more snow

Yesterday we gave the kids an official snow afternoon. Some friends from college live up in Idyllwild, so we made the trek up the mountain. They had a BLAST and want to go again. It was so nice to let them sled/play in their backyard and then come right come inside to a warm house. :)

 Yes, I did venture outside, but stayed planted on their balcony to watch the action. :)

After church today we went out to the desert. THAT was much more up my alley, weather-wise. :)

treadmill

*I consider myself a decent mom...except in a few areas:

1. I don't like to swim. While I do take my kids to swim often during the summer, I rarely (if ever!) join them.

2. I don't like to go to kids movies in theaters. I get bored and ancy. Chris is much better at this and so I let him take over. :)

3. I HATE the cold (a reason for #1). Yesterday when Chris texted me that he wanted to take the kids up to Oak Glen to play in the snow, I eagerly took him up on giving me a free pass. :)

*I blubbered through the series finale of Parenthood last night. And I thought I cried a lot during all the previous episodes!! Holy Cow! :)

*We keep our thermostat at 65 during the night.

*I still double space after periods. Hard to break.

*I'm still far from wanting to get back into working out. My Jillian Michaels videos have lost their luster. :) The only thing that sounds appealing is treadmill running. My parents had one back in college and I remember loving to run on it while watching a movie (Clueless was viewed too many times to count). I know there are probably thousands of nice treadmills sitting in peoples' homes, never being used, just dying to be sold dirt cheap to me. :)

Speaking of healthy stuff, Chris showed me something someone posted the other day and we both got a good laugh. :)

naan bread

*I'm good on the rain. Yes, I know it's good for our state, blah, blah, blah (just kidding...well, partially) :)

*Parenthood has officially become my all time favorite TV series. Ever.

*I decided to break myself into this Fitbit thing by setting a goal of 8,000 steps per day, rather than the recommended 10,000. Good grief! 8,000 is even hard (especially on rainy days)!!

*I am VERY particular about my kids' finger nails. I really, really don't like it when kids' nails get long. Dirt cakes underneath and it just annoys me. I'm pretty vigilant about keeping them quite short.

*Every now and then my kids ask if they can go through my box of memory stuff. Yesterday's rain made this activity a great choice. Kendall is actually holding a Reader's Digest cover I saved due to Dean Cain being on the cover. My friend, Jen, and I would watch Lois and Clark EVERY single Sunday night and call each other during each commercial to debrief. We obviously had quite the crush on him. Ha!

*Yesterday in the class I was subbing for, they had a guest speaker from the water district. Interesting fact: California has unusually high water standards, such that our tap water is higher quality than bottled water. Our filter went out long ago in our fridge and I have been using tap for a while. Now I can actually feel good about it! :)

*I'm really liking Naan bread from Costco. We've made pizzas and just last night, open faced burritos. They are so easy!

us + desert = perfect day

*Last night Chris and I had a dinner + movie date night. We saw, The Big Short. It was really good and held my attention the entire time (which is rare for me). It very clearly explains the 2008 housing crash in such an interesting and entertaining way. There are a couple scenes (nudity) that I wish they could have left out, but otherwise I recommend it. :)

After the movie we tried a new restaurant, Thai Chili. We RARELY try new restaurants, but Chris actually gave his meal (Pad Thai) a 10++!!! Wow! :)

*Today we headed to the desert. Most of our family knows that The Cheesecake Factory is our favorite restaurant. We were quite happy to have received several gift cards for Christmas and decided to go for lunch.

After our meal, the kids were anxious to get down to the amphitheater to run around. I waited for the check while Chris walked them down. You can see there is a lot to climb around on!

*Right now the kids are watching, McFarland for the second time. We watched it as a family last week and they loved it (more than I had anticipated!). They both requested to watch it again tonight.

*We have one more day of Christmas break and then it's back to real life on Tuesday. Boo.

*We will watch our last episode of, Making a Murderer (on Netflix) tonight. Seriously, I cannot tell you how good this series has been. I think we made it through faster than any show we've ever watched. So good!!! If you decide to watch it, DON'T Google it until you are done. :)

biggest hike yet

*My two favorite Christmas presents were a Cutco knife from my parents and a Fitbit from Chris' parents. On Tuesday Cameron was extremely excited to help me set up my Fitbit, knowing it would help us on our hike the following day.

*And now the hike. Wow. What a doozy! This was our longest to date...9 miles/6 hours. It was so much fun. We still would have had a LONG way to go to the top of the tram (which is our eventual goal), but this was still a good training hike to get us that much closer.

Cameron really wanted to reach the first rescue box (they have two on the way up, with emergency supplies for stranded hikers).

*My mom watched Kendall while we were gone. She made the morning so special by planning a play date, complete with a tea party. :)

*New Year's Eve had us attending a wedding of a friend from our former church out in OC. This was the kids' first wedding ever. Here they are throwing rose petals on the runner as the bride walked down the aisle (they were big fans of this!).

*After the wedding, we went straight to my parents to celebrate Christmas. Each year my sister's present to them includes new pages to scrapbooks she has made for them. The kids love to look at them each time we come over. :)

*Kendall has expressed interest in going on some longer hikes. Today Cam and I decided to introduce her to a very small portion of what we did on Wednesday. She did awesome!! I can't tell you how excited I would be if she got as into hiking as Cam is and we could eventually start doing family hikes. :)

 Umm...favorite picture ever! So sweet...

p.s. The common recommendation of trying to reach 10,000 steps (on my Fitbit) a day is HARD!! I easily reached it on our hiking days, but yesterday I reached a whopping 3,200. :( Yikes!

christmas in pictures

We got back on Monday from a great Christmas up north. Some highlights:

Opening presents was, of course, a big highlight. This year, Legos were a theme. :)

Always fun to have Grandma W. make the trip down to see us during our visit!

Christmas feast.

Speaking of feasts, the whole weekend was filled with yummy food...

FAVORITES:

Kendall: Blueberry Jello Salad

Cameron: Blueberry Jello Salad

Kelly: Chocolate Cake 

Chris: New York Steak ...

Bike rides. The kids loved navigating around all the enormous puddles left by the rain.

A very fun Christmas :)

p.s. I got my Hallmark movie fix each night as well. Speaking of TV, Chris and I are ADDICTED to "Making a Murderer" on Netflix. It is a documentary following a man falsly accused of a crime, but then later accused of another crime. I would post a link, but I don't even want to Google search it for fear of spoiling what happens. It is fascinating and I have been known to stay up until 10:00 p.m. just to finish an episode!! :)

robolights = awesome

*I'm very picky when it comes to iced coffee. Very. I texted Chris the other day with this pic and wrote, "A still full iced coffee at end of our trip. Didn't like the first one so went back thru drive-thru. Still didn't like the second one :) thought that would give u a chuckle" (in my defense, Jack n' the Box is always consistent...but even the worker said the coffee was extra strong that day!)

*The Bass Pro Shop with Jen and her girls on Monday. Such a fun morning!

 *Baking at Nana's house yesterday.

*I introduced the kids to the best Christmas movie, White Christmas. They lasted about 30 minutes. In their defense, it does have its slow parts. :)

*Our original plan was to leave for Chris' parents today. However we couldn't get off until this afternoon, when most people would be leaving (Chris' traffic app actually emailed him telling him that between 2:00-7:00 this afternoon would be the worst traffic). Anyway, we knew the kids would be disappointed in pushing our trip back, so I took them out to the desert for a fun morning.

We started at a park and then made our way to what turned out to be, "The best place ever", in both their words. There is a house in Palm Springs which has been coined, "Robolights". I simply can't describe it other than...weird, but awesome. A huge backyard has been turned into a wonderland of garbage created stuff. During Christmas, it's most popular at night because it's decorated with lights. However I know my kids would be too scared and so our daytime visit was perfect. It is so worth the trip and we will definitely go back!!