Nae’s Heart

Well… I am on Thanksgiving vacation and it has been fun but tiring all ready.  It started on Wednesday around 12:45 when we left Bethel and headed up to San Francisco.  James, Ruth and I had a good trip and it only took us 7 hrs and 42 min.  This means we made really good time seeing as it was the day right before Thanksgiving.  On Thursday morning we headed out to Oroville, which is where Grandpa Richardson lives.  We had a great afternoon eating turkey and pie, playing games, and really just being with the family.

We left Oroville at 10:00 at night… Yes, that late!  We arrived at the Vacaville Outlets at Midnight. It was packed and crazy.  Some of the stores had lines down the side of the building and lines around the whole inside of the store.  It was so much fun… we left the outlets at 3:00 and headed to the JC Penney at Hilltop Mall we arrived there at 4:00 and did a little more shopping.  We went to Nations for breakfast and then headed home to get a few hours of sleep before we did more shopping. It was 6:00 and we were all tired, but we were back up and headed out shopping again at 11:00.  We hit Target, Kohl’s, Fry’s and Wal-Mart.  We arrived back home at 4:00 and we are definitely having a lazy evening at home.  Ruth fixed dinner and we are watching a Christmas movie as a family.

Good deals you ask. Of course we got some good deals, but I can’t reveal any of them since that is classified information until Christmas.  James and I did get a 4′ Christmas tree, a tree topper, and some ornaments.  Our first Christmas tree.

Tomorrow we are going to be decorating for Christmas and James and Dad are going to a car show.  We are having a great time and have had many good laughs.  Like today in the car I opened a bag of gummi bears and the bag exploded sending gummi bears all over the backseat.  We picked up as many as we could find and then dad decided to flick them out the window while we were sitting at a stop light. So he did… I found out that my family gets crazy when they are tired.  Check out Pictures here

Yesterday Ruth and I took a mini road trip to Fresno.  It was Ruth’s 21st birthday and we were going to have dinner with Mom A.  Mom A was doing a WASC visit at a school there and she had Ruth’s car.  Since Ruth had Daniel’s car we  were switching vehicles and what better day then Ruth’s birthday.  We left my house at 10:30 am, grabbed some breakfast, and hit the freeway.

We had a great trip… Lots of laughter, fun, and coffee.  We hit heavy fog going through the grapevine but Ruth handled it like a pro. We decided that Pixley is a very interesting town name and that California cows are happy because the smog makes them high.  We also decided that we like the 99 better than the 5 because of all the houses right by the road.  We got to the hotel where Mom was staying around 3:00 pm.  Mom got there just after 3:45 and Mom and Ruth opened birthday presents.  We went and walked around the small mall there.  It made Montclair Plaza look hugongous. We went to Red Robin for dinner and then back to the hotel.  All of this took 2 1/2 hours, but it was a great time with mom.

We headed home at 6:15.  We stopped for Starbucks in Delano and made the rest of the trip with no stops.  We started the trip in a Ford Focus Wagon and ended it in an ‘09 Versa with 600 miles on it when we left Fresno.  We arrived back at my apartment at 10:30 pm.  It was an 8 hour day in the car… 4 hours there and 4 home.

I missed James but enjoyed having a day off and spending time with Ruth.  It was nice to be home and my bed felt so good.  Check out the pictures here

So today at school we had a slight scare… We had a gaseous smell on campus and evacuated all the classrooms.  For approximately 1hour we sat out on the far side of the parking lot and waited for the Gas Company to come and check it out.  Well, nothing was visibly wrong so all the kids went back to class.  It was the second time I have evacuated for a gas smell, except the first time it was real. It was a broken gas line on our campus.

Beside the exiting afternoon, this week has been fairly normal.  On Saturday we went to a wonderful wedding for some close friends of ours. On Sunday morning I wasn’t feeling the greatest but made it through church, that afternoon and evening I stayed in bed.  We had Monday off to celebrate Veteran’s Day, James and I slept in and had a relaxing day at home.  Tim came and visited us that evening, which was nice since he hadn’t visited us in a while and we hadn’t seen him since Oct 1.

Tomorrow I am working all day, I am subbing in Spanish in the afternoon. The reason: our friends that got married on Saturday, well the bride is the Spanish Teacher at Bethel. So she is on her honeymoon. I didn’t take Spanish in high school but I am hoping that she has a  very carefully laid out lesson plan.  I am actually not really worried about it I enjoy subbing every now and then.

Well, I am glad that the weekend is over but I still don’t think it was long enough.  Friday, I only worked for an hour in the morning and then had the rest of the day off because it was a half day.  So after work I went shopping for a party I was going to and then headed home.  I spent most of the day relaxing.  Around 4 I took James some clothes since there was a youth activity that night and he had been at the school all day and I headed to a bridal shower.  For the party we went to Yard House for dinner and then back to the house to open presents.  At 9 I headed back to the school/church for the rest of the activity.  Since it was broomball and we didn’t have the iceskating rink until 10. We had a great time and I enjoyed watching people eat it hard on the ice… By the way Broomball is playing a game with balls and paddles on the ice without iceskates on.  We left the rink at 12 and headed back to the church so all the kids could go home.

On Saturday, James was up and at a friends house at 8 to go skeet shooting.  Since I had nothing to do I headed up to Pomona to hang out with Ruth and Miriam.  I really enjoyed spending time with them.  I was back in the area around 5:30 and picked James up from Bethel.  We had a relaxing evening at home and went to bed at 9 which became 8 when we turned out clocks back.  James had a cold on Sunday so I went to church alone, but he is at work today and will hopefully have a good day!  I will have pictures of Broomball up soon.