Bits & Pieces of Christmas Cheer

Merry belated Christmas and a Happy New Year! My first New Years resolution is to post this before 2013, which I guess would be a pre-new years goal. Let's see if I can make it happen. 

So our Christmas adventures started out in Chico this year. In the midst of all the craziness we managed to throw up some decorations--meaning we quickly arranged them, we didn't barf them up. 

We also got poured on this year, which is always "good" for NorCal, but not for the clogged drain in our parking lot or for the 4th grade teacher who has to do inside recess. 

As our plate began to pile up with to-do's, we decided we had to cut back on some of our holiday traditions. This meant our tree-cutting date was transformed into picking a tree at Foodmax 4 minutes away. Not as scenic yes, but we were still lugging home a tree... and we managed to keep the tradition of having eyes that were bigger than our living room corner. 

We measured the height, but it was impossible to measure the width since it was all girdled up. 

We had to rearrange our whole living room to make it fit, but we still loved it in all its largeness. 

A week before break, a friendly face arrived from Turlock! We got to share breakfast and catch up on life. 

One tradition I couldn't let go of was our cookie plates. Despite the schedule crunch, we managed to bust out two different types of cookies this year and even deliver most of them. I'm convinced part of the tradition is being stressed since my roomies and I used to do this during finals week. 

Once school ended, we packed up and headed down to Oakland to spend a evening with some old friends from Thailand. 

The next morning we headed down to L.A. and spent an evening with my brother and sister-in-law. I unfortunately forgot to take a picture while we were there. 

Before we knew it we were driving into San Diego. My gramps took us straight to an pipe organ concert in Balboa Park~ which was pretty amazing. 

We spent a few days with Grampa (aka gung gung) cooking meals, traveling the coast, attending the Christmas eve service, watching movies and catching up. 

There was even a live manger scene at church. 

Christmas afternoon we took a hike in attempt to walk off all the yumminess we had devoured in the last few days. Gung gung took us on the sissy hike since I was out of shape. (don't worry it's already on my new years resolution list~ get out of "out of shape") 

We drove through UCSD~ here's the construction building: 

On Thursday we packed up our belongings and headed north to see Ry's aunt and cousins. We got to see some great galleries, and she made sure we got some gorgeous views of on the coast. We do miss the beach--that's one downfall to Chico. 

On our way up we stopped by my aunt and cousin's place in Cerritos, but again I failed at taking any pictures. 

And last, but certainly not least, we drove up to Turlock and stopped by to see Alyssa and her fambam. They took us weary travelers in and fed us pizza. We sipped on warm tea and munched on christmas cookies as we shared some of our recent adventures and shared in some good laughs. 

It feels good to be home in our somewhat scattered home, but we are so thankful to have gotten to see so many people that we love this Christmas. 

We are so blessed by our family and friends. We recognize how you represent God's love, perseverance, joy and hope. We pray we can do the same as we enter back into the craziness of this year. 

Much love, 

Naomi

What a full Easter weekend! He has Risen Friends! Yes indeed! 

We started our Friday bright and early caring for our lovely community. We got to pass out free coffee, tea and hot chocolate to people driving out of our complex onto their way to work. It was pretty chilly- 38 is what someone told us-- my fingers were pretty frozen, but it's so fun to bless people.. can't complain.

 We also got to take a meal to our friends Tara and Dave who just had a beautiful baby. Isn't she gorgeous? She was making all sorts of funny faces. 

We had a study break from all our errands. 
:) 

Saturday I got a surprise package from my sister-in-law with a sweet doughnut pan and egg towel in it!! I love surprises, especially in the form of doughnuts!
So guess what we had for Easter breakfast?

A simple skirt hemming project: 

Found this boxy, over-sized skirt on sale for a few bucks, decided to make it a pencil skirt. 

So it looks like I'm destroying this guitar. This is actually Alyssa's mom's guitar that's been hanging with us for a few years now. It's been broken the whole while, and I've been needing a clamp to fix it, but today I decided, who needs a clamp when you have a foot. So I "fixed" it. We'll see if it stays. 

Our last activity of the day was a Easter dinner with a huge IV crew of maybe 50. It was packed with people and delicious food. The fitzs brought fondue and fruit. Nummers. 

May you walk through this week living in the joy that He is alive, in us. 

Na

Thought it'd be good to do a weekend window before a new weekend begins. So in honor of this upcoming weekend...a

Saturday morning I woke up with Adele next to me, it was seriously hilarious. I think it was the biggest highlight of my weekend. Love those punchy moments with my hubz...  

bahah. The next little adventure we had was getting this lovely balloon out of the clubhouse. We unfortunately let it go in our clubhouse which has a vaulted ceiling. So Ry stood on a chair, carried me and I managed you use tongs to retrieve this lovely guy. 

He's still floating around our casa somewhere. 

I also thought it would be fun to tie him to Ry's pants so he could have a little friend following him around everywhere. obnoxious, yeah?  

Our goal for the day was to get enough done for a ping-pong date. 
Although the old people living inside us where telling us to go to bed at 10, we managed to get out of the house and enjoy a heated game of pingpong.. I whooped ry. Just kidding, it's actually controversial. I'm not going to go into details, but you know. 

Yummers of the weekend: 

The projects: 

Can't wait to cozify our mini porch. 

Hope you guys had a great week. I've been reading through John, I'm actually entering into the closing just in unison with Holy Week so it's been really good to enter into the whole story. Here's some of what I read today.. just some good reminders. 

John 15:11-17 (msg)

 ^11-15"I've told you these things for a purpose: that my joy might be your joy, and your joy wholly mature. This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I'm no longer calling you servants because servants don't understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I've named you friends because I've let you in on everything I've heard from the Father.

 ¹⁶"You didn't choose me, remember; I chose you, and put you in the world to bear fruit, fruit that won't spoil. As fruit bearers, whatever you ask the Father in relation to me, he gives you.

 ¹⁷"But remember the root command: Love one another.

May you deeply experience God's love as you enter into Good Friday and celebrate Easter.