The question that was asked of me a couple of weeks ago:
"What did you do this weekend?"

My answer:
"I went to California."

It was funny to see the reactions of people's faces when I told them that we drove 2,236 miles to a wedding and back, in one weekend. But when they heard that it was my mom-in-law, Patti, who got married, they congratulated me for her and didn't look at me like I was kooky anymore. And my, my, was it a wonderful wedding! Everyone there had so much fun and the best treat was seeing Patti and Wes (her husband) so happy to be married! I really love weddings as it is, but they're extra special when it's your family that's partaking in the nuptials. Sadly, it was such a quick trip that we didn't have time to do any extra visiting. (So sorry Amber!) I couldn't take any extra time off of work since it's the busy season. Since we just shot down I-15 like a steam engine, the one place we stopped for the night was Vegas. And that was only on the way down. We drove without stopping on the way back home. Aren't we adventurous? But Vegas has become my favorite desert pit stop because of the thoroughly intriguing weirdness and largeness. Here's a view pictures of the trip.

Here we are in front of the Venetian.

Here's John with the strip behind him. Maybe someday we will stop and take pictures during the day.

It's me! That's MGM Grand in the background. The next night there was going to be an awesome UFC fight with George St. Pierre going against B.J. Penn, but we had the wedding so we definitely couldn't stay and watch. And yes, I love watching UFC fights. And just for your information, George St. Pierre is a pretty unbelievable fighter! And he won!

Here we are at the wedding. About 12 people came up to me at the wedding to tell me how handsome John looks. And I, of course agree with them.

My Last Christmas Blog

Here's the last of my Christmas things for you to see until next year. Maybe all of you are groaning fun little groans of "Enough already, Elisha. It's almost February!" But I had to show these pictures of my decorations that I had up this year, since I feel like I didn't get to share them with some of you who appreciate a great wreath! So here's a little collage of my Christmas Decorations and a little hello.

"Hey there!"

The Mystery of Christmas...

Hello friends!

Here are some of the few pictures I took in the last two months. I'm glad that even though I kept forgetting to open up my camera I managed to take these wonderful photos. And yes, I have much more family to feature, but this is just a snippet of all the people I love and adore!
In the future I plan to take more pictures so I can better show you the many things that make the Christmas season everything that it is to me. I love Christmas.

I remember going into this house years ago and the lady that lived there had put a Christmas tree in every room! She even had 3 in the living room and a white, sparkly one in the bathroom! And this was a 4 or 5 bedroom house! So as far as Christmas spirit goes, she's helped me form some sort of meter that says it's okay for me to get as excited as I do about this whole thing. I'm not kidding! If you could read on my heart what it says when I sit under my twinkly Christmas tree and let memories ebb in and out of the branches, I think you'd cry with me. And I think most of you must agree... there is certainly something so special about this time set aside for families, togetherness, kindness, peace, and Christ. And even though I can't always put a finger on why my throat closes up when I hear the beginning three notes of "The First Noel," I know it has something to do with the mystery of how much God loves us.

I also know growing up in a family of all girls predispositioned me to be what some people might think is "overly silly" about everything to do with Christmas. But I think it's allowed. Because now I'm ready for a whole year full of new challenges, new faces, and new life. And I think it's perfectly healthy to take a whole month to reflect on some of my most precious memories during the sweetest, softest time of the year, and be rested up for what's to come.

Uptown Girls

I was going to put up some pictures of my Christmas decorations, but there's a cute way that I so rely on my husband to do most of the technological things on our computer. I realized today that I have never actually loaded pictures from our camera to our computer! Trust me, I know it's easy and I already tried and succeeded halfway. But then I saw these pictures of these adorable girls who came to visit me last month! How fun this was! I think each of us has put some of these pictures in their blog now. That's what happens when 3 girls are armed with digital cameras on a Saturday afternoon in uptown Butte. I love you Marissa and Heather.

And I will take more pictures soon and get them loaded. I just have to take time to get on the computer when I'm at home!

Birthday Orchids

For my birthday in October, John gave me two beautiful Orchids just like I have always wanted!!! I'm still learning with plants, so I hope these stay healthy for a long time. They're my favorite because of how interesting their shape is. Just look at these...

Oh so pretty!

So Elegant!

So breathtaking! Thank you, John.

It's Me!

Hello! I know I haven't taken time to blog for about a month, but John helped me get a kick start by making this rocking background from scratch! Thank you Honey! Well here's the most recent pictures that were on my camera, so I thought I would share them to get me back in the blogging groove. I'll say something more clever on another day.

There's two of my most favorite people! Hi John. Hi Heather! This weekend was absolutely what I needed. An Amazing time with old friends and new friends, family, and God.

Andy can defy gravity! Isn't it fun when you can play at the park even though you're an adult? I can't remember what we wanted him to accomplish, but this picture looks really cool.

There's that beautiful sister of mine. And Noah is pretty cute too! I really miss being in the same town as you, Christel! I LOVE YOU!

My Oahu Photos

I thought I would put up some of my photos from Oahu. I have a ton a pictures from our vacation, but not very many from Hawaii. I didn't have time to take any pictures because there was so much to see and do. But here are two of the awesome things we did...

This is Haunama Bay. It's an old volcanic crater that is perfect for snorkeling because of the coral that has formed there. We saw tons of amazingly colored fish and sea urchins and A SEA TURTLE!!! He was so cool! He just looked at us and flapped his flippers around! If you ever go to Honolulu go here. It was my first time snorkeling (other than in a swimming pool) and it was WAY more fun than I had expected it to be.

We spent most of our time on Waikiki Beach. And I love to boogie board! We even bought this board so that we can use it next time we visit California. Here I come Zuma Beach!!

Look at me go! Actually the waves were really wimpy here! That's why I'm catching these silly little waves that break right on the beach. If anyone is stopping by the ocean to take a salt water boogie boarding dip, count me in! (You might have to wait half a year, but I'll be there!) This is definitely my favorite thing to do in the ocean!

Bonfire on the Beach!

When we were visiting Dan and Amber in Santa Maria, we stayed with them at Dan's brother Ken's house. It was an absolute blast which may sound crazy since John and I added two to the already large household of about 11. (I stopped trying to keep count after a while.) And they were ALL so sweet! We would have been happy sleeping on couches or floors, so I was amazed that Viv and Daniella gave up their room for us! And it was so good to spend that special sister time with Amber where we just get to be us, together.

One of the amazing things we did was get some firewood, load everyone in vehicles, and make awesome fire at Grover Beach. AT SUNSET!!! We walked in the waves a little, roasted marshmallows, John showed the boys how to catch sandcrabs, and then we filled a whole sand pail with gross little squirmy things! Lee even roasted one in the fire and ate it! (What little meat he could find in it.)



Then we all sat around the fire and sang worship songs while Lee played guitar. It was SO MUCH FUN! I wonder how much sand all 13 of us unknowingly brought back to the house with us?

Sunrise in Waikiki

Hello everyone! I successfully made it back from some awesome family time, an amazing vacation, and an astounding adventure! (Three 'a' adjectives!) Actually, I've been back for almost two weeks but I just haven't had a chance to blog. I have some very fun pictures and experiences that I'm still very excited about, and I'm glad that I have some some great photos for fodder for interesting postings. I will start with something I didn't think I'd ever get the chance to do. John flew me to Hawaii. I wrote that as monotone as I could just to see if any of you would notice.

JOHN FLEW ME TO HAWAII!!!

First, there's the fact that I flew. This was my first time flying! And it was very cool in very many ways! But I will write more about that later. Second, I flew to Hawaii!! Since John is currently working part time for Skywest we get to fly free right now and we decided to take advantage of it and fly down to California to visit John's family and Dan and Amber. Then we took a detour across some of the Pacific Ocean to the island of Oahu where we played on the beaches, got really sun burnt, and celebrated John's birthday for three days.

One small hitch to our Hawaiian excursion happened immediately on our arrival to paradise. John hadn't finished making our hotel arrangements before we got on our flight from LA, and for some reason we figured this wasn't a busy vacation season. So when our flight landed 3 hours LATE in Honolulu, at 12:30 am, we quickly found out that it is always best to book a hotel. To make a long story short, I'll make this list for you:

- Taxi driver tries to rip us off. (He gets pulled over for speeding.)
- We get to the hotel and they have no rooms. The front desk guy calls around and nobody has any rooms unless we want to sell my 2 new purses from Ross to pay for them. (And come up with 250 more dollars.)
- We lug our luggage around the streets of Waikiki.
- We find a youth hostel where the front desk is located in a parking garage. Front desk guy is strange and tells us his rambling thoughts for 10 minutes. John and I walk away confused. Don't want to stay there.
- We lug our luggage around the streets of Waikiki.
- We find a Denny's where we eat and try to waste 1.75 hours. I brush my teeth.
- More lugging.
- We find the beach.

We immediately took off our shoes and started walking in the water, which was warmer than the dry sand beside it! We strolled down the beach and by now the sky had started turning from black to deep blue. John and I could make out lots of big mounds around us in the sand and up on the grass. It turns out that lots of homeless people sleep on the beach!! So John and I laid our stuff down, made our nests, and tried to sleep. That only lasted about thirty minutes before it was so light and we were so excited to look around.

And it was beautiful!