.  We had to pull over and completely take her new car seat apart, oh yeah we also had our new car for only 4 days when this happened!
We first went to the Ahwahnee for lunch and when I say lunch I mean, the "Sunday Grand Brunch".  The brunch was $50 per person!!!  And delicious!!!  It was a "GRAND" all-you-can-eat buffet, anything from sushi to roast, oysters on the half shell to a dessert bar, amazing!!!  Thank you to Mom and Dad for the special treat!  Oh by the way if you ever go to the Ahwahnee during the winter they have free valet parking, we didn't know this until giving up on finding a parking spot on our own and decided to "pay" for valet, that was another surprise!
After lunch we drove around the valley and took some pictures around one of the large meadows.

We did some more driving which put Abi to sleep for a while and we stopped at Yosemite falls while she napped.  In June when we visited the valley I stayed in the car while everyone else walked to the base of the falls so Abi could continue sleeping.  This time Josh stayed in the car.

Yosemite Falls was beautiful, and it was nice to walk around.  While we were out Abi woke up and Josh found a great way to keep her occupied.  In our new car we got a DVD system so Josh suffered through Finding Nemo with Abi.  The DVD player is totally worth it!!!
After they got tired of watching some of the movie Josh and Abi walked around a bit.  They found some deer and a great looking Hawaiian snowman.

The trip was great, could have been better if Abi was feeling better but overall we had a fun time.  Can't wait for next year!

Christmas Eve & Christmas Day 2009

Christmas Eve is always spent with my family.  We start early in the afternoon especially when there is a grandchild around, the gift opening takes a while.  In some families the gift opening is a free-for-all, but in my family it is an event.  We like to go around and each open one gift at a time.  I think as a child I didn’t appreciate it much but as I grew older and participated in the gift giving I loved to see others open the gift I picked out especially for them.  This year we started with opening our stockings.  When we all lived at home the stockings were saved for Christmas Day since we opening everything else the night before.  Abi was a BIG help, she liked “helping” carry the stockings to each of us and was excited to find a box of animal crackers in her stocking, which she then carried around as a purse for a while.

Before opening gifts we always start with my Dad reading the Christmas story from the Bible but this year we changed it up a little by reading one of Abi’s Christmas books.  I think we all liked the story because it was shorter.  Then we move on to the opening of the gifts.  Abi planted herself on a box in the middle of the room and was pretty happy sitting there while we went around opening gifts.

Denise and I made these awesome pillows for Aaron "Ctrl", "Alt" and "Del" buttons, he thought they were pretty cool and we were happy that we found a sewing project that we could make for him.  After our immediate family opened gifts we had dinner and the rest of our family came over for another round of gift opening and we were all tired and ready for bed.
Christmas Day starts bright and early at 8:30am.  I have always disliked this time because every year before the last two this was my first day off in 2 weeks!  But the last 2 years were different and I made sure that i was not working on Christmas Eve but morning is still not one of my favorite times of the day, oh well.
First we had to do our Christmas with the 3 of us.  Josh and I just filled stockings for each other and Abi and also got Abi a few gifts.  I made our stocking for this year and bought more fabric so I can make more.  I think they turned out pretty good!  We started by reading the Christmas Story out of Abi's book and when we got to the last page with baby Jesus, she kissed the page, so sweet!!!  Abi loved her gifts and books!

We went to Josh's Aunt and Uncles for breakfast, hang out time with the cousins, and more gifts.  At this point Abi was not feeling good and we could tell she was getting a little sick.  The night before she fell asleep on me, which she never does.  She had a slight fever all Christmas Day and was not herself.  She had rosy cheeks all day and was pretty out of it most of the day.

Hillcrest, Reedley, December 19, 2009

Before Christmas Josh and I took Abi to Hillcrest Tree Farm (http://hillcrestreedley.com/).  We thought Abi would have fun riding the train and have a great time walking around.  Abi wasn't scared by the train and i know this will become a holiday tradition for our family!

Morro Bay November 2009

I have attempted to write this post for a while and had completed it but when i went to publish the post blogger had given me an error and lost all my writing :-(  So here i go again. . .

Way, way back in November we took a weekend trip to Morro Bay with Jon, Jolie and Ethan to celebrate Josh and Jolie's birthday's.  I have been a tad busy with sewing projects, work and the Holidays to get blogging done but here it is. . .

Josh and I drove over after church on Sunday the 8th and just hung around the house that night.  Monday morning we all headed out to Pismo to visit a Monarch Butterfly Grove.  You would think after all the years that Josh and I have spent in Pismo during the fall that we would have known about the grove but this was the first time we had found it.  Over the fall and winter hundreds of thousands of monarch butterflys gather to mate and hang in the eucaliptis trees.  It was so cool to see the clusters of butterflies.  Each morning the people volenteering at the grove count the butterflies.  The butterflies sleep when it gets bleow a certain temperature, and they volenteers take them off the branches and count them every day, wow that be be a lot of counting!!!

After the butterflies we headed to a great park to have lunch and enjoy more of the beautiful weather!  The park is on a hill overlooking Pismo, what a beautiful view.

Tuesday morning Josh, Abi and I drove to Cayucos to spend some time looking through antique shops and have some lunch.  It was so windy that when we were on the pier mist was coming off the waves and got us wet.  We had a nice time and after lunch we headed back to Morro bay.

When we went back to Morro Bay we headed out on a walk with Jon, Jolie and Ethan.  There is a park south of the beach house in a newer housing development .  The park was great, and the kids had a great time running around on the grass.

After the park Jolie and I decided that the kids would probably take better naps in their strollers than at the house.  We were right, we started walking to a quilt shop called the cotton ball, and 2+ miles later the kids had a decent nap and we got to do some shopping.  The deal was that the guys walked back to the house to get the cars and they would pick us up when we were done shopping.  We didn't really want to walk more and it worked out pretty good, the guys got out of shopping and Jolie and I got to enjoy a nice walk.

Our last day, Wednesday, we walked out to the beach before the drive home.  At this point in our lives Abi was still in need of a morning nap and didn't get many while in Morro Bay.  But this day Abi decided that she really needed a nap but she wasn't going to get one, and we headed out to the beach anyway.  Abi was NOT a happy camper :-). She didn't want to be wet and dirty, but Ethan on the other hand didn't care.  He loves dirt and was more than happy to have all his clothes taken off and allowed to run "free" for a bit.

Well i think that was a whole trip, i probably forgot some things, since it was over 4 months ago.  And now we are planning our next beach trip for the end of May.  I am hoping this time Abi will like the beach more.