Calvary Murrieta Women's Retreat 2011

For our birthday weekend, Nicole and I treated ourselves to a weekend with GOD!

Nicole's church was having a women's retreat and we thought it would be great fun for me to go too and have girl time and relaxation. It was wonderful!

I got to meet many of Nicole's church friends and it was fun to see how awed they were with the whole "twin-thing" :)

The theme this year was "God's Action Figure" and so the decorations were all about superheroes, etc....and this church goes all out!!!

Meals were yummy and we loved not having to cook, set the table, or clean the dishes!!!

Sh........don't tell Derek about my date!

Even the bathrooms are decorated! Each one is different...here's the Wonder Woman one...

...and Superman!

Unfortunately I didn't get pics of the Star Wars one

Our weekend mascot...."Action Annie"

Hey, Nicole one a raffle prize!!!!...and she 'says' it never happens!

Stellaluna, is that you???

We came home to this little guy literally "hanging" out in the walkway to our front door. We haven't really seen him move - but I'm not completely familiar with bat habits and so don't know what to expect...

I think he thinks our entryway is a cave, which truth be told I can kind of imagine with all the stucco and apparently insects (which you can see in this pic)

And here's a pic for perspective...he's not a very big guy at all...which is probably why I'm not totally freaked out!!! he's that black/brown blob in the top left of the pic, where the roof meets the wall

Football Skill Building

Saturday morning (yesterday) we all got up early to cheer on Joseph as he headed out to a football skills 'clinic' -- he's considering trying out later for the city football team ... so here are some pics and video...

A Homemade Birthday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEREK!!!

Here's our homemade birthday party for Derek...

with homemade macaroni & cheese

and a homemade cake...

and nothing like a homemade. off-key birthday song!!!

Family Visit at New House

Derek's family came up last weekend for some group birthday celebrations and to check out "the new digs"!!!

It was so wonderful to visit with all of them! We're sorry for the rain, wind and power outage, though!!! But we did get to go on a great hike and dine at Petra, our local Mediterranean food place....yummy!

Awww.....did we wake Dustin up too early to do 'present-time'?????

Derek got a new Rams chair!!

Stallion Springs Snow

Our new home welcomes us with a winter wonderland - thankfully it waited until our furniture was inside on moving day (2/19)

This was the weekend after we moved - more snow! I'm glad we didn't move that weekend!

Science Project

For the school's science fair, Joseph is doing a project on "Dancing Raisins" -- it's a simple one but a good start for this kind of school/academic activity!!! He and Derek are going to work on the poster board tonight or tomorrow!

Homework & Technology

Ok, so Joseph had to write out definitions to his vocabulary words - of course we couldn't find our hard copy of the dictionary so we used the computer/internet -- take a closer look at "tended"...we think there must have been an internet ad right close to the word!

Going Through Binders

I got to have a moment with Dustin this evening - I was going through his Koinonia binder and he took to helping sort and file the various papers :) He seemed to particularly enjoy looking at his and Ayden's birth certificate copies -- kinda cool for us to do it together :)

Swan Maiden

Today, the boys and I visited our local library. Dustin checked out "Marley and Me" and is waiting for "The Blind Side" to come in. Joseph chose a WWE book and "Stone Fox". Ayden was the 'winner' walking away with 7 books!

Ayden and I curled up on the couch and read several this afternoon. Apparently, according to him, I am a dead ringer for the Swan Maiden -- I don't really see the resemblance but since she was "so beautiful", I'll take the compliment where I can get it!!! :)

Christmas Tooth

On Christmas Eve, Ayden lost one of his bottom front teeth --- amazingly, the Tooth Fairy knew where to find him even though we were away from home. Maybe the Tooth Fairy hitched a ride with Santa on his busy night.