4 Generations

Merry Christmas friends and family,

We are in the middle of a two week long Christmas celebration.  present opening for the kids will be daily almost like Hanukkah, but without stifling religious rituals performed by the Jewish folks who sadly still live under the old law.

That's a different story...  The 4 Webbs turned into 7 relatives with Ouma, Oupa and GG added to the mix.  Their week-long visit was much more enjoyable than last time they were here because we didn't slave like dogs every waking minute in the midst of the move.  This time we watched some movies, shopped, visited, and even had time for group adventures.

We even set aside a special afternoon to update the generations picture.  Here is the first one we took when Layla was a mere 5 months old.

These are priceless pictures to me.  Seeing four generations of wonderful girls in a single picture is amazing.  One of the interesting things I notice is how all three ladies wore glasses for the new picture compared to the first one where none of them have glasses.  Both pictures show the greatness and beauty of such a special occasion.

We also have one with Easton included because he requested to be in one as soon as he realized the photo opportunity in progress.  I planned to get the twins in there already, but his request to be a part of it was a bonus.

Easton and Layla are sleeping in the twin trundle beds while we have visitors.  That leads to hour-long giggling and conversations between them before they crash asleep.  For the past three years they sleep from 8PM to 7AM, but with the one hour shift on the front end that means we get to sleep in on the flip side.  However, our situation is like the wives tale about when an old Native American Indian was told the reason for daylight saving time he said, “Only the Government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.”

They are best friends though so I wouldn't expect anything different.  Even in the middle of the day when they get a lollipop they face the rocking chairs toward each other and have a blast chomping and rocking and talking.

One of our adventures was the outing to Schnepf Farms.  The humongous acreage exceeded my expectations with the size and number of things to do on the property.  I won tickets through works so we received the full tour of everything the farm had to offer including taking home a free home-made apple pie.

Our timing was excellent because the weather was great and few people were there during the workweek day-time when we went.  We had a private hay ride through the orchards because no other patrons were around to join us.

The hay ride stopped at a fenced off area where several reindeer gathered by the fence anticipating our apples and bread.

Easton grabbed a handful of bread from the bag and started eating it before we explained the concept of what we were supposed to do with it.  Once the twins caught on they were thrilled to have the gentle nibblers use their tongues and lips to snatch the food from their fingers.

That was my favorite part of the trip since I've never been that close in real life to reindeer.  The Cool Bus had the perfect number of windows to capture our gang.  Oupa played the role of bus driver well by hanging onto the steering wheel.

The 4 Webbs utilized the free ice skating passes, but one of us shined particularly bright.  After Layla was strapped into her skates she stood up on them, walked over to the rink and straight out onto the ice.

The skates where real ice skates, but the ice was fake.  They used a type of plastic interlocking board that felt awkward to Kendra and I since we know what the real-deal ice feels like.  Easton ponied up and gave it a shot also.  He did great for his first time on skates, but the balance required just to stand up wasn't comfortable for him.  I'm proud he took the risk of going out on the fake ice for a few minutes.  He tried something new and that's all I expect...  the willingness to try.

Kendra and I gave role modeled the "give it a try" philosophy, but the experience was so unnatural that neither of us kept our skates on for more than 10 minutes.

Easton found his stride in the playground equipment.  Schnepf Farms has a long wooden train with crawl spaces and ladders connecting the cars.  He wanted to play for much longer than we allowed, but other adventures quickly grabbed his attention.

How about tricycle races through a hay bale race course?  Ouma and Oupa were such great sports to jump in and participate in the fun.

The tricycles were slightly too big for the twins, but Kendra and Ouma pushed them through the tight turns and obstacle course parts.

Of course Miss Independent wanted to do it all by herself , but I could tell she was thinking how much more fun her big girl bike at home is compared to the difficulty of riding the tricycle.

The grand finale was in Easton's wheelhouse:  a train ride!  The train here is similar to the one in Sacramento, but with passenger cars.  All of us hopped aboard the Schnepf Farms express to tour the other parts of the complex.  An amusement park is onsite, but unfortunately it is only open certain seasons.

We'll certainly be back some day, but it was a long haul to get there so it won't go into our standard rotation of adventures.  We talked briefly about how cool it would be to have their birthday party there, but then after thinking about how far away it is we decided not to even consider it.

The twins are 5 weeks away from being 4 years old so we are deep in negotiations for birthday party ideas. It won't include pizza though. That much I can be sure of. Almost every birthday party has pizza and there is never enough to feed all the kids and adults.  What's up with that?  Anyway, Kendra is very creative and will think up some awesomeness to throw into the mix.

See you soon!