Our last week in California

Praise the Lord for packers and movers!  Just getting our essentials put together and out of the way for a cross-country move was hard enough!  This was some of our stuff, on top of the flooring waiting to be installed when we moved out:

We moved into a hotel while a few guys packed up our house.  It was a hard week, but we made the best of it.

First stop: Boba

Boba is life right now.

The boys went for a swim and then we went to get dinner at Namaste one evening.  I think it's going to be awhile before they are able to go swimming in January.

Alison went shopping with a friend one afternoon and the rest of us went to lunch at Waypoint Cafe.  It was a crazy windy day, but the food was out-of-this-world delicious and it was fun to watch all the airplanes come in.

We went to Ben's end of tour ceremony...terrible picture, but I'm still learning the ropes of what to do and what not to do during these military events.

We filled up with gas on base, which was cheaper but still around $4.40/gal and then said our final goodbye to Point Mugu.

 

Saying "See you later"

Our time in California has come to an end.  

While Ben took Eli and Alison to get new military ID's, Colin and I spent some time at Mugu beach.  I love that we always saw dolphins there.

 We spent a lot of our time in the last few weeks with friends, squeezing in as we could.

Eli hung out with Elias several times.  Their favorite thing to do was eat pop tarts and play a Lego video game.

We went to Fillmore for the first time, to spend the afternoon at Addy's house.

Tabby organized a fun picnic for a bunch of girls to send Alison off.

The brothers had fun at the other end of the park.

 As cheesy as it sounds, we also had to say a proper "See you later" to our favorite park...we have spent countless hours here and it was a special spot to us.

Christmas

Bright and early Christmas morning!  

Eli read Garfield by flashlight while he waited until the approved time to wake everyone up.

 

Alison and I had a hard time waking up...

Stockings in our bed:

The winning gift of the year were these socks Ben had made for Alison, with tacos and Maya's face on them.

 The aftermath of stockings: Ben analyzing the new socks and Eli already building legos.

With coffee brewing, tea pasteries and egg casserole in the oven and the "fireplace" on, we were ready for presents!

Poptarts was the theme of Alison's 2021

Looking at the new switch game:

The rest of the day was full of food and playing.

We had prime rib, mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts for dinner.

Christmas Eve

I sure do miss the days of going to a Christmas Eve service...hopefully they come back into our life.

We had a relaxing day at home together and then we had tamales for dinner.  We were spoiled this year and had a variety to choose from: some from Chili Peppers, some homemade from a family at Yuma OPC and some homemade from a couple Ben works with here in CA.

Then we read our advent book and opened sacks.

 

 

 

 

 

Trip to Yuma

Eli was really missing Jon.  They facetime several times a week while they play Roblox together, but Eli missed actually playing with him so much that he was having nightly dreams about seeing him.  He pleaded with me to take him to Yuma.  We're going to see the Whites at the end of January, but Eli said it just wasn't soon enough.  So the week before Christmas, the boys and I went for a long weekend.  It was definitely worth it to see these friends!

We got there Friday afternoon and I don't have any pictures because the boys didn't stop moving the entire time!

Saturday morning, we went to the trampoline park.

 

 And then lunch at Chili Peppers!

If this doesn't sum up 6th grade boys, I don't know what does...

 

That afternoon, we decorated gingerbread houses.

Sunday, we went to church and then the boys played for awhile before we made the trek back home.  It was such a great little trip!

While we were gone, Ben and Alison had their own fun.  I'm sure they did more than this, but I know they went to Namaste for lunch and then went to the beach to collect sea glass.