a milestone

Benjamin lost his first tooth in January. Fittingly, it came out while he was eating an apple (his favorite food). And the tooth fairy even remembered to come.

Another note about Ben- recently he had an epiphany while we were driving somewhere. He said,
"Scooby Doo is a lot like the Wizard of Oz."

I hadn't thought of that before, but he's right.

cali weather

Within a few weeks of having our historic snowfall, this was blooming in our front yard:

snow in Cali

A couple of days after we got back from Idaho it snowed here in Santa Clarita. It was Sunday January 2nd, and I was home with a sick Wesley while the other boys were in Moorpark at William's baby blessing. It started in late afternoon, and by the time the boys got home it was getting dark. That didn't stop them from getting their snow clothes on, doing a little sledding on the driveway and throwing a snowball or two.

Christmas 2010

It's been a while, so we'll see how much I can accurately remember here. This year we took Christmas to Idaho to visit the Baer side of the family. We left during the rain (it had been raining for a week straight here in California) and our wipers never stopped during the 14 hour drive. I was worried that we wouldn't have room for all our stuff. To put my mind at ease Ryan went through quite an ordeal to get one of those car-top storage containers. Well it turns out we didn't even need it. (He returned it later with no problems.)

It's always good to see my family and enjoy the slower paced feel of Idaho. We can always count on lots of food (I'm never hungry during our stays there), unique Thai gifts from Shannon, being introduced to fun games by Jeremy's family, music and conversation from the Bachelors, some kind of unplanned complication or surprise from Heather (car dying, pregnancy announcement), and running into lots of people who know Dad around town. Our kids were sick off and on so we didn't venture out too much and we didn't get to sledding. There wasn't even much snow until the day we left. We got to see Amy (Ryan's sister) and her husband even took us on a tour of the U.S. Marshals facilities in Pocatello.

When it was time to go we packed everything up, saran-wrapped my Christmas present (a cute beach cruiser bike from Ryan), put it on the bike rack, and headed out into the blizzard. On the drive home we encountered snow, rain, wind, and sand. The sand beat up our car a bit, and we now have a cracked windshield. But the bike survived!

We in St. George and even met up with a friend of mine from my preschool days who I hadn't seen for probably 25 years. We had just found each other on facebook. It was a lot of fun to see Chanda and meet her family. Ryan approved too, and said it was too bad we lived so far away since they seem like they'd be fun to hang out with. I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture, but it was definitely a highlight of the trip.

11 years down

Ryan and I usually try to do something out of the ordinary on our anniversary (which was way back in December). This year we went to see Brian Regan since he is the most beloved comedian of Mormons everywhere. It is hard to find the clean ones, you know. In fact, while we were there we were people watching in the audience trying to point out all the Mormons. Anyway, he didn't disappoint. We highly recommend going to see him, whether you happen to be Mormon or not.

soccer

The boys ended another season of soccer in December. Alex moved up an age division which meant this was his first time on a "competitive" team with goalies. He got to play goalie quite a few times and enjoyed it. Ryan was his team's (The Panthers) coach. They had kind of a rough season, but they muscled through it.

Ben also moved up to an older division and it was fun to see him become a lot more aggressive on the field. He did really well and ended up earning the Sportsmanship Award for his team (the Blue Lightning Bolts).

dead dead deadsky

So, about a month ago our computer's power supply exploded and the part we ordered from Dell finally arrived today (after three canceled orders and much confusion and lies from Dell's personnel). That means it will be another week or so until I can post pictures. But here are some things I've been thinking of mentioning here:

The end of another soccer season

Christmas in Pocatello

Snow in Santa Clarita

general updates on the boys

In the meantime, here's a link to a game the boys like. It's called Fancy Pants.