We decided to celebrate Jacob's birthday by going swimming! After all the cold and snow we were ready for some warmer weather. The weather in Oak Hills had got warmer, but we had nowhere to swim. Each December, the week before Christmas I usually go to Palm Springs for the night, taking the two best behaved kids with me. Jacob has never been! So for his birthday he wanted to be one of the chosen ones. Staying at a hotel with all the kids requires two rooms now, so we decided to go to a motel in Desert Hot Springs, which allows all day use of their facilities which includes an "Olympic size" pool, a kiddy pool, and about 5 spas. It's a bit run down, but the price is right and you can guarantee very warm water.

Colin had refused to learn to swim all summer and kept his life-jacket on. He was in the kiddy pool, and obviously didn't need the jacket. I was busy swimming and turned round to find him jumping in the shallow end- 3 ft and swimming happily on his own. I was so happy that he finally did this because I knew he could. He was so pleased with himself too. He can swim further than this, and jump in deeper water, but this was all I recorded because I was busy swimming myself and lazing in the hot spas.

We decided to celebrate the New Year by going to Magic Mountains New Year party. We didn't get there till about 5:00 p.m as we knew it would be a long evening. When we first got there the weather was so warm, we had to carry our jackets, but as the evening went on, it got colder and colder. It was so cold, that it was tempting to go home, but we were determined to make it to the new year.

The older kids went off on their own to ride the big roller coasters. Mike and I used to enjoy this too, but now we were content to stay with Colin and watch him on the little rides, and join him on the moderate ones. One we can all enjoy is the Scrambler, we took turns accompanying Colin, and even got a date ride, when Colin wanted to ride on his own.

The biggest roller- coaster that Colin was allowed on was the Gold Rush. He was hesitant to try it , but soon got to like it. He wanted to sit in the same spot each time, which was easy because it was a walk on or even stay on ride. We rode this ride about 10 times!

Colin's favorite ride was the Pirate Ship. You were allowed to ride as many times as you wanted so long as you weren't in the back row. We did get a few turns at the very back, but were content to sit on the next row and have multiple turns.

The video is short and dark,but it's the best I have!

Colin is only five and still so easy to please he just wanted a wagon and some toys- how easy is that!

Jennifer wanted a Nintento DS. So that was easy .

She got new clothes too!

All Jacob wanted for Christmas was a PSP. which is an expensive item on its own, never mind the added expense of games. Fortunately there is e-bay, so he got his wish. Now he has to keep his grades up to keep possession of it.

Charlie is sixteen and has been helping our neighbors, The Whitings, build a new house. He has been earning money and bought himself an ipod touch. For Christmas he wanted some good speakers to use with the ipod, and a warm sleeping bag as he plans to camp out in the mountains this month.

George is seventeen and wanted a car for Christmas. This wasn't in the budget. He then wanted a shot-gun, but we weren't comfortable with that either, but we did compromise and get him a smaller gun that he could use on the property. His main gift wasn't what he wanted, but was what he will need for his college classes- a graphing calculator. These are very expensive, but will be useful.

Doesn't he look happy?

Christmas morning was different this year as we were"joined" by my parents and brother, Phillip via the internet. We finally figured out how to do this and had life size images of them on the TV. They were able to watch us open our presents as well as talk to us. It was so much fun and didn't cost even one plane ticket. It did mean that we opened presents quicker than normal- but that left more time to play.

We then have the Santa parade of the cookies, milk and carrots. This is our firts year in our new homw, and it doesn't have a fireplace. fortunately we have great neigbors and they lent us a fireplace as they are in the process of building a house and so had one in storage,Thank you Deb & Gary.

Another Christmas Eve tradition is the reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas". We have recorded the kids reading this since George and Charlie were first reading. I hope to somehow combine all these readings to show them growing up. It will be a very precious memory to us all and a tear-jerker for me. Each child has their own copy of the story, a tradition I plan to continue for my grand-children!

Christmas Eve was very traditional, as even though the kids are getting older they still want to do all the same things. Our first tradition is that we go out for a family meal. Our favorite place is The China Palace where we can all have a great first, and nobody has to cook or clear up. We like to do this late afternoon so we leave plenty of time for our other activities. When the children were little we decided to do Sibling present exchange on Christmas Eve for two reasons; first the kids were always begging to open a gift, and second it made their smaller gifts more special, instead of being swamped by the main gifts on christmas morning. To make this gift giving more special, each child has to think of a game that everyone has to play. The winner of the game receives their gift as a prize, and the game continues till everyone has received their gift. Then the next person does their game. This takes a lot of time, but is a lot of fun. My gift to the kids is always new pyjamas.