Christmas Holidays

As my children have gotten older, I have been thinking about how to capture the true meaning of Christmas. Garrett has been very concerned with all the things "he is going to get for Christmas." I have been reading and talking to friends to see what they do to instill compassion and service in their children during the holiday season. I have come up with some ideas and will continue to research ideas through the year so I can have a plan for next year. Please leave your ideas as comments.

We did do several new things this holiday season. First, the boys put the tree because Garrett was too excited to wait for mommy to come home from school. Daddy, Julius, Sean, Garrett, and Noah had the tree put up before I came home. Above you can see the tree behind Garrett. Garrett also played hockey too. Also, every time we went grocery shopping, we had to buy candy canes to put on the tree. I think we put about 30 candy canes on the tree.

Next, we also went on a hay ride at Jackson Rancheria. In hindsight, we probably will not necessarily make this a family holiday tradition because we waited in line for 1 hour for a 15 minute ride. It was fun, nonetheless. Garrett and Noah saw Santa Clause, ate Christmas cookies, and drank hot chocolate. Mrs. Dalton had over 1 million lights strung along the road that leads to her house. It was very amazing to see. It took a crew of 8 men, working 8 hours a day, over a month to put them all up. Could you imagine untangling that many lights? Not mention what you would have to go through to fix strains that had burned-out bulbs. I would not have the patience and probably would just buy new ones. Notice that I no longer have braces (although the green retainers do show through)!


We also built a gingerbread house. That was quite an experience, and we had the kit. It took many hours so I could not imagine how long one made from scratch would take. I am also not a very good cake decorator so putting on the icing was a challenge to me. It was far from perfect, but Garrett had such a good time putting it together it was worth doing (even though I had a sinus infection!). Please enjoy the grand finale of our gingerbread house adventure in the video posted below.

I also wanted to learn to bake more holiday treats. My children could help, and we could bring plates of goodies to our friends and neighbors. I was a little ambitious for my first time. I failed to cook Almond Rocha twice. I undercooked one batch and overcooked the other. I think if I did it a third time, I would probably be able to do it. I am hopeful this is true, however, we will not know for sure until I try it. maybe next year will do better!

I think next year we will also build the manger for baby Jesus. I will find a manager and a baby Jesus we can put on the dining room table. Baby Jesus will arrive on Christmas Eve night. Our job is to make sure that there is enough straw in the manger for him to sleep warmly. After doing something nice for someone, you can put some straw on the manger. This activity will hopefully help my children learn the value of service.

Thanksgiving 2008

It has been a while since I have had time to add a post. I thought I would go back to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Thanksgiving was fun this year because all of the family was together including Great-Grandmother. I had the entire week off which was really nice. The week before Thanksgiving, Dr. Duong took off my braces. I picked my retainer color as green. In hindsight, I probably should have chosen a clear color because the green shows through my front teeth. This does show up in pictures! On Monday, I picked up my retainers. I have to wear them day and night for three months. I talk like I have lisp when I wear them. It sure has taken my students awhile to understand me when I talk while wearing them! I have gotten used to them so they are not too bad. I even talk better with them in now!

We had fun relaxing and preparing for Thanksgiving. Although, dinner was at my brother John's house, I did volunteer to feed the missionaries the following day. We ate a great dinner, had great conversations, watched the kids play the Wii, and walked to the park. Above is a picture of Garrett drinking soda with his cousin, JT. Below is a video of Noah with his Papa. I was in charge of the mashed potatoes and the pecan pie. This was relatively easy compared to cooking the entire Turkey dinner for the missionaries.

The day after Thanksgiving, I cooked for the missionaries. I cooked a full turkey dinner except for the homemade stuffing. I had no clue how to cook a turkey. I did however watch Martha Stewart on demand. It was very helpful. Julius also helped me clean and prepare the turkey. I also had found a really useful web page that helped me figure out how to cook my turkey. I cooked it on 450 for about 20 minutes. I then cooked it at 250 for about 5 hours. It worked really well because the meat was really juicy and fell off the bone. Of course, I had forgotten to buy a meat thermometer so I gave Jordan a good excuse to go to the Bass Pro Shop. I also cooked mash potatoes, dressing (from the box), salad, vegetables, rolls, and pies. Mary and Mike also ate dinner with use. Afterwards, we went to watch the Thunder play hockey.

We had a great time. I was really impressed with my ability to cook a turkey. I did not think it would turn out so well. I have been lucky that Thanksgiving was always at other family members' home. I never had to cook a whole turkey before this year. It worked so well that I cooked one on Christmas Day too! (that will be a post for another day).

My grandmother stayed the night with us on Saturday night and went to church with us the next morning. We had fun folding laundry and cooking dinner. She was able to read Garrett a story before bed. I shot video of Grandmother reading Garrett Hickory Dickory Dock. I tried up loading the video, but I think the file was too big to properly upload. I will try to do it again for another post. However, my Grandmother even survived going to church with a 4 year old and a 10 month old.

We had our big meal after church. After lunch, Grandmother played games with Garrett. They played Aggravation and Candy Land. Garrett thought it would be great to then play Catapult. This of course is a game daddy picked out for Garrett and is much too old for him to play the correct way. I think that Garrett really enjoys setting up the game and knocking it down.

It was really nice to have Grandmother visit us. We talked about memories she had as a child. She remembers that once year her father gave some of her dolls to a family that needed the dolls for their daughters. Grandmother remembers that the girls left the dolls outside and did not take care of them. That is always disappointing when once sacrifices for others, and the gift is not appreciated. Nonetheless, it was fun to listen to her stories.

We really liked our vacation especially since Jordan's days off corresponded with Thanksgiving. Garrett is really excited about the upcoming Christmas holiday. I would like to create some new traditions for our family. I have been talking to my friends to see what they do. I have found some new ideas. Some I will not be able to do this year. Maybe next. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment.

Progression

This posting will need to be quick. I thought I would show off my new skills by uploading video of my children. In the first video, Garrett reflects on the future. He is always telling Jordan and I about "when he grows up." I thought you would like to see Garrett's thoughts on his future straight from the horse's mouth. Enjoy.

The second video is one of Noah crawling. He is just learning how to crawl and is now really good at what we call "commando crawling." He is still trying to learn to crawl the traditional way, but he cannot quite figure out how to move his arms and legs. Because our entire house is tiled, it has made this feat even more difficult for Noah.

We are still waiting for the factory to submit some information to the engineer. Once that is done, we will resubmit our plans to the city. Hopefully, we will be good to go the second time around!

Enjoy until next time! By the way, if you scroll to the bottom of the our blog, you will see I have added a new photo slide show.

Green Acres Is the Place to Be

Some of my students were talking about fruit trees. I chimed in that I had several fruit trees. They asked me what kind I had so I started naming different trees in growing orchard. They asked me what else I had at my house so I told them about our 50 or so chickens and our 25 or so goats. They wanted to take a field trip to my house. I think they wanted out of doing their journal question. To the left is a picture of our goat field. Right now we are discing the field and planting a pasture. Pasture and fencing will definitely not only improve the value of our property but will give me piece of mind knowing that Garrett and Noah will be safer inside a fenced yard, albeit a really big fenced yard. To the right is a picture of our garden. We use raised beds to grow most of the vegetables and some fruit like tomatoes. Weeds are a big problem in our garden. The raised beds reduce the amount of water our garden needs and the weeds we have to pull. Besides, it will look nice when we have finished our garden. Our goal is to plant the rest of the fruit and nut trees, add landscape cover, gravel, and more raised beds, and build a green house. Although you cannot really make much money farming only a few acres, we decided to turn our liability into an asset by planting this garden to help reduce grocery costs and eat better quality food. I will defiantly learn to can and will share with any family member that wants fruits, nuts, and veggies! We are also raising chickens that lay eggs and chickens that will be dinner. When I talked about eating our chickens, Garrett reminds me that chickens are for laying eggs and not for eating. When he tells me this, I remember a time when John, Amanda, and I were sitting around our table at our house in Utah. We were happily eating stew until one of my parents let it slip that there was elk meet in the stew. Almost in unison, we all chimed, "Yuck, elk!" I guess what goes around comes around because I am trying to teach Garrett to eat right and like fruits and vegetables. If it isn't lasagna, pizza, or cheeseburgers, it is yucky!


For those who have not been to our house, we live on about 5 acres of land. Although I do not care for our house (we will remodel and or build another house on our acreage), I really like our location. We live on a dead end street and not so far from the nearest city and freeway. We have a blueberry patch across the street, an empty field on one side, great neighbors on the other side, a large empty field behind our house, and walnut and cheery orchards within walking distance. Sadly, we have no other cchildren on our street so Garrett will either play with his brother, cousins, or travel to friends home. To the left is a picture of Garrett climbing one of the walnut trees that has sadly almost been destroyed by the goats. Behind Garrett is our water machine that should be making us money instead of sitting in a goat field. It is never dull at the Lee Family home!

Garrett has many things we can do at our house. He can climb trees, ride tractors, chase animals, pick walnuts or other goodies from the garden, ride his bike, or run to his heart's content. To the right is a picture of Garrett riding his tractor. He really loves tractors especially combines. As you can guess, his favorite part of the movie Cars is when Frank wakes up! Garrett also likes to collect leaves and rocks as well as gather the chicken eggs. Although, I think he is a little afraid of the chickens! I am sure Noah will learn many trick from his older brother! Right now, more than anything Garrett wants to be a farmer with farm animals and lots of tractors. He even told me that when he grows up and has his farm, he will build me a house. I can live in it only after I pay him money for it. He must be listening to his daddy talk about business while mommy is teaching school!


The water machine is still in the goat field. We have someone from a welding lab coming to exam the welds. I hope that all of our "to do list" is completed soon so we can open for business! Sometimes it is hard to know what to do when you haven't gone through the process. Hindsight is always 20/20 they say, and boy is that saying correct. We will definitely do things differently now that we know the process. It is too bad we did not know the end from the beginning! We are going to have the newspaper come out and do a story. Everyone in our family is invited to come if they want to be part of the celebration! After all, we are the first Mr. Zippy's Express Ice and Water House in our state! Not bad for a young family! To right and below is a picture of our machine's location. It might not seem like the best location. This is the easiest place to put our machine because the factory rep for our area owns the lot. At least I am not paying a rental fee while the machine sits in our field. However, when choosing a location, one has to consider the demographic that will use the machine the most. In our case, we feel like the Hispanic population will use our machine the most. If you were to turn and look in the other direction, you would see a taqueria that has been open for many years and has quite the loyal customer base. We have eaten there a few times. They have really good food so I can see why many people enjoy eating there. Maybe they will buy ice and water from us while they wait for their dinner to cook! It seems like forever we have been waiting for this machine to come. I hope that it will do well like we expect. If this machine is profitable, then more machines will be easier to purchase, permit, and install. My students ask me every week how the machine is doing. They want me to bring them in some Mr. Zippy ice. I think they are just buttering me up!

On Saturday, we attended the opening game of our local minor league hockey team. We upgraded to the business section so my husband could give tickets away to clients and the cost of the tickets would be a tax deduction. We have a restaurant behind out seats. We ate a great dinner that was actually cheaper than eating at the concession stands! The game was not a disappointment for hockey fans. I saw at least 6 fights. We had to leave after the second quarter because Jordan had to go to work. Our team was behind by one point. I am guessing they lost the games. But miracles happen!

I hope you have enjoyed our family adventures this week. Please have a good week!

Only Time Will Tell

Our new water machines has arrived. Unfortunately, the City has not been upfront with all of the permits so we are in the process of having our engineer make corrections to the blue prints. In the meantime, Mr. Zippys is spending quality time in the field making friends with the goats, chickens, turkeys, and whomever else lives in the shadows of the pasture. Here are pictures of Jordan and his friends, Vic and Vince, unloading the machine. Although it is comical that the machine is in the field, it is frustrating all the same because it seems as if the red tape is never ending. If people could only do their job, then all of this could have been avoided because we would have had all the proper permits and corrections made long before the machine arrived in California. We will immediately be securing a lease and pulling permits for the next machine before we even order it!

Jordan had shirts made up for our water vending business. Both Garrett and Noah have Mr. Zippys attire. Our next family picture will be in our new shirts! Hopefully, we can take a picture in front of our machine! To the left you can see Garrett in his Mr. Zippy shirt. The boys have white shirts with the logo embroidered on the shirt. The adult version has racing strips on the collar and sleeves. In the background, you can catch a glimpse of our garden (and some of the field). We have been working hard on using our land to help us become more self-sufficient and to allow our family to eat less processed foods. We are going to add several trees next spring including oranges, nectarines, peaches, apples, pistachios, macadamia nuts, almonds, pecans, and grapefruits. We are also going to add some vines including grapes and kiwis. We are going to add more raised beds and cover more weeds with landscaping cloth and gravel. We are also going to build a greenhouse. I am surely going to have learn how to can fruits and vegetables!

Speaking of trees, walnuts are now ripening. Every year we have lived here, the squirrels have gotten the walnuts before we could harvest them. This year I have help. Julius, Sean, Garrett, and I pick some every day. Even if they are a little under ripened. If you leave the nuts in the sun, they ripen just fine. We have gathered several pounds already! Now my TA will spend the next few weeks cracking them all. This past Saturday, Sean, Garrett, Noah (in his new EllaRoo sling) and I were gathering nuts. Because we have one tree that is really tall, we had to knock them down with sticks. Since we do not grow walnuts for a living, we do not have all of the fancy harvesting equipment. Garrett was more worried about the goats eating his leaves (for his leaf collection) than gathering the nuts. Nevertheless, we had fun!