Making Christmas

We are having such a ball ringing in the holiday season around our house. We have the unique opportunity this year to have a very limited circle of friends down here, which therefore allows us to focus our time and energy on our little family. Scott and I started out by doing a date night and began our Christmas shopping on that night. It was so blissful walking through a HUGE beautiful mall without a wee one in tow. We debated this year about getting a Christmas tree or not, since I unfortunately forgot to bring down a single Christmas decoration. Our first plan was to go to the mountains with Lindsi and cut one down, but when that didn't work out we instead started looking around at some local tree lots. Being raised in a family where we never spent more than $10 on a tree since we just bought a permit and then found one in the forest, I was horrified to find out that even a dinky little tree was going to cost us no less than $45, then buy a stand, and some decorations, hmmm, a bit much on the budget. So we finally settled on going to the good 'ol Wally World and picking out a "beautiful" $20 artificial number and as Scott puts it, spent about $3.50 on decorations, came home put all the pieces together and voila, here stands our sweet Charlie Brown tree. The part that really matters is that the 3 of us did this all together and had a great time doing it! After erecting this wonder of a tree, Scott took one look at it and declared "now if that's not Christmas, I don't know what is."

Next I of course had to start pestering Scott about getting on writing the letter for this year. So as usual the first step in this process is to take a family picture, which as Scott already mentioned, that was fiasco, with no less than 100 shots snapped, and no more than 3 good ones out of the batch. But without fail, we combined our efforts and letter has successfully been mailed.
Next came this last weekend of baking Christmas cookies. Scott and I got a head start on it and made one batch on Friday night and the dough for sugar cookies. Then Lindsi came over on Saturday and I made a ton of sugar cookies and she and I spent hours frosting and decorating them. Scott was the photographer and official taste tester with the help of Cohen. We all had a blast together and for the first time Cohen learned how to say Lindsi and kept calling her over to show her his trucks, colors, etc. Later that evening Scott and I finished the task off by making a third batch, the peanut butter filled Ritz dipped in white chocolate. So all in all we have a ridiculous amount of cookies around our house and have delivered 2 plates to the neighbors, 2 plates to Lindsi's house, 2 plates to her work, 2 plates to my work, and still have managed to have a supply for the homefront.

Tonight, Scotty came up with the idea to go look at Christmas lights, so he hopped on the internet, found a street close by, and the three of us jumped in the Tahoe and headed to Chandler. What we found was incredible. Not only was each house in the whole cul d' sac decorated to the hilt in its own style, but at the end of the lane was a huge lighted, wooden set up accompanied by surround sound, telling the entire story of Christ's birth, death, and resurrection. It was a breathtaking reminder of what this season is about and why we have a Christmas at all. What I love most about these pictures is that it was still 55 degrees tonight and yes we have our son in a stocking hat and gloves, hey that's cold to us now.

All in all our little family of three is thoroughly enjoying celebrating the Christmas season together.

Recent Happenings

We have been getting into the Christmas spirit around here, even if it is sunny and 60 degrees! Last week Trish and I went out on a "date night". I have no idea why I just felt the need to use quotations, because we actually did go out on a date. We went to dinner at Z Tejas in Chandler and then headed over to the HUGE Chandler mall to do some Christmas shopping. The mall is a lot like Bellevue Square, only bigger. It has every store you could ever imagine and then some. It sure is a change living down here from living in Yakima. It was so nice to have some time to ourselves and do a little reconnecting. We had a fantastic dinner and a really nice time just walking the mall without a stroller. Also, since we don't the chance to go out just the two of us very often, we went to a late movie. We saw The Blind Side, which is a hard to believe, but true, story. I would highly recommend it if you are looking for a feel good movie.
On Saturday we went down to Tempe Town Lake to try and take some family pictures. I'm pretty sure Meagan took about 200 pictures of us and we were barely able to find one suitable for the christmas card. I'm sure I'd rather have a root canal than take pictures with a 20 month old again. We did get some great shots of Cohen and Stella together though that are a lot of fun.


On Sunday, Trish ran in her first race to prepare for her marathon in January. She ran the Fiesta Bowl half marathon in Scottsdale and did awesome! She finished in under 2 hours and really enjoyed running in a timed race. I am so proud of her; it is quite an accomplishment!

Thanksgiving

So, I have been told by a good friend (who's wife is an avid blogger) that I am a "shi**y blogger". Ouch. That hurt down to the core, friend who shall remain nameless.

On to more important things. We are finally recovering from Thanksgiving and having Trish's entire family in town, and staying at our house, for the week of Thanksgiving. I would love to post pictures of the festivities, but we neglected to take a single picture the entire week. Whoops, I guess we were just too busy playing golf, shopping, driving F1 Go Karts, going to the Phoenix Suns game, swimming, bowling, jumping on the trampoline, going to the zoo, going to the bouncy house, eating lots and lots of good food, dancing and generally having a great time. It was so much fun to have family in town, something we have REALLY missed being down here in Phoenix. Trish's sister Bethanie and her husband Darren and their two kids, along with her sister Shawna, her husband Bryon and their daughter stayed at our house (if you are counting, including us that is 10 people at our house) and Trish's parents stayed with Trish's other sister Lindsi at her house. Lindsi only lives about 5 miles from us, so it was easy to spend lots of time together. It was hard to have everyone leave, and Cohen spent the few days after wandering around the house asking where everyone was. We can't wait until January when we will be home to visit and see everyone again.

Here is a new picture of Cohen. It really is amazing how fast he is growing up.

What are we doing?

Ok, it's been way too long since we have updated this thing. I guess you could say life has been a bit busy. I'll try to recap a bit. For those of you who don't know (does anyone read this thing anyway?), Trish, Cohen and I have moved to Phoenix so I can pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a golf pro. Let me clarify....I am not going out on the PGA Tour. Everyone asks that whenever I say I am training to become a golf pro. I am hoping to become a club professional. We moved down here so that I could go to school at the Golf Academy of America. This is a 16 month program that will give me the skills I need to teach the game of golf, run a pro shop, manage employees, run tournaments, etc. Basically, I will get 5-10 years of knowledge crammed down my throat in the next 16 months. I should probably pay attention. That's a lot of stuff. Anyway, I also get the time to work on my own game with 2-3 rounds of golf per week and unlimited time at the driving range.



I guess the real story starts back in May, when Trish and I were talking about the future and what we wanted to do. Both of us were very happy in Yakima, near family and friends, both with good, secure jobs. However, Trish knew that in the back of my mind I had always wanted to give golf school a shot, and that not having a degree was eating away at me. We researched a few schools, and found the GAA in Phoenix. We took a trip down here in June, and I was able to tour the campus and play a round of golf with some current students. I really felt called to come here at that point. We were able to secure housing pretty easily, as Trish's sister Lindsi lives in Phoenix and had a second house, sitting empty, waiting to be sold or rented. We agreed to rent the house from her, and as it turns out, the location is almost exactly between school for me and work for Trish. The hardest part was breaking the news to our friends and family in Washington. Thankfully, we are blessed to have been surrounded with wonderful people who all gave us nothing but encouragement. Sure, there were tears (on both ends) but we have had nothing but support from everyone.



Our biggest hurdle was Cohen. Living in Yakima, we had phenomenal childcare (thanks to Margaret) and the thought of putting Cohen in daycare was tough to swallow. Trish's good friend Meagan, however, became the solution to our problem. Trish and I prayed long and hard about what to do, and the thought came to us to ask Meagan, who was a social worker at the time, to move down to Phoenix with us and become a live in nanny for Cohen. Meagan had been thinking for a while about going back to school to obtain her Master's degree, and taking a bit of a break seemed like a nice idea to her. So, she quit her job and moved down with us. She has been such a blessing to Trish, Cohen and I. Cohen absolutely loves "Meg Meg" and she loves him back. We never have to worry when we leave the house...Cohen is in loving hands.



Trish was able to find a job working at the Phoenix Indian Medical Center. A former co-worker from Yakima had moved down here a few years ago, and Trish gave her a call to find out if they had any openings. Sure enough, they were about to post one for a labor and delivery nurse, and Trish applied and was hired within 3 days. The hospital is run by the federal government, which means Trish is a government employee. A perk about working for the government...they paid for us to move down here! All we had to do was get our vehicles down here and they took care of the rest.



So, with everything falling into place so perfectly, on August 22nd, my step-dad Dave and I left Yakima and drove three vehicles (my Tahoe, towing Meagans car and Dave driving Trish's Subaru). I got to spend my birthday in Wells, NV, which, I highly do not recommend. We did, however, spend a couple days in Vegas, so it was a great trip and really nice to spend a little quality time with Dave, something I had really missed living in Yakima.



All in all, we are very happy down here. It has been a big adjustment, and I am MUCH more homesick than I ever thought I would be. We have had lots of visitors though ( and would love more!) and Trish has been able to make a trip back home with Cohen. We have found a church already that we both really enjoy that has a great children's program too. We both really feel God has placed us down here for the time being, but are hopeful to return to Yakima when school is over. Cohen is doing well and is changing everyday. He has a new word almost daily and is such a happy boy.



I hope to be a better blogger and keep this thing updated, mostly with pictures and stories about Cohen, because let's face it...he really is the star around here.

Mohawk

I guess they call this a "faux hawk". Either way, he looks like a 4 year old now!

Wenatchee

On Sunday after church, we loaded up and drove up to Wenatchee to visit our wonderful friends Tom and Kristen Moberg and their 3 boys Bradley, Noah and Caleb. Trish and Kristen met in nursing school at SPU and have been friends ever since. Cohen absolutely LOVES his "brothers" and has such a blast playing with the boys. They treat Cohen like one of their own. We will truly miss the Moberg's when we are in Arizona.


From these pictures, it looks like Cohen had a screw loose, rake licking, yogurt smearing, bathtub splashing, warm towel drying, dresser climbing, neck sniffing GREAT time at the Moberg house!

We also had a chance to visit Trish's Nonni, who lives in Wenatchee as well. You wouldn't know it by visiting with her, but a few months ago she fell and broke her hip, was in the hospital for a couple weeks, and a rehab center for a few more weeks after that. She doesn't use a walker, is back out fishing and gardening, and is even driving around town. Oh yeah, and she is 93. What an amazing lady!

The Amazing Race

Trish and I are big fans of the CBS television show "The Amazing Race". For those of you who have not seen the show, it consists of 12 teams of couples racing literally around the world, following clues, completing tasks and having the time of their life. It is such a fun show to watch, and we get hooked every season. So naturally, when our church announced some months back that they would be hosting a modified 2 day version of the Amazing Race, we were quick to sign up. Trish's sister Bethanie and her husband Darren are also huge fans of the show, so Trish and I asked them to join us as a team. Our team name, "Family Feud" couldn't have been further from the truth. We worked so well together and had so much fun.

pre race photo shoot


We started out at Yakima Foursquare Church Friday afternoon at about 4:30 for registration, dinner and rules. At 6pm sharp, an air horn was blown we were handed our first clue. We had to search the church for 3 bags with our team number on them, and then use the pieces inside each bag to complete a puzzle. Upon completion of the puzzle, we were handed our next clue and the race was on! Friday night's clues took us to Skateland to complete 50 laps on roller skates, the Yakima Fire Department's training facility to drag hoses, rescue a dummy from a smokey building and play "name that fire fighting tool", in to Selah to the high school, we took a ride on a 100 foot slip and slide, did a little bowling, grabbed some french fries at Miners, took said french fries to a dentist, and then back to the church for the night. We were a bit disappointed that when we ended back up at the church, we were in 8th place out of 11 teams. Not the way we had planned.

At the church for the night, we were just getting settled into bed and sleeping when one of the officials came running through the church, blowing the air horn again at midnight. We had to get up from our sleeping bags and head upstairs to play "Midnight Scrabble". As a team, we had to use the letters from the words "Amazing Grace" to come up with 3 more words. All we were told was that we had 10 minutes to complete the task. No results or any more information were given. After we completed, we were allowed to go back to bed, this time for the night.

Sleeping on the floor in one of the Sunday school classrooms.


After an early breakfast, we were told the starting order for the day. The first team to leave left the church at 7:27....we didn't get to leave until 7:38. We were literally the last team out of the parking lot, and the last team to pull into the parking lot of our first task. At the Weaver Flower Company, our first task to make an exact (and I mean EXACT) replica of a Christmas display that the company sells. Thankfully, Trish and Bethanie are very detail oriented people and we made up some great time and were probably the 4th team to leave the flower shop. After that, our clues for the day took us to the Silver Dollar Cafe, down to Sunnyside to the Darigold Plant, to Granger, and a couple stops in Zillah. While in Zillah, one of our clues took us to Hyatt Winery. When we arrived at the Winery, we were told we were the first team to check in. We were shocked! We knew we had made up some good time in Granger, but had no idea we were in first place! After Zillah, we headed back to Yakima to an auto wrecking yard to find our next clue. Wouldn't you know it, after we left the wrecking yard we were back in the middle of the pack. After that, our clues took us to a pet store to buy goldfish, to a park to solve a puzzle and deliver the goldfish to a pool, a lunch break, a run back to the pool to retrieve the gold fish, to a taco stand to eat cow tongue taco's, to an indoor soccer arena to learn a native american dance, and then out to west valley to Starbucks. At Starbucks, we had to order an iced latte and then were given 3 license plate numbers to find and write down the make, model and color of the cars. We lost some time on this task, as one of the license plates was on a display car at the car wash and we looked past it a few times. When we found our license plates, we had to chug the latte, and solve another puzzle. Our clue for solving the puzzle was to head to the Yakima Valley Museum for our "Final Test". Once we arrived at the museum, we were directed to head downstairs to pick up our test. We were given a 15-20 question test and were told the answers could be found throughout the museum. We were probably the 5th or 6th team (our of 11) to get to the museum. We spent what felt like an eternity trying to solve the questions (Do you know the year William O. Douglas was considering a run at Vice President? Maybe you know what year Betty Crocker was born?). When we finished our test and handed it in, we had 3 questions wrong and were told to find the correct answers. Only one problem....they didn't tell us which questions were incorrect! We went back a couple of times, and finally had the test correct. At this point, the official reached into his bag and handed us our final clue. We had to get all of our clues from the past 2 days, and our envelope with our registrations and proof of insurance (in case we got pulled over, if the seal was broken we were assessed a penalty) and run to the finish line! At this point, I hadn't seen any other teams leave the museum. Unfortunately for me, the car was parked at the far end of the museum and the finish line was in the park on the other end. I sprinted to the car, grabbed our clues and envelope, and the 4 of us made a mad dash for the finish line. Just like in the TV show, they had a matt and flags for you to run to and stand on. When we crossed the line, we were told that we were the first team to arrive! Team Family Feud were the winners of the 2009 Amazing Race!!! We were shocked! To come from 8th place, in our first race (other teams had done this before) was unbelievable. I think some of the race officials pretty shocked as well.

We had so much fun with Bethanie and Darren, and with only a month left in Yakima before we head south, it was such a great way to spend a couple days with them. Steve and Margaret were gracious enough to watch the 3 kids so we could do this, and we can't thank them enough. Trish and I are even talking about flying up next summer to defend our title. I think we night have to change the name from Family Feud though. Maybe Champs will do!


After the race, back at home.