January

Trying to play catch up.

January came and went pretty fast it seems like. The month started out well and ended not so well.

First off it rained a lot and I mean A LOT! We received a years worth of rain just in the month of January. It was crazy and lots of flooding and scares of flooding. All in all we enjoyed and needed the rain even if it meant a lot of time spent indoors.

This is the Yolo Bypass full of water.
It is used to divert water from the Sacramento River to prevent the city from flooding. 

In the middle of the month, my little sister got married. I was fortunate enough to fly out for it. However it proved to be quite the adventure.  

Airport food. Delicious shrimp tacos.

My flight was delayed by 3 hours so I sat in the Sacramento airport for a very long time.  Luckily my connecting flight was also delayed. However once at LAX, I had to run to catch my connection which was kindly being held for me and the other guy needing to get on it too.

I can't remember if this was at Sacramento airport or LAX.
Either way, I was documenting the fact that I was on a plane.

With all the delays, I arrived in Salt Lake at the wee hour of 2 am. Sadly though my suitcase hadn't arrived with me. So all I was left for an unknown amount of time was my messenger bag and this fun toiletries bag the airline gave me. 

My sister helped me throw together an outfit from her closet and a quick walmart run the next morning. However I missed being able to attend the sealing. :( At the temple my other sister came prepared with makeup so I could at least look good for the pictures. 

My adorable nephews and nieces, just a handful. Some of them tried to fit on that couch together.

At the luncheon, I became the bunt of everyone's jokes. My facebook post from that afternoon:

"My family has started calling me bag lady because all my belongings fit in a shopping bag.

A recent burn:
My niece said, "Hi bag lady."
As I'm waving back my sister in law says, "At least she owns it [the bag lady name]. 
Then my brother said, "She has to own something."

😂😂😂😂 I'm dying here from the cold and laughing."

After the lunch, I got into a snowball fight with my sister, the bride. I think I won. But maybe I didn't because snow is cold and I don't do cold anymore. 

I had such a fun time with my family. I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. I danced like crazy and just tried to have a great day despite that I didn't have my luggage or that Tracy and the boys weren't able to come.

Ok. Back to the wedding. My sister made a beautiful bride and I wish them a long happy life together.

First Dance

Selfie during the first dance

Selfie during the couples dance.
I was feeling sad I didn't have my other half there to dance with.

Some time between the luncheon and the reception I got a call that my luggage had arrived. YAY!!!! So after the reception my sister drove me up to the airport to get it. It felt great to have it back.

The day after the wedding I hung out with my long time friend and her boyfriend. We chatted, ate delicious food, and saw Moana. It was a great way to spend my free day in Utah.

All too soon it was time to head home. The trip home went without any hitches. No delays, no lost luggage. It felt good to be reunited with my boys.

Little plane souvenirs for my boys.

Comparing the air quality of Salt Lake and Las Vegas.
Top Vegas, bottom Salt Lake.

 

The mountains peaking up above the clouds and smog of Salt Lake were beautiful.

 

Somewhere over the Sierras. The mountains I have grown to love.

Reunited and they both sat here on my lap for a very long time.

The following are just some random pictures I took through out the month:

Charles loves the selfie cam.

Breakfast with Tracy and this cutie. 

We love coming to this bakery by our house after dropping James off at school.

Charles discovered he can also climb the cat tree.

This was the most delicious bread. We bought it at the bakery by our house.

 A break in the rain storms meant we could go on a walk. Charles had been asking to get the big stroller out, so I did.

When the grocery store has 5 lb crab, you buy some and make something yummy.

I volunteer to switch out books once a week for James' class for the book in a bag program. 

Book in a bag is a program where the kids take home a book at their reading level, each time they return it they get a new one. In the work room where the books are stored they have blocks for the little helpers to play with while the big helpers change out the returned book. Charles made an impressive block tower one day.

Another picture of the Yolo Bypass. This time the sun was just rising.

A park in town just opened the new playground that has been in the works since we moved it.

Charles had a fun time exploring the new equipment. Tracy took James on the day it opened and he too had a blast. 

Tracy took a quick trip to Utah to help his parents, so I took the boys out to dinner one of the nights he was gone. It was hard trying to get the three of us in the picture but it was fun taking turns wearing the crown.

California has some great foggy mornings. This particular morning it was especially dense. You could loose a kid in this.  

James and his milk mustache that he was very proud of.

One of the days at school it was dress as your hero day. James chose to dress up like his grandpa. 

We had the perfect shirt that is similar to one his grandpa would wear. His grandpa also almost always wears a baseball cap. 

There's this park near our house with a large concrete slide. I finally convince James to try it out. It only took 2 and half years. 

 Charles loves trains almost, maybe even more than his brother.

Sadly the end of January we had to put our cat Eowyn down. She started to not act normal, so we took her to the Vet Hospital on campus. After some tests they found she had an enlarged liver. The plan was to hospitalize her for a couple of days, so the Vet could determine the cause and to treat it. After staying for a night, they also discovered problems with her kidneys. At this point there wasn't much of a chance at a full recovery, if she did come out of it OK she'd be on medication the rest of her life. So we made the difficult decision to put her to sleep. We had the appointment set for later that day. We made arrangements for Charles to go to a neighbor since he was too young to really know what was going on. However, they hospital called us and said Eowyn had stopped breathing. They were able to get her breathing again but they didn't know how much longer she was going to last. We packed into the car immediately and drove to the hospital to say our good byes. 

She was so happy to be in the room with us that she started purring and even tried to meow a bit. She hadn't done that since we had dropped her off the day before. Tracy went with her and held her till she went to sleep; she went purring happily in the arms of the one who brought her home nearly 12 years ago.

Big blue eyes, brown little nose. 

We took you home and watched you grow. 

Day after day, year after year; you cuddled, you purred and always sat near. 

With heavy hearts, goodbye we say. 

And now your bed empty it lays. 

We will remember and never forget

Eowyn, our dear sweet kitty cat.

-Alicia Thomson

Since that day we have received some heartfelt gifts: 

This raindrop plaque came from a few of my siblings. 

The Vet hospital sent us this card with notes from those that cared for her during her time with them and a mold of Eowyn's foot.

Things we will treasure forever.

Christmas

This year we spent Christmas at home for the first time since having kids and probably since our first Christmas as a married couple. It was nice celebrating just us.

James had school up through the 23rd. It didn't give us much time to start celebrating before actual Christmas, but we squeezed in some Christmas fun before hand anyway.

At the beginning of December, we were able to volunteer to help with our Stake's Creche Festival.  Tracy got to spend our shift in with the displays and I spent it in the children's room. This was the first time we had ever gone and we regretted not going or volunteering the previous years.

The boys helped me decorate the Christmas tree one afternoon. This tree I got off of a wonderful Facebook Group called Buy Nothing. Our previous tree hadn't survived it's time being stored on the patio the first year we moved in. It was the only place we could store it and it became moldy so we had to toss it. Then I found this one for free through the buy nothing group. It really added to the Christmas spirit.

The relief society activity for December was a cookie exchange. I attempted to make, pepper cookies,  a recipe that had been in Tracy's family for many years. His great-grandma used to make a very large amount. I'm talking about over 50 dozen of these cookies at Christmas time. I have a quartered recipe from Tracy's mom and I tried to scale it back some more for the exchange. They didn't quite turn out right, but still presentable. However, I never baked all the cookies or went to the exchange because the flu bug hit our house. :(

Also in December the scout troop for pack meeting that month rang the bell for The Salvation Army. Our ward helps The Salvation Army to ring the bell at the post office collection spot for a couple of days in December every year. They split of the days into a few hour shifts that you can sign up for as individuals, families, etc. So the scout troop signed up for one of the shift. Afterwards, they enjoyed hot chocolate and cookies at our apartment just a few blocks away.

James went with Tracy. He had a lot of fun hanging out with the bigger boys.

One of the last days of school before the break James' class made Gingerbread houses. Tracy since his school break had already started over a week prior, volunteered to help out.

James painted his teacher a picture of a sea turtle for her Christmas present. I helped a bit with the outline of the turtle, mostly fattening up the flippers, he had them pretty skinny. And then again with the shell lines and textures on the head and flippers. It turned out amazing. In case you're wondering why a sea turtle, each class at his school has an animal associated with it. This year he's in the sea turtle class. Last year he was in the coyote class. 

Once school was out we didn't waste anytime kicking off the holiday vacation. The afternoon of the 23rd after we picked James up from school we took the boys to the train museum.

Christmas Eve was spent finishing up our prep for the big day. Then that night after dinner we opened our Christmas Jammies and drove around looking at lights. After putting Charles to bed, James made another gingerbread house with leftovers from his class houses his teacher gave us while watching The Muppets' Christmas Carol.

I didn't pictures of the boys opening presents. I'm not sure if we even got any... oh, well. I did get a picture of the tea light candle holder James made me. <3 p="">

The days following Christmas before school started back up, we spent some quality time together:

Lunch at wing stop. James had to bring all his mini Thomas and friends trains. After lunch Tracy took James to see the Rogue One. 

In between rain storms we enjoyed a park afternoon. It was cold and very windy but otherwise had fun.

I took advantage of both James and Tracy being out of school and treated James to a lunch date. He choose Black Bear Dinner. It was especially fun that we ran into Ms. Tammy, the school secretary, there. She's the best school secretary ever!

These two fought a lot during the break. They aren't use to spending soo much time together. However I did find ways to get them to play nicely together.

We threw our own little New Year's Party. On the menu was things I could cook in my new deep fryer: French Fries and Fried Chicken. Then we, minus Charles, enjoyed games and movies till we realized it was 12:30 and we had missed ringing in the new year.

Soon the break was over. The older boys went back to school. Charles missed James. One morning he wanted to wear his backpack and go to school like big brother.