Happy New Year!!! 2009

We celebrated New Year's a bit early tonight with a USC cake for the big Rose Bowl game tomorrow. Bennett is wishing everyone a very Happy New Year in the video below!

Hope that everyone has a happy and safe New Year!

Annual Trek to Solvang

Every year both of our families make a trek north to a little town called Solvang at Christmastime and it has become sort of a Christmas tradition. It is like being transported to Europe for a day - Solvang is a little Danish settlement town with lots of shopping, food,etc. At Christmas they decorate the town, have horse drawn trolley rides, carolers, brass bands, etc. Such a fun way to get into the Christmas mood. Bennett especially loved that we found a few new toy stores this year with fun displays to play on. Passed the time while all the women went shopping!

Every year we try to get the kids to sit in the big red shoe outside of the Solvang Shoe Store. Last year Bennett wasn't too cooperative, but this year he thought it was one of those rides you find in the mall or the grocery store. He called it the Big Red Shoe Rocket Ship and asked us to put money in it to make it move. :o) Whatever it takes to get him in there! The pic below is of Bennett 2 years ago in the shoe...geez he has grown!

Bennett sporting Dan's sunglasses while getting a fun ride on Dan's shoulders.

Horse drawn trolley ride. Does anyone else see a letter missing on the little sign next to the horses? :o) That changes the entire meaning of the sign!

Bulgarian kids

Nick and Ardis took a trip to Bulgaria last year to spend some time with family and learn more about the family heritage. They brought back t-shirts with Bulgaria written on the front for the Sam, Max, and Bennett. The other night Ardis requested that we try to get a picture of all of them wearing the shirts before they all grew out of them! It's hard to get all 3 of them to smile at once. :o)

Pismo Beach

This year for Cheryl's birthday she decided that she would like to go to Pismo Beach for a weekend getaway. Dan was having a LAN party so we left him to his geek fest while we travelled north on the 101. We stayed overnight at a really cute inn - the Cottage Inn by the Sea - and it was right on the ocean. Seems crazy but we were out at sunset during the middle of December on the beach and Bennett was running back and forth in the waves...just feet of course! The sunset that night was beautiful. We had a fun weekend. Found a park on the way up and Bennett got to climb some cool rocks.

Sunset from the patio off the back of our room overlooking the ocean.

Sunset walk on the beach.

I thought this looked like a painting...the sky was so neat with the clouds.

Our stop at a park on the way up - Bennett climbing rocks...us running after him! He got a workout and so did we!

Bennett playing with the Christmas tree train in the lobby of the hotel.

Bennett found a (dare I say...) vintage quarter midget toy to play in when we stopped for a break at the Andersen's Pea Soup restaurant in Buellton.

You have to take this picture if you stop at Andersen's Pea Soup!

Goleta Train Station

On our way back from our Pismo Beach getaway, we stopped off to give Bennett some running time at the Goleta Train Station. It is a neat park with an old train depot museum and home on the grounds. They also had a little train that they gave rides on, since it was Christmastime it was all decked out for the holidays and called the Candy Cane Train. Bennett loved it!

Monarch Butterflies in Pismo Beach

We went to see the Monarch Butterflies while we were in Pismo Beach. There is a little grove of Eucalyptus trees that thousands of Monarch Butterflies flock to in winter from about November to March of every year. The day we were there , the estimated count was about 20,000. Such a neat sight to see...especially how well they camouflage themselves in the trees when their wings are folded up.