Ward Christmas Party and Christmas Morning

Our Ward Christmas Party was fun- lots of yummy food and fun games. They had Candy Guessing Jars and Kaleb won a jar full of Hershey's Kisses. He guessed the closest number all by himself! He also won another candy treat when he answered a trivia questions about The Grinch correctly.

Robert Bowden, the former conductor of the Boston Pops Symphony and Mormon Symphony Orchestra (the latter of which I was a member of), came to our party. His daughter is in our ward, and she asked him to lead the Sing-a-Long. He was entertaining and did a great job. I re-introduced myself to him and he made a joke during the presentation about the "former Orchestra member" in the audience that could vouch for him being a mean conductor. He was threatening to make people come up front and sing solos if he didn't see them singing.

Bro. Bowden asked for our Stake President, who has a beautiful tenor voice, to choose 3 other people to come sing a quartet of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and I was chosen to sing alto. That was sorta fun. :)

We picked up Kaleb, Elise, and Isaak at about 11:30 on Christmas Day. Macy patiently waited to open her presents until we got home. It was a rushed day- we hurried and opened presents, then went to my parents and opened more presents. Then at about 2:30 we drove down to Spanish Fork for a party with my dad's family. That was fun- we read the Christmas Story and sang hymns, and then played Bingo.

We had another Christmas Party with my mom's family on Sat. the 29th, where we also played Bingo. Our house is inundated with candy (that I've been slowly throwing in the garbage, so no one will notice.) :) We hope you all had a great Christmas as well!

Birthdays

We had a combined birthday party for Elise and Isaak on Dec. 16th. It was a little early for them both, but the only time we could all get together with my family. I made a cake and the kids chose how they wanted it decorated. We didn't get many good pictures because our batteries were low and the lighting was bad. But here are a few. Elise turned 7 and Isaak turned 4.

On Sat. Dec 15th I took the girls to see "The Nutcracker" and Robert took the boys to see "Alvin and the Chipmunks". It was "Girls Date" and "Boys Date" day. We all had a good time. I also took Elise to the violin store and we picked out a violin to rent. I've been giving her lessons and she's doing really well. I'll put some pics of that up soon.

Honeymooning

We drove to California the week after our wedding and stayed at my grandparents house for a night. The next morning, after realizing we had forgotten our birth certificates in Utah, my friend Laura frantically searched every nook and cranny of our house to try to find them and fax them to us. After about two hours, luckily her one year old son crawled under our couch and found them. Then we got lost in Pasadena on our way to Harbor Blvd in L.A.

Somehow we made it safely (and legally) aboard the ship and cruised to San Diego. Robert was excited to be back near his old stomping ground. We rode the bus to the Museum in Balboa Park and saw an exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Seaport Village was the place for lunch- a yummy cafe built right on a pier. We filled up, since our dinner rotation on the ship was at 8:00 p.m. Good thing they fed us a 3 course meal! The food was definitely the best part about the whole cruise.

Catalina Island was our second stop. Robert remembered canoeing there on a Boy Scout trip in his youth. Ah youth. The city is basically built right up the side of the hill- very interesting. We went snorkeling in the 62 (felt like 42!) degree water. Thank goodness for full wetsuits. Yes, it was frigid, thanks for asking. And despite Rob's mask not repelling water/fogginess, we enjoyed ourselves. Too bad there were no showers for us when we were done- the water was nasty. So, we scrubbed as well as we could in the bathrooms, then grabbed a quick bite to eat, did a little shopping and skedaddled back to the ship to shower.

The last port was Ensenada, Mexico. The sign for the "New Shopping Center" made us laugh, since it looked pretty old. In fact, most everything we saw was old, run-down, and filthy. Sad. We took a bus tour to "La Bufadora", which means "Buffalo Snort". It's one of three natural blowholes in the world. (Wikipedia... "La Bufadora is the second largest blowhole in the world, and can shoot upwards as high as 80 feet above sea level." It was low tide when we were there, so not super impressive, but not hard to imagine.

Our most interesting story from the marketplace near the blowhole was that we looked for a silver and tanzanite ring and talked the merchant down from $300 to $50. We were so disenchanted by the time he got to $90 that we were halfway down the street. He was chasing us, lowering the price as we went. It was pretty funny, actually. Maybe we should have bought it. Oh well.

We went back to downtown Ensenada and ate lunch in a nice cafe. They had SUPER hot salsa, and I tried Mole for the first time. Put an accent on the end... I did not eat a rodent. It's sort of a cocoa/gravy type sauce they put on chicken. Anyhoo...

The day we got back to L.A. we decided that we couldn't possibly be THAT close to Disneyland and NOT go. So we went. Rob hasn't been for like 15 years, so it was almost like going with a kid. It was lots of fun, and everything was decorated for Christmas. It was the best honeymoon ever.

Our Wedding

I finally figured out how to get our wedding pics into a slideshow for your viewing pleasure. We were married on 11/9/07 in Herriman, Utah. We're grateful to all who were able to come, and missed those who weren't. Things have been busy with the holidays and our honeymoon, etc. I'll be putting pics of those things up soon.

Enjoy and Happy New Year!!

Photos taken by Bair Photography

Homeschool Halloween Party

Last Friday Macy and I picked up the kids from daycare right after lunch. They were excited because they got to miss "Quiet Time". We went to Riverton Park and they changed into their costumes in the car. One of the moms in my homeschool group organized a Halloween party that was really fun. There were crafts, games, candy, donuts, and apple juice. Plus the kids got to play on the playground. They had a fun time.






Afterwards, they all promised they would be good as we went to Office Max. I wanted to buy some legal size file folders so we could start making "Lapbooks". They are a record of topics you learn about. I figure that even though we don't have the kids all the time we can still learn about things together when we do have them.


Their reward for being good in Office Max was to go to a pumpkin patch and they each got to choose a pumpkin. We took them back to my parents' house and painted them. They turned out pretty cute. We had pizza for dinner, then went over to the new house we're renting. After I helped Rob bring the beds in we read a couple of books about pumpkins together. On Sunday we spent some time working on a lapbook about pumpkins. I'll post pics of those later.

Poetry

Robert has published some of his poems on a separate blog. See them here.

Anxiously Engaged

On September 19th, Robert called me and invited me to come over to his house. He had prepared a nice dinner of spaghetti and garlic bread, complete with peanut m&m's. We ate and talked at a beautifully laid candlelit table while listening to soft music from his laptop. Robert reiterated all the reasons why he loves me, why our relationship is so wonderful, and why we want to spend our lives together. Then he came over to my chair, knelt down, and read me a short, but sweet poem that he had written as he slipped the ring over my finger.

To Thee My Love

To Thee my Love I promise this
with each and every tender kiss,
Thy burdens shared and thy heart uplifted
Thy fears repelled, my comfort gifted.

A thought too sweet for the Heart of man,
to hold, to kiss thy delicate hand
My Love, My Angel Divine
to hope, to pray. Wilt thou be mine?

He softly said, "Kayleen will you marry me?" and I said, "You are my way back into love. Yes I will marry you." Then he pulled me to my feet and we slowly danced and kissed for a little while. The apartment was a good place to get engaged (even though I can't wait for him to move out of it... lol) because that was where we first met, first hugged, and first kissed.

Below is a not very good picture of the ring. To see a better one, go to www.callacut.com , click on "Collection" and look for the first ring on the second page. We will not be adding the wedding band to it right now- just the engagement band.

The wedding is November 9th at 6:30 pm in Herriman. We are so excited to begin our life together and look forward to all the blessings that a happy, satisfying, complete relationship will bring to us!