Christmas Day

Ohhhh....the sleepy anticipation!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was celebrated at our house this year. It was a "last minute" decision, but ended up being an enjoyable evening. We ate our turkey dinner, followed by a nativity play and christmas carols. Then we exchanged gifts with Dan's family and the cousins.
After everyone left, Heidi sprinkled "reindeer dust" on the front lawn, (consisting of oats and glitter) to attract the reindeer to our house. She was very precise in her placement of the "dust" so it could be seen from high in the sky.

Reed's first baby "Cheeto"

In 8th grade health class each kid is required to take home an electronic baby for 24 hours and care for it. This is to show kids how much responsibility caring for a baby is. Reed signed up for his baby and had to go to school early to get it. He cared for it during all classes. If it started to cry, he had to rock it until it stopped. If it is not rocked when it fusses, it will break out into a full screaming cry, and it takes longer to try to settle down.
When Reed arrived home, we asked him if his baby was a boy or girl, but he wouldn't check. Undeterred by my previous "diaper checking" experience, I looked for him. It was a nothing. (Asexual)
Reed named it "Cheeto" because the caucasion skin had an orangish glow to it. He took care of it all day and night and I really didn't hear more than a little fuss out of it. I think he did a really good job. The affection he had towards it was very cute, he seemed to bond with it. In the morning he told me that Cheeto screamed around 4AM really loud, but not enough to wake the rest of us up.
Reed told me that when he had to turn in Cheeto the next morning, he almost teared up. He also said he had an empty feeling all day and tried to peek in the health room to see if he could see him again. How cute is that? He is going to be a great Daddy some day! (When he is 35-40)

Christmas 2010

We went for a fun holiday evening of strolling through the Mall and Gardens in Newport Beach and the kids ran into Santa there. They told him what they wanted and went on their merry way. Audra (sis) was in town for the holidays and we had an enjoyable evening.

Heidi's Thanksgiving Play

A week before Thanksgiving... Heidi's Kindergarten class put on a Thanksgiving play. It was soooo cute. Heidi was a pilgrim and had a little speaking part. She also got to drag the Mayflower across the stage.

Halloween 2010

This halloween we had about 35 friends/family over for our traditional Pumpkin Dinner followed by trick-or-treating. Dan dressed up as Hitler and I was his mistress Eva Brown. Some people were shocked by Dan's non-PC costume. But one could argue....who is scarier than Hitler? Is he any worse than the Devil? Someone in the neighborhood refused to give a kid who was dressed like Obama any candy because she said "you've taken enough of my money already" and seriously would'nt give the kid any candy. We ate and then hit the streets for trick-or-treating. As always....we had a spooktacular night!

Honey Harvest #1- Success

Last wednesday, I had a "honey professional" come out an look at my hive to tell me how many frames I could take out of it. Ordinarially, you have to leave some honey in the hive for the bees to get through the winter. But since we live in a year-round warm place, and my hive is a strong hive, I was able to take alot more honey. In all I got 19 frames (which are the things I am holding in the picture above.)

So on Saturday, we took the frames to a place in Anaheim where a local Beekeeping Club (of which I am not a member) keeps their spinner. We spun the honey out of the frames and got somewhere between 4-6 gallons total. I havn't put it in jars yet so I am not exactly sure. While spinning, the smell of the honey attracted thousands of bees. We were pretty much entirely surrounded. I never got stung, but Julie got stung 2x. The head of the Beekeping Club said the honey had a spice taste to it. He said it had some eucalyptus and acacia in it. It is really yummy!

Being used to bees swarming all around me, the next day I had to put the empty frames back on the hive. I was stupid and did not use my bee suit and I ran out of smoke in a very important time. My bees were very pissed and attacked me. I had to jump in the pool in order to get them away from me and got stung 10 times. This rouined my day because I had a party to prepare for. I had 40 people comming for my halloween party in 4 hours. Luckily Dan helped out alot and we pulled it off. After the party I went to bed at 10:30 and slept very well from taking too much Benadryl.