"yay, no KID injuries"

Saturday night was our last Christmas party!! YAY! We took our middle school kids up to the church and had a White Elephant Gift Exchange, and I must say...I was frightened..especially with that age group! But, they honestly surprised me!! The gifts were MUCH more clever than I would have expected, and the other kids seemed to be all around pleased with the results that they got to take home. After all the gifts were opened, we took them on the bus for about a 40minute drive to Rancho Cucamonga. There are a couple of streets in this one sub-division where they go all out on their Christmas decorations. Now when I say they go all out...I mean so much more than what your probably thinking. I have NEVER in my life, seen so many lights. It kind of reminded me of the newer Christmas movie called, Deck The Halls, Danny DeVito's house is like what we saw...ALL OVER THE PLACE!! Several were even selling hot cocoa, tamales, nachos, etc. (we joked and said it was to help pay for the electric bill, since they most likely tripled it this month). But it was gorgeous and fun, and the most important thing was the kids loved it and had an absolute blast! One of our greatest achievements at the end of the night is to always say, "yay, no injuries", and this time we got to say "yay, no KID injuries"....but yes...we did have two injuries, they did include our leader Sara (the one who takes all the pictures...) and..myself. You see, Sara and I got back to the bus before everyone else, and of course...we had a plan. We wanted to scare everyone since it was so dark. So we got in the back of the bus and her and I shared a seat (why we didn't split up with a completely empty bus is beyond me..but whatever). And she leaned forward and crouched down and I slumped backward....and we waited. Finally, some came on the bus, so we listened for them to get closer and closer to us..once they did I jumped up and started screaming, and Sara, expecting me to jump higher than I did, stood up and started screaming too...only my teeth and the back of her head....came together...I grabbed my mouth INSTANTLY and felt something....odd. And looked to Sara only to see her holding the back of her head. So we rushed up to the front of the bus to look in the mirror, since it was so dark, only to find out, somehow a good piece of my lip was now detached and dangling...not so pleasant, and it started to bleed and swell...but we couldn't do ANYTHING about it. So of course, I was just TICKLED PINK! Anyway, when we finally got to the church I pulled the extra piece of my lip, and my lip was fine, but now it is a lovely green color everyday trying to heal, and Sara's head had a little bump for a couple of hours, but all in all...we survived. LOL.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, Jonathan and I don't have any plans that I'm aware of. We had talked about maybe going and seeing a movie, but not sure that there is anything we haven't seen at the moment, so maybe we'll just go rent some classic Christmas movies and curl up and eat popcorn! Now, for Christmas Day we do have plans, so no need to worry. I'm hoping I can sleep in till its time to go to our friends house, and then I'll be so side-tracked I won't have time to think about what I would usually be doing....lol. And, we have decided one tradition we are going to start will be to go to the Rose Bowl Parade on New Years Day...so we are going to take some friends and drive there, its only a couple hours drive, so not a huge deal, and its only once a year!! We're pretty excited about it!!!

So, after that day in the park with the great pictures...Sara and I decided that we really really wanted Jonathan to come with us so that she could take some pictures of us. Jonathan and I had been talking about just having some others done, but just for fun..not for anything specific, so we went Saturday..and they turned out soooo good!!! WE LOVE THEM, so I decided I would, of course, post some up!

Well, I hope that everyone has a great Christmas!!! I honestly miss every single person I know thats not in California, so just give yourself a hug...its from me!

Love and Miss Y'all