Happy New Year – Trip to Oregon

For New Years we decided to take a trip to visit my Dad and Joan down in Grants Pass, OR. Originally we had hoped that my brother Kevin and his daughter Holly could come, too, but it didn’t work out. He’s gonna try to come another time. So, we still went down and we had a great time together. The girls were absolute lounge lizards on their hide-a-bed in front of the TV - almost the entire time. We did make them get out for a walk every now and then. This wasn’t too hard to do, since they enjoy taking KC (Dad and Joan’s dog) for walks. We also went out to dinner and a movie one night, too. Mostly, though, it was nice to just relax.

Bringing in the New Year was fun! Joan got out a bag of all kinds of fun noise makers and masks, etc. We had fun playing with it all and being silly. At Midnight we went out on the back deck and made a bunch of noise. Then we all crashed – actually I think the girls watched TV for a while longer!!

Dad got out his jewelry making supplies at one point and we had a bunch of fun with that. He also gave Lauren some painting instruction. She is such a natural artist. It was so cool to see how well she listened to him and the paintings she ended up creating were beautiful!! While Lauren was painting with Poppy Clyde, Ashley spent some time with Joan learning about proper skin care. Joan used to work at the Clinique counter and had lots of great tips.

Kurt and I had a chance to ask Joan lots of questions about Maui. She had tons of good tips for us since she used to live there. She also gave us some authentic Hawaiian slack key music to take along for the trip.

When it was time to go, we were all sad to say goodbye, but we knew it wouldn’t be long before we can see each other again.

Christmas Day

Our Christmas for 2009 was not as white as it was the year before and we were choosing to not spend as much money on each other as previous years (after all, we are going to Hawaii in January!). With all of that said, though, we had such a nice time together as a family. Ashley and Lauren are at an age where they are really understanding what it is all about. They really look forward to our family Christmas traditions – such as going for a Blizzard at DQ and then driving around to look at Christmas lights, setting up our nativity set collection, getting to open one gift each on Christmas Eve, and Cinnamon Pull Apart Bread and Orange Juice for breakfast – just to name a few. We are also making it a point to read the story of Jesus’ birth from the Bible on Christmas morning before we open our gifts.

It is a joy to have a family and to be able to be together on Christmas every year. I am aware that not everyone in the world has these things and I never want to take it for granted. I am so blessed and so grateful to God for what He has given us. Most importantly, for the gift of His Son!

Merry Christmas!

Christmas with the Aldworths

We had a nice Christmas celebration with Kurt’s family at Grandma Sandy’s house in Sammamish. There was a whole lot of Wii bowling going on. We had a tournament and I won the whole thing. That is just crazy ‘cause in real life I can’t bowl AT ALL!

We shared a bunch of good food and the adults had a really nice conversation about our memories of Christmas traditions. As usual, the girls scored a ton o’ loot and the adults had a pretty fun gift exchange, too. Sandy even had us all take turns reading a story about the 12 days of Christmas and how it relates to the birth of Jesus. It was a really nice night together with family!

Good friends, good times!

We celebrated Christmas all together with Bryce & Elke and Kyle & Terra this year. We all had a ton of fun and the kids got lots of presents! Actually – even the adults got gifts.

Forever friends – posing with the gifts Elke gave T and me.

At one point Lauren decided she wanted to straighten Bryce’s hair. He, being a good Uncle, allowed it or course! Then she got out the make up and that was the end of his dignity for the night! ;)

Night in Bethlehem

Our Church put on a really cool program this year called Night in Bethlehem. It was like taking a trip back in time to what it was like in Bethlehem during the time when Jesus was born. Everyone did such a great job. It looked really cool and engaged all of the senses. From the smell of home made bread in the Bakery Shop to the sound of the the real Blacksmith, pounding the steel. There was even a live Nativity and our Lauren got to play the part of the Angel. :) Kurt played a Tax Collector, Ashley was one of the Townsfolk and I played with the worship team at the end of the night. What a great night it was! I hope we do it again.

“O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree”

We have had an artificial tree for a few years now, but this year we decided to get a real one. The reason we did, a local pastor was raising money for a mission trip to Swaziland where they will be a part of a group that does ministry through soccer camps. We thought that was pretty cool, so we bought one of the trees. It was really nice, too. As usual, we had a good time trimming the tree together to begin the Christmas season. Even though at this point I’d already been doing my shopping for a few weeks and playing Christmas music in the car! :)