CHRISTMAS 2010

I was planning on being so good and taking lots of great photos so that I could write an awesome Christmas Blog!  Unfortunately, life was just too busy and the Season past too fast!  I will work with what I have!

I love Christmas time!  The lights, decorations, presents, magic in the air, and the opportunity we have to reflect on the "Reason for the Season," the birth of the Savior.

I tend to start decorating much earlier than most!  Due to my one week a year job that occurs the first week of December, if I don't get things up before Thanksgiving, it would not get done.  I wish I had some photos of the lights on the outside of my house!  They looked great this year, thanks to my neighbor who was willing to get on my very highest roof for me!  Next year I will make sure to get a picture, although that would mean I either have to convince Rick or him to do it again!

Here are just a few pics of the inside of the house.

The Christmas Village I inherited from my sweet Grandma Ruth!

My mom made each of those stockings by hand!

With Rick back in DC until the 19th of December, the festivities this Season were much more minimal than years past.  I couldn't handle the thought of not having a Christmas Party at our house.  So we threw together a fun Christmas Eve with friends!

  

The kids had been swimming so some were topless!

We did fondue, played games, hot tubed/swam, and decorated Ginger Bread Houses!  It was a fun night!

The kids all slept in the boys room on Christmas Eve!  I love this!  I remember doing the same thing with my brothers every Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve is always a late night for me!  Rick was not too happy that I was taking a picture of what he was doing while I was putting the finishing touches on things for Christmas Morning!

This year was the first time that we weren't up before 7am!  It was great!  The kids opened their stockings and then we had breakfast before digging into the rest of the gifts!  I am not sure how thrilled they were as they waited for breakfast to be made!

    Everyone was excited about their gifts!  

Knight Family Christmas Card

The Giants Win the World Series!!!!

In my last post I mentioned that one of my favorite things about Fall is all the baseball frenzy!  Well, for once the final team standing was OUR TEAM!  THE GIANTS WON THE WORLD SERIES!   I am happy to say, we are not bandwagon fans!  We have rooted for them since we moved to the Bay area.  My husband trades off taking the kids to games, or we watch them together at home!  It was so fun to watch and cheer!  I almost don't know what to do with myself now that it is over.

Yesterday the city held a parade in celebration of the win.  Since my husband is currently working/schooling in DC, he called and asked that I take the kids to the parade.  It killed him to not be here.  I had a few things planned that couldn't be changed, so I hired a good friend to take the kids.  She was a real sport!

We decided that taking BART was the best option.  This picture was taken on the way home.  Apparently, on the way there, the train was packed and no one could move.  Poor ID got claustrophobic and somewhat upset.

It was quite crowded on the streets of the city and they had a

difficult time at first finding a place to see the parade.  The papers 

say that over a million people attended and 30,000 more people

 than a normal work day road BART.  JC (my awesome friend/babysitter for the day!) got creative and saved the day!  

They were able to see all the players 

and all was well!

I am so happy they got to experience this little piece of history!  They will remember it the rest of their lives!  But just in case the memory fades, here are a few pieces of it!

I am sure KJ has her eyes out for "Timmy!"  Maybe he will wave at her again!

Getting a good view!

GR didn't even complain about having to ride "disgusting, gross BART," 

or having to go into the "dirty city!"

Feeling the love!  Baseball always brings our family together!!

Why I Love Fall

I don't think that I really love one time of the year over another, there are things about each Season that I love. Currently, I am in love with Fall! Here are some of the reasons;

Fall Baseball! For some reason it isn't quite as stressful as Spring Ball! No matter what time of year though, I love watching my kids play!

ID is playing soccer and baseball right now. I don't love soccer, but I do love watching my kids play any sport that they enjoy!

If you haven't heard, the Giants are in the World Series! Now one of the reasons that I love Fall is for the baseball frenzy, but it is even better when it is your home team! And, we are not bandwagon fans, we have been on board since April!

Dressing up! I seem to always take the pictures, but I did dress up. I was a giants player too.

Brian Wilson (Fear the Beard) Tinkerbell, Tim Lincecum

I don't really LOVE carving pumpkins, but I do love the tradition of the activity! I love that baseball is on in the background, hot chocolate is warming on the

stove, and sugar cookies are in the oven!

A few more things I love about Fall;

It rains a little where we live, which means the hills will soon be green!

The changing of the leaves.

Wearing Jeans and sweat shirts.

New Fall TV episodes.

Turning on the fireplace.

and much, much more......

Here's to Good Health

I am grateful for good health. You don't realize how lucky you are sometimes until it is taken away. While brief for me, it did give me perspective!

A couple of weeks ago while wrapping up our vacation at the Lake, I came down with a bit of a bug. I started getting the flu on Saturday night, throwing up Sunday, achy and tired Monday. By Tuesday while driving back from the cabin, I felt like someone was sitting on my chest and just couldn't get a deep breath. I went to the doctor and she thought that I just had the flu and possibly could end up with Bronchitis. She did though take some blood test because I had been having a few weird abdominal pain for a period of months. By Wednesday night that pressure in my chest had turned into stabbing pain in my upper back whenever I took a breath. I called the doctor Thursday morning because I was really short of breath. She had blood work back and was very concerned about the back pain but also my blood work showed that my liver enzymes were up.

Anyway, after getting to the emergency room, they did an x-ray which looked normal. So they decided to do a CAT Scan next. This went a bit south when I had a reaction the the Dye they inject and it put me into Anaphlyatic Shock. Suddenly my throat and nasal passage totally constricted. I couldn't get a breath and it was killing me to even try with the pain in my back. I could feel my lips swell and then my entire face. My body turned totally red and I felt like I was on fire. It was like a scene out of ER as the wheeled me back into the ER yelling for nurses and doctors and everyone was surrounding me giving me shots and oxygen. I caught Rick's face for a moment and I could tell I looked scary! Anyway, it took about 45 minutes to get my breathing back on track etc. It was probably one of the freakiest moments in my life! At that point I had bought myself a few nights in the hospital!

They determined that I had Pleurisy (inflammation around the lungs) and treated me for that with breathing treatments and steroids. But still had to figure out what the story was with my liver enzymes. Test after test and still no real answer for that. 3 days in the hospital and I insisted it was time to go home!

My mom had flown in because Rick was scheduled to leave for Washington DC (I will talk about that in another post!) It was a good things she had come, because my body had taken a beating, mainly from the Anaphylactic Shock episode. It took a good 2 weeks to get my strength back and feel like myself!

In the end I learned a few lessons! A few of which are that I make a terrible patient and I will never take my good health for granted!

Baseball Camp

Once again, our life revolves around BASEBALL! We took a second trip to Utah so the boys could attend BYU Baseball Camp.


I took G and I and a friend. They had to load up on the gear before camp, so we hit the bookstore first!





Then we had to load them up on some good old Brick Oven. It is my boys' favorite and they cannot leave Utah without a trip
without some All You Can Eat Pasta Bar!







Then it was check in time!




Oh the memories of those brick walls and fabulous mattresses!






They didn't waste anytime hitting the field!









"I" won the grounder and hitting competition!



The boys team won the tournament for their age group!!




It was a fun week and they boys learned a ton and had a ton of fun!!!! They will be back next year!!