The Long Awaited Christmas Blog

Wow, Where to start?! Most of my family came up on Tuesday before Christmas and the fun started. We had lunch in the dining hall, got settled in the cabins, then headed up to Joshua to hang out and have dinner. The kids played in the snow and in the big open spaces of the Great room and Joshua dining room. We enjoyed each other's company and looked forward to having Josh and Heather and Jeremy show up. Then, the snow started falling, and falling and falling. Everyone had made it for Christmas day, where we had a fantastic breakfast, opened gifts, played, had a wonderful lunch, played some more, had a nice dinner, then the kids acted out the Christmas story while I read it and we had a time of sharing. Because of the weather, we had moved everyone to either Joshua or the lower cabin, so as we cleaned things up and were getting ready to take off for the night, the power went out. This is not uncommon in a storm, so Rich went to start the generater at the cabin. Everyone headed home and planned on meeting for breakfast at 8:30 so Jeremy could get on the road at a decent time. Well, at our house, we slept just fine and about 8am went to pick up the crew from the cabin. Rich went in and then came back out and said they were all sick. So we went up to see the Joshua crew to see if anyone up there was sick, well, no one was, so we began to brainstorm. It must be something with the cabin, for everyone there to be so sick, but no one else. Clearly not food poisoning like we had initially thought. Rich and I headed to the cabin to help out, when I walked in, everyone was strewn across the house, laying on the floor, huddled in blankets, with bowls near by, no one could stand, they all looked so miserable. I tried to make everyone comfortable the best I could while cleaning things up, and Rich went to seek help and get a CO detector. When he brought it in, it went off immediatly so we had everyone crawl to the open door and windows to get some fresh air. Rich returned again with help and the news that we really needed everyone to go to the infimary and probably down to Fresno to get checked out. So we began to get coats and boots and get people down the steep, snow covered stairs in their foggy state. Most everyone had some time on the oxygen in the infirmiry and then a couple went down in the ambulance and everyone else road down with Rich or Dad to the hospital. Only the ones with remaining symptoms went in, and the rest either came back up or hung at Rob's house to rest and wait for the 3 to get released. Everyone was back up at around 10:30pm when we decided to have a little birthday party for Josiah, (my nephew, some birthday so far!). Then we settled in for the night, cleaned up in the morning and everyone left just as they had planned. Whew! What an adventure, what a crazy, memorable Christmas! Everyone says that they had a fun time, despite the almost dying, and that they would even come back to Hume Lake again sometime. Such troopers! I loved seeing every single one of them, only wished Jonathan's family could have made it, and that I had taken more pictures!

The Cold Brings Colds

This week was full of fun, snow, and a couple colds. We started the week with a ton of snow, which is beautiful and quite cold, it has been below freezing daily, so no walks for us. We are all terrain, but not all weather, moms! But it gave us a chance to play in the snow. Ellie was not much for sledding, but she loved using my snowballer to make snowballs and throw them! Jaron, he didn't love it as much. Then Tuesday was our Program Christmas "Party" down in Fresno. So we dropped the kids at the Sees house and went to dinner with the Program department and then headed to a minor league hockey game-Go Falcons! It was a good learning experience, I think they must have a fight quota they have to meet, because within the first couple minutes they had two fights, which seemed to come out of nowhere, but then that was it, the rest of the time, they just played hockey. Weird. But we got some good broom hockey ideas, which is really our sport. Well, that morning the kids had woken up with runny noses, but Erin said to still bring them, and they were good for her, but at around 11pm poor Ellie started waking up like every hour. The crazy part is, she was staying upstairs and we were staying down, so she would walk in the pitch dark all the way down to our room each time. At about 5am I decided to just stay and sleep with her. Good decision, we finally got a couple hours of sleep in a row. Wednesday, we did some shopping and errands and then headed back up to the chillyness. The kiddos are getting better it seems and we just had a fun evening where Rich pulled out his guitar and we sang together. First Ellie had her microphone and would do her best to sing along, even if she didn't know the song, then she switched it out for her guitar, so she could rock with dad! So Cute!

Joshua Events

This Tuesday was the Joshua formal Christmas Party, where everyone gets all dressed up for dinner and they come in to a nicely decorated dining hall and then they are served Pizza! It is really fun. Then after dinner, all the Pause families are invited up to help build GingerBread "houses", as has been tradition for several years. But last year we decided to add an "Ugly Christmas Sweater" competion, Caroling, and a Story read by Nathan Pearsey, (He has a great reading voice), while the staff judges the gingerbreads. As a staff we put together a Wildwood scape to remember the fire that the Joshua student started. It was quite a masterpiece. We had a helicopter above dropping "water" and everything! I hope to have some cute pictures of the dress nice portion soon from someone else's camera, but I hope you enjoy these.

Then on Wednesday was a regular monthly theme dinner. The theme was How the Grinch Stole Christmas. So Ellie and I dressed as Whos. She just wore jammies and had some funky hair and I went a little different direction. All to say, it's been a busy, but fun, couple of days!

Random Facts

Not much to say, really, but I thought I'd try to jot something down. I'm loving my house decorated for Christmas! Jaron has successfully drank out of a cup with a straw and a sippy cup a couple times now. And it was with formula and he didn't spit it out on purpose or scream at me like I was giving him poison. (Which is what would happen in the past) So there is hope yet, that I can leave the child for more than 4 hours at some point! Yeah! Ellie got dressed by herself today without even being asked so that was exciting. I put together little Christmas Smore packages for some of my friends that I am excited to hand out. And I've finished my Christmas letter, I just need to print it and mail it. (If you think I might need your address, please e-mail it to me) The floor is covered with pretend food, but I am noticing that some of it is seperated into color groups, cute. The kids are napping and I should too, but then again, I "should" do a lot of other things too. The daily dilemna! Okay, I'm off, sorry, no pictures, just an update of randomness.

Tractor Parade!

Reedly is a little town outside of Fresno. It's a farming town, and every year they have a parade for Christmas where the tractors are all dressed with lights and decorations. We have been wanting to go for the last couple years, but it has never worked out until this year. We met a bunch of people for dinner at this little mexican place, then headed over to the parade. It was pretty fun, highlights were the bus, the mini bus, and this cool thing that only had two wheels. Ellie's friend, Lily, was there, so she loved that. Rich wants to join next year with the weapons carrier.

Back Home

I know, I know, it's been forever, but I've been out of town for two weeks and am still trying to catch my breath. To recap the two weeks, we went to Mexico with the Joshua students, which went mostly good, except for, uh, Jaron not sleeping, Jaron getting a rash, Two students getting injured and being rushed to San Diego's emergecy rooms, where one of them had to have surgery on his head!, and the Baja 1000 taking out one of the jumps at the beginning of the race. But, we did eat some amazing carne asada tacos daily, got a ton of work done at the Ranch and were not attacked by the drug cartel! Then we sent off the students with the other staff and our family stayed in San Diego for the next week. We stayed with Rich's parents, but did get to have a hang-out/birthday party at my mom's which was nice to see everyone. Thanksgiving was nice and fairly low key with the Ferreira side, then Friday we got to go shopping with no kids and go on a date to dinner and a movie with no kids all in the same day! Thank You Grammy Moo! Saturday, we headed home, picking up a truck for Hume in Temecula and picking up Rich's Grandma in Santa Clarita to bring her to be the Catalyst at Joshua for the next two weeks. Jaron only cried for like half the trip up, so that was fun. So, we got back Saturday night, Sunday tried to unpack as well as put up Christmas decorations, then did the nursery at church. Monday I took Jaron to the Doctor to see if he had an ear infection or something, but he checked out fine. (which is good of course, but it would kind of be nice to have an explanation for the screaming and pulling at his ear and what not, but, it's really better that he is fine) Tuesday I got back to walking with the mom's, then cleaned and baked for Bible study Tueday night. This morning we had our WON Wednesday, which is a monthly get together with mom's of young kids with coffee, a speaker, and small group discussion. Tonight is the Hume Family Christmas party. I am a judge for the bake off and other food entry competition. Tomorrow, we go down the hill again to get a Christmas tree and to go to a tractor show with the Joshua staff. Then I think Friday my friends might have a birthday party for me. Whew! So you can see why I haven't had too much time to blog. Oh, did I mention that Hume got an all new phone system so we haven't had phones or consistant internet. If you need our new number, please e-mail my gmail account, which is ferreirafour@gmail.com and I will reply from that, because my regular hume account is not working at the moment. Love You All- Thank you to the faithful readers of this! Oh, so the pictures are of bath time at Grammy's and Thanksgiving at the Ferreira's (Rich's aunt and uncle) both Jaron and Ellie loved the dog, she was so good with them.

Ohh Mexico

Mexico is going great! We drove in on Monday and crossing the border went super smooth-no stops, yeah! We spent the first day just getting settled and getting tacos. Once before dinner, then once after putting the kids to bed, I mean, you can’t beat ‘em! Well, today was the first work day, and it has been going really well as far as I understand. The only mishap, was poor Rich, who when opening a five gallon bucket of primer, it splashed in his eyes, not too fun, that stuff is sticky! So we tried to rinse them best we could, then he had to toss his contacts and move to glasses for a while. The kids are doing pretty well, schedules are a bit whacked but they’ll survive. Also, Jaron’s skin is kind of freakin’ out. I don’t know if it’s from the heat or what, but I’m sure it will mend as well. All to say, it’s going pretty well, I mean, I just love Mexico so much and it feels like home when I get here, so even if things don’t go great, I am just happy to be here. (And eat tacos daily) Ellie's still taking pictures, which is cute. If you've ever been to the Ranch, you'll appreciate the picture of Snoopy Rock. Okay, well since both kids are finally asleep, I am going to try to catch a nap too. Oh, the joys of skylights-no sleeping in for anyone.

Ellie takes Pictures

So , you know how Ellie loves to take pictures. Well, we decided to give her a digital camera that we never use, and see what would happen. First of all, she absolutely loves it! She went around taking pictures constantly, I mean, literally. She took pictures of every room in the house, the carpet, the couch, people, chairs, breakfast, anything she saw, she took a picture! Fabulous! So, I thought I’d show you a few of my favorites, I love so many, but here are just a few.
(A Slidewhow is in the blog below)

Little Photographer

Some of Ellie's first work

Bounce Bounce

So there is a family up here who has a trampaline, and after Ellie and Hannah went on it last week, the mom decided she would invite all the little girls over for a trampaline jump time, then a tea party- So Cute! She decided to do an age at a time- 2s then 3s then 4s. This morning was Ellie, Hannah, and Ellie Mae's turn. It was so sweet. Bunnie,(Hannah's mom), took Jaron and her little boy Isaac on the walk, and I kept the girls at the party. They loved to bounce, bounce, bounce, then we went inside, played with some toys, decorated cookies while having some fruit and cheese and "tea" which was actually warm apple cider, played with play-doh, then went back out to bounce some more! The boys soon arrived and Peter wanted a turn to bounce too. (Of course, he just learned to walk a couple months ago, so he just sat there while the girls bounced around him) All went really well, considering there were 3 two year olds involved.

Yard Progress

Here's a slideshow of our yard from start to almost finished! Enjoy!

All for a Cell Phone

I know it's kind of long, but this is what Jaron is doing these days to get around. It's pretty cute. And just like Ellie, his best motivation for a good crawl is a cell phone. And he does like to chat it up when he gets there, as you can see. Enjoy!

ahh man!

So Saturday night we started to get some rain. So the boys (Rich and our neighbor Joel) were checking out the yards to see what they needed to do so we could keep our hillsides and not become a duplex! Well, at about midnight they stopped checking on things and we just went to bed. Well after a night of heavy rains, lightning and thunder, we woke up to the sad realization that the precautions were not sufficient. Now, we are not duplexes by any means, but all the water from the two houses above us channeled down into our yard bringing inches of mud from the hills onto our freshly laid sod. So Rich and I began to shovel it off. We were able to get a couple Joshua students to help for about a half an hour which helped a lot, but we know we will have a lot to do to make it really ready for next time. Which, as I just read the weather report, is probably tonight, and we for sure are not prepared. But we will just have to meet that tomorrow. Of course, we are going to Fresno in the morning, so we won't really be able to do anything about it then either, oh well. Rich was pretty sad, of course, it could also be because he turned 30 today! It's great, when people ask Ellie how old he turned, she says, "he turned old today", classic!

One Good Dad

The celebrations continue! The Joshua students got to have their own dress-up night on Thursday. So Ellie got her chance to be Annie from the Little Einsteins. Of course, no one knew who that was and it's not a super obvious costume anyway, but she got to carry a microphone, and she loved that. Jaron was a duck again, but learned some cool tricks, like balancing a spoon on his nose, and I dressed up as Rich. I was not alone in dressing as a staff person, so we took a picture of the "staff". And poor Rich, had great intentions of dressing as a gorilla, but Ellie was so scared that she almost did not go up to Joshua, and then once there, wanted to stay in the car until I checked to make sure he was not wearing it. So he sacrificed and did not dress up, all for our little Ellie. Of course some of the Joshua student's costumes were pretty freaky, like the Joker from the most recent Batman, but they were good about avoiding Ellie so she would not get scared. And it worked, because we had no meltdowns while there. It was a fun night.

Trick or Treat

Here at Hume Lake, we sometimes move things around to be convenient for us. Like Daylight Savings, we wait a day sometimes so it falls at the end of camp, instead of the middle. And like Halloween, we always have the trick or treating on the Wednesday of Servants week, because they know to bring candy and love to pass it out around the tables at the dining hall. So that was last night for us and it was so much fun! I had finally decided Jaron would just go ahead and be the monkey because it was so fitting for him. Then yesterday morning I had the foresight to try it on him one more time, and good thing, because he totally grew out of it. (which is still funny to me because it was a 0-9 month costume and he still wears 6-9 mo clothes, sometimes even 3-6- oh well) Luckily I had this duck costume in the shed that someone had given Ellie a couple years ago. And it turns out, Jaron makes a pretty cute duck too! Now Ellie was a fairy princess, and she wanted me to be one too, so I slapped on some wings and glitter and some fake eyelashes and called a day. We went to the dining hall, ate dinner, then came together for a picture of all the dressed up kids, then went around to the tables to "trick or treat, then we got a list of all the houses that would have candy to pass out and chose between riding with the masses in the shuttle or driving ourselves. A couple of us decided to drive ourselves, but in the same van. It ended up being three princesses- Ellie, Hannah, and Ellie Mae- SO Cute! The daddies took the little brothers home and the ladies went neighborhood to neighborhood in the "royal coach" of Bunnie's van. It was a blast, and it made me appreciate where I live, being able to just walk the streets with our little girls and not be nervous that freaky people were going to be out there. Plus knowing exactly what houses to go to is really handy!

Pumpkin Patch

Here's a slidewhow of all our pumpkin patch pictures

50's Night

Well last night was another fun theme dinner at Joshua. 50's Night. We got all dressed up and went up for a diner style meal, where we ordered burgers and fries from the counter, along with flavored sodas, it was a blast! Ellie loved dressing up, especially since I put her tu tu under her dress to make it puffy and she got to wear a neclace of mine and a scarf in her hair. She picked out her "fancy" shoes, but wore different shoes until we got inside the Joshua building, then changed into them. It was hilarious, I don't know where she got the idea. But she didn't want to ruin them. I'm all for that, I mean they are play shoes, but she may as well keep them sorta nice. Then Jaron, sported the jeans and white T-shirt with the gelled hair, "converse" and jean jacket. He actually loves getting his hair done, so that is always fun. I mean it only takes a second, but he just looks up at me and smiles, and is somewhat still, which is quite rare for him, so it's great. Then I decided to go for the beehive instead of the usual ponytail, everyone loved it, I think they just love that we get involved in it with them, and it's fun for us, so why not.

This week was full of work on the yard. It was so great, some Joshua students helped out so much and we were able to get steps to the back yard placed, a fence built, stairs to our lower lawn built, sprinklers finished, sod layed, and wood chip and gravel spread! Whew! I have to say that Rich and the students did a ton, my main job was to bring drinks out, watch the kids, and make a few dinners for our workers. One day even Rob and Katie came up for the afternoon to hang out and Rob ended up working on stuff. (you can't keep that boy off a tractor) But seriously it was really sweet for him to jump in on his day off. Plus they brought Tori and so Katie and I took Ellie to throw ball with her on the lawn around the block, and couldn't help but gain a few neighborhood kids, since they don't get to see dogs that often. (Did I mention that Tori is their dog) All to say, it is pretty exciting to see it coming together! Especially the grass-yeah!