Christmas Day

 Christmas Morning in our house was a bit different than it normally is. With it being a Sunday and church at 9:00 we did not have time to open our presents. It takes us a good 5 or 6 hours to open our presents because we only allow one person at a time to open their gifts. The gifts from Santa however are left unwrapped under the tree so we decided to let the boys (and Sarah) enjoy their Santa gifts and then we all got ready for church.

Church was beautiful. I love to sing Christmas songs and with Kira and her Oboe it made it even more special.

After church we commenced with the gifts. I have to admit that Evan was a bit happier with his gifts on Christmas Day than he was with his gift from Christmas Eve. Santa was good to everyone.

Even the big kids were excited.

Ben pulled a very funny trick on Sharley. For Christmas they bought each other I-Phones. They'd been using them already for a few weeks so Ben stole Sharley's phone from her after she'd gone to sleep and wrapped it up. As we're all settling in getting ready to open gifts he uses my phone to call Sharley. He couldn't call from his own phone because she has a special ring tone for him that she would recognize. It was so funny to see everyone's faces when one of the presents under the tree started to ring. You should have seen the look of confusion on Sharley's face when someone handed her the ringing present. It was really funny. 

Of course, Sheba has to be right in the thick of it all. 

Lisa and I got all of the kids a pizza stone and pizza paddles to go along with them. We found wooden ones with long handles or metal ones with short handles. We really liked the wooden ones so we got them and cut the handles off for anyone who didn't want to pack the long handles. We also made the kids books about Waldemaar Christian and Ella Dora Lybbert. Lisa was able to get to the Lybbert reunion this summer and saw that Marsha (Smith) Nelson had put the book together using Heritage Makers so Lisa copied it for our kids. It is a very cool book and if anyone wants a copy contact Lisa, she will tell you how you can buy one.

About the time the presents were winding down it was time to get our Skype call from Alex. It was of course the highlight of our day. We plugged our big screen TV into the laptop and there was Alex larger than life. What was also cool was that we could also conference in Brandon from Texas. 

It was also pretty cool because for both Alex and me it was the first time we got to see little Rosalie. 

Hayley has also grown a lot since Alex lost saw her. I love that little girl. I sure miss those girls.

We even got to meet Alex's companion, Elder Carcamo.

Monday we had scheduled the tide pools but it didn't quite work out that way. Kira went for breakfast with her friends, Alycia went to breakfast with her friends, Ben, Trevor and Justin went and played football with their friends. By the time we got everyone back home it was too late to do the tide pools so we went to a movie instead. We figured "I Bought a Zoo" would be a cool movie for the kids. Wrong. It was a very adult movie and not at all what we expected. It was still a good movie but Evan and Landon did not enjoy it.

Following the movie we did Christmas Card Lane. Normally we walk the entire thing but it was late and we were tired so we rolled down the windows in the van and drove slowly. 

--------------------trivia--------------------

Scientists have designed a nanoparticle that will stab a microscopic knife into bacteria but will leave human cells alone. It appears to work on those nasty drug resistant bacteria like MRSA. Human trials will start in a few years.

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Christmas Eve

Alycia and Trevor arrived on the Friday before Christmas and then Ben and Sharley arrived Christmas Eve. Noticeably absent from our home was Brandon, Serene and their girls and Alex. Both had good excuses to skip out on all of our fun but it was still sad not having them. Alex, of course, is on his mission in Chili and Brandon and Serene are in Texas. 

Serene was due to have a baby on Christmas day so I guess it wouldn't have been wise to travel while in such a delicate condition. Little Rosalie was actually born while we were on our way to Disneyland. How exciting is that? I was still rooting for Christmas Day but I'm sure little Rosalie will be glad to be able to celebrate before the Christmas excitement.

Saturday morning we had a choir practice. Our Christmas program was essential our ward choir singing and of course my favorite part was Kira's two solo's. I just love listening to her play her Oboe. It is so beautiful. 

Grandma helped the boys ice some cookies.

Christmas Eve at the Leavitt household is a major production. It all started when our kids were little and we had them act out the Nativity story. Once they got a bit more talented we had them actually perform. Since we forced all of our kids to start out on an instrument it got to be rather high caliber. Over the years I would say it has actually degraded a bit talent wise but it has sure become a lot more fun. We also have a tradition of caroling to our neighbors. When the kids were all playing instruments we actually had a pretty good performance. Kira on her Oboe, Brandon on his violin, Ben on his trumpet,  Alycia on the flute, Alex on his  Saxaphone and Sarah on her clarinet. I don't think we actually had all six of them at the same time but we did have all of them. This year we skipped the instruments and just sang. Our neighbors all look forward to us coming.

Our talents this year were as follows:

Kira shared a video of one of her Oboe performances. Beautiful as always

Justin bench pressed Evan and Landon

Ben made his famous street taco's for us. 

His lovely wife of course gave him a hand. 

Sharley made home made ice-cream. Delicious.

Trevor did a magic trick. It was actually really good. I have no idea how he did it.

Alycia read a story about the history of Nativities. It seemed quite relevant seeing as we were surrounded by dozens of them. 

And Sarah showed us all how to give a proper back rub. She demonstrated on Sharley. I'm not sure why she didn't pick me.

Evan showed us how he can drink milk like a cat. Pretty good if you ask me.

Landon sang "Red Solo Cup" and did a really good job of it. It was very cute and we were all singing that song all week long.

Lisa normally does a nativity video which she did again this year but it was a different video. Very nice. I normally read the nativity story out of Luke II but this year I cheated and let Linus tell the story from the Peanut's Christmas Show.  

After the talent show we always let the kids open up one present before they go to bed. They don't get to choose which present however and the present we always gave them was pajamas or something similar. Once they married we quit doing the Christmas Eve present but Now Kira and Justin are doing it with their kids. When Evan opened up his pajamas he was so upset that he started bawling. That made all of us laugh which only made him bawl even louder. It was sooo funny. 

What was even more funny is that Alycia decided that her and Trevor would do the Christmas Eve pajama tradtion and when Trevor opened his pajamas (which were actually some work out clothes) he started crying too. For a second he actually had her fooled until she realized he was copying Evan. It was funny. 

We then let the kids have a brief sword fight with their fancy Disneyland swords and put them to bed. 

And then we played well into the night. We of course paid for it the next morning when the kids wanted to get up early but hey, who has time for sleep when your family is home?

Everyone Arrives.

What a wonderful Christmas this was. I have had so much fun with my kids that I couldn't bear taking even just a few minutes to blog. I could write a book about the last three weeks but instead of posting a discourse so long that no one reads it I will take it just a day or two at a time.

Sarah was the first of the kids to arrive home and she flew into Long Beach on December 14. She had a look of shell shock on her face when we picked her up at the airport. This was a rough semester for her and the last month before finals was especially difficult. She worked hard and did well in all of her classes so we are all quite happy. I don't think anyone has been more grateful for a break that she was. She deserved the break and enjoyed in thoroughly.

We can't go to Long Beach and not drop in and say hi to Ben and Sharley so from the airport we went and picked them up and had Ben show us his new favorite taco place. It really was good and just talking about it I want to go and eat a couple.

Sarah was thrilled to see some of her friends.

The next person to arrive was Grandma Shaw. She flew in on Saturday, December 17. I don't remember too much exciting happening until the next week Wednesday, December 21 when Kira, Justin and their boys arrived. We never had a boring moment after that. Kira and Justins Christmas present to us was a trip to Disneyland and the best day for that just happened to be the next day. It probably wasn't the best idea for Kira and Justin since they didn't even have a chance to recover from their trip. The next morning we got up early and headed for Disneyland. It was a blast.

Our tree this year was beautiful. We got it at Costco and it was way cheaper than anywhere else. It was probably the fullest and most beautiful tree we've ever had. Next year however I think we're going artificial.

Grandma came with us and since we didn't want her to slow us down too much nor did we want to kill her we rented a wheel chair for her. I'm not sure where she is in this picture but Sarah decided to take a break. Do you notice how we're all bundled up? It was a very cold day.

Mom and Sarah on the caterpillar ride.

Here's my girls.

Me and my baby. How quickly they grow up. It seems like just yesterday I was holding her in my arms and now she is a real woman. 

Evan loved the merry go round.

So did Evan's daddy.

Disneyland is very wheel chair friendly. Many of their rides have special cars designed just for wheel chairs. Evan was able to stay in his chair for many of the rides. Here we are in "It's a small world".

This ride was for old times sake. Before we even moved to San Diego we took the kids to Disneyland. Kira and Brandon were barely tall enough to go on the rides but Ben was still too small. I really wanted to go on Space Mountain but Kira was way too scared. I eventually convinced her that it wasn't all that bad and so we left Ben with Grandma, Lisa went with Brandon and Kira and I went together. As soon as the car started moving Kira started screaming and never stopped until well after the ride was over. I think it was a good ten years before she ever went on another roller coaster. Here we are going on Space Mountain again. Not much has changed though. She still screamed from the beginning to the end. An interesting side story is how Brandon reacted with Lisa. They were in the front car and half way through the ride, in a calm and very serious tone, Brandon says to Lisa, "I think, we're going to die."

Come on Mom, why aren't you on a horse?

Alice in Wonderland is really a freaky story.

Here is Evan coming out of "It's a small world". Does that kid look happy or what?

Hey, there's a four generation picture.

 Did I mention that it was a rather cold day?

If you expand this picture you might notice snow flakes. While it was a cold day it wasn't that cold. They actually had a snow blower that blew out fake snow. It was little soap bubbles. Ben swears that they taste like  cotton candy but what little I could get in my mouth, I'm not convinced. Ben and Sharley actually bought pizza and we met up with them in Down Town Disney for dinner. It was good to see them.

 He looks like he's the King of the World doesn't he?

Let me tell you what a cool son-in-law I have. The boys (and Grandma) were great the entire day but come ten o'clock and they were getting pretty tuckered out. Justin insisted that Lisa and I stay with Kira while he took everyone else home. It was a lot of fun hanging out with Kira and we realized that this is the first time we've been alone with Kira since Brandon was born. Sarah likes to point out how it stinks being the youngest but I guess being the oldest also has it's down side. It really was special that we could just play with our eldest child. Thank you Justin.

Coincidentally Alycia came home for her friends wedding last September and she pointed out then that it was the first time that she's ever been home alone with Lisa and I. That was fun too. I love a large family and I wouldn't trade it for anything but I never realized how special it can be to spend time with just one child. I've spent one-on-one time with all of my kids but until Sarah was alone I don't think we've ever done two-on-one with any of the kids. It really is a lot of fun.

--------------------trivia--------------------

Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the world.

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Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Right now I'm rereading one of my all time favorite books. It's called, "Fishers of Men" by Lund. It is an historical fiction novel about a family who lived during the time of Christ. One of the reasons I like this book so much is because it almost makes you feel like you were living during that time and I truly believe that much of how this books portrays Christ is very close to how it must have been. The main character in the story was a young teenager when Christ was born and I recently read a part in the book when he tells his son about his experience. If you want to read what seems very much like an eye witness account of the shepherds experience on that night click on the link below.

click here

--------------------trivia-------------------

Network executives argued against having Linus read from the Bible in "A Charlie Brown Christmas" but Peanuts creator, Charles Schulz insisted on it. Shea, the voice of Linus, was 7 years old when he performed the part.

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Energy Vampires

The other night I was locking the doors and turning off the lights getting ready to go to bed. When the lights were all off and I was heading up the stairs I was struck but just how many little lights there were in my home even though everything was turned off. I've seen these lights many times but this time it sort of just hit me a little more powerfully. So much so that I even went and got my camera so I could share it with you. Of course this picture can only show the lights around my computers, it doesn't get the ones in the kitchen and the family room. Just to name some of the lights that come to mind without thinking too much about it I have.


Modem
Routers
cell phones
speakers
stove clock
microwave clock
house phones
lap tops
blue ray
cable box
stereo
xbox


I'm sure I'm missing something but you get the idea. They're like little vampires slowly sucking the energy out of my home.

--------------------trivia--------------------

The average house consumes about 200 watts of power 
even when everything is turned off.

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Lunar Eclipse

 Normally I use Saturday morning as a chance to sleep in but today I just had to get up at 6:00 and check out the last lunar eclipse of the year. In fact I think they are saying it is the last total eclipse for three years. This eclipse was unusual because it happened to occur just as the moon was setting and here in Southern California we had the ideal view. 


When an eclipse happens as the moon is setting the suns light passes through the earths atmosphere. The atmosphere scatters all of the light the blue end of the spectrum so all that is left to shine on the moon is the red end of the spectrum. That is why the moon looks so red during the eclipse. 


I thought I would have more time but as you can see from the pictures I only had a few minutes before the moon descended below the horizon. At that point I went right back to bed.


Today I finally got the Christmas decorations up. I usually do that the first Saturday after Thanksgiving but life has been way too busy this year. We also went and bought our tree. Now that the kids are gone we were bound and determined to buy an artificial tree this year but the nice fake trees are expensive and Costco had the real trees pretty cheap so I guess it won't happen this year. 


Tonight was the Church Christmas dinner. We had prime rib and it was really good. I love prime rib.

--------------------trivia--------------------

In 1961 we had 27 students per teacher and spent $2,800 per student (in 2011 dollars)

Today we have 16 students per teacher and spend $10,000 per student.

Students perform worse now than they did in 1961. I don't think money is the problem here.

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Austin - Flying Home

With every thing that has happened I never did finish the story of our visit to Austin. We were interrupted by Mom's surgery, non-functional furnaces, drunken rats and a myriad of other things that I haven't been able to share with you what turned out to be a very eventful day.


 We woke up Tuesday morning after Brandons ceremony to a lot of rain. Since our flight didn't leave until the afternoon we had a nice and relaxed morning visiting with Pam. We learned about a very bizarre Texan tradition on this trip. We stayed in Chase's bedroom and in his closet was a very strange object hanging on a hanger. At first glance it look like a large dead bird. It was called a Mum. I always thought that Homecoming consisted of a football game and a dance but not in Texas. In Texas (or at least in Austin) the boy (or usually his mother) makes a large frilly object that he gives to a special girl. The girl wears this thing all day around the school and then to the football game. It looked to me like it would nearly cut your head off but I guess they get quite excited about them. After all of that they don't have a homecoming dance. I guess the origins to this tradition date back to a time when the boy gave his girl a Mum (the flower) to wear. Eventually the ordinary flower wasn't adequate so it got doctored up a bit. This continued to the point where there is no longer a flower but the thing that remains is still called a mum. A very interesting tradition indeed.

We decided that we would have time to stop and take a tour of the state capitol building on our way to the airport. We picked up an umbrella for Lisa on our way down town. We parked and made our way to the visitors center and then headed over to the capitol building to catch the 1:30 tour. While we were standing there Lisa asked my how long our flight was. I had a copy of the email with the agenda in my phone so I looked it up and in doing so I noticed that our flight was supposed to leave at 1:45. For some reason I had shown in my calendar that the plan left around 4:00. We now had about 15 minutes to make a half hour drive to the airport. 


The trip to the airport went quickly and even stopping to get gas at a station where their credit card machine was down we still check the car in around 2:00. The car was empty and the car rental places charge you nearly ten bucks a gallon if you have them fill it for you. I may have paid that if I thought we could still catch our plane but since we were so late I stopped and filled it. 


When we got to the ticket counter I very sheepishly told them that we had missed our flight and was there anyway we could still get home today. To our surprise she told us that we had not missed our flight, it was late. I've never been so happy to hear that a flight was late. Now we had a whole new problem, our flight was so late that we would now miss our connection in Dallas. We were supposed to fly into Dallas, catch a flight to LA and then a flight to San Diego. At least now the problems were American's problems and not ours. After some finagling they were finally able to get us on a later flight out of Dallas that would eventually get us home after 11:00, we were originally going to get home somewhere around 9:00. 


So off to Dallas we went and as we were walking through the terminal Lisa so a gate with a sign that said there was a direct flight to San Diego. On a whim we decided to ask if there was any room left on the plane. There wasn't on that plane but after some checking the woman was able to get us on the next direct flight to San Diego and so we ended up getting home somewhere around 8:00 which was a good hour earlier than we were originally going to get home. Pretty cool eh?

--------------------trivia--------------------

Texas exports more product than any other state. California is a distant second but it has 50% more people. 

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It's the Christmas Season

I love Christmas time and this season just got a great kick start. I've mentioned before how much Lisa loves unique nativities and that she has a fantastic collection of them. Obviously the kids all know that as well so when Ben and Sharley went to their Stakes Nativity display yesterday and saw how wonderful it was of course his first thought was about how much his mother would enjoy that. He told her that the display would be over today (Sunday) at 9:00pm and so we decided to go up and visit them and see this wonderful display. We made some spaghetti sauce and took it up with us and Sharley made spaghetti, a wonderful salad and the most delicious peanut butter cookies you'll ever taste. After eating way too much we headed over to the church to see the display. It really was wonderful. I guess they've been doing this for twenty years and the place was packed. We could barely get parking. 


They had nativities from all over the world and amazingly four of Lisa's nativities were there. Obviously I couldn't take pictures of them all so here are just a few of my favorites. You'll have to forgive the poor quality, I didn't bother taking my good camera and Martha doesn't do too well in love light conditions. 

This Nativity was perhaps the coolest one there. It is from Mexico and consists of dozens of little figurines that the collector has gathered over the last thirty years. It is more like a nativity village.

 I don't know if this was my favorite one or not but it really drew me in. It is made from a rare clay that is only found in a narrow three foot thick seam in Alabama. The wise men are American Indian warriors and the baby Jesus is a papoose. The animals consist of a buffalo, wolf, horse and bear. The color of the figurines was very unique and I assume it was the native color of the clay. 

Lisa loved this nativity from Australia.  

I'm not so sure I liked this one all that much but it is certainly unique and it is from New Zealand so I had to take a picture of it. 

This nativity is similar to the Alabama one in that it consists of American Indian traditions and it is made from native materials. This one is made from volcanic ash from Mount St Helens. How cool is that? The teepee also adds a nice touch. Sharley liked the cactus.

--------------------trivia--------------------

A wolf is born deaf but an adult wolf can hear another wolf howl from ten miles away.

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