Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!

God was very good to us this Christmas, and New Years. Christmas Eve we spent with Tracy's family in Upland and Christmas day we celebrated with Peter's family in Fillmore.

Time to open presents! This is always the most chaotic time of the evening as the kids scramble around passing them out and begging to open all their presents.

Happy Birthday Peter! Being the day after Christmas, we celebrated Peter's b-day on Christmas day. Hence the wreaths and Christmas trees on the cake. Mom H. makes the most delicious chocolate cake with this caramel drizzle in it...makes my mouth water just thinking about it. Yum

Tracy and Alice celebrating Christmas at Mom and Pop's. If I didn't know any better, I'd think she's signing 'cat'. She sure loves her kitties.

Santa brought us Disneyland passes so here we are at the Happiest place on earth on Peter's birthday. It was VERY crowded, as you can imagine on the day after Christmas, but we had a blast. We were disappointed to miss the snow on main street, but the transformation of the castle was gorgeous. We didn't know this, but we happened to be around the castle when they did the transformation. It was all lit up and looked great, but then, the lights around went dim, and the castle lights changed. It suddenly had beautiful icicles hanging from it. The sight was nearly breathtaking. My description doesn't do it justice, but take my word for it. If you have a chance to see that you will absolutely love it. Small World was also quite spectacular at night.

Peter's been wanting a new BBQ and has been throwing hints out for quite some time. I thought he was just gonna buy one himself sometime, but just a few days before Christmas he said he wanted it for a present. I was already done with my shopping, so I made a few calls, and with the help of family we were able to get him one for his birthday. We've already cooked on it twice, and it works GREAT! Thanks everyone! Now we need to have you all over so you can see how well it works. uuhhh, we'll have to get back to you on that one. ;)

Mother's Day Tea

In 1999, Stephanie, Amy and Tracy took their mothers too tea for Mother's Day. We had such a good time, that we have carried on the tradition for many years. This year was our 10th tea. Several years ago we went to a tea flower shop in Glendora, that had a little tea room in the back. They had a tea journal on the shelf that we bought and wrote in that year which has become part of the tradition. It is such a blessing to go back and see who was at each tea, and all the wonderful things everyone has to say each year.

Stephanie and Ellie (Tracy's sister-in-law and niece). Ellie finished sewing this purse just moments before we left for the tea. She told her mommy where she wanted the Eiffel Tower and the clouds on the handle. Sh behaved like such a little lady.

What's this you ask? I love how they are so creative. This is a little piece of watermelon cut out to look like a tea pot.

Happy May Day!

On May Day, the Holladay's have a tradition. Early in the morning, someone places flowers on the front porch, rings the doorbell and then goes and hides. This year, Lacey and Rob came out from Missouri with John David and placed him on the porch with the flowers, as a surprise for mom. Peter and I had the privilege of going out with them the night before, but we had to keep it a secret from mom until the next day. Isn't he a cutie!!!

Rob, Lacey and John David at Outback.

I love this one!

Here we all are. I wish we had the waitress clear the plates before she took the picture.

Sunday, we all got together at mom and pop's for dinner. Gregory is having fun, but I'm not so sure about John David. We all had a great time, got some family pictures taken too.

Work Day

We decided to turn our bee removal day into a work day. Since Peter was already on the roof, he decided to go ahead and remove some of the branches that were hanging over the house too. The fire martial always reminds us to keep the house clear, so that's what we did for the rest of the day.

Branches beside the front porch.

Peter on the roof cutting down branches.

Branches in front of the porch. Too bad I didn't get an after shot so you could see how much better it looks with all of them gone. ;)

Honey and branches. The side of the house looks much better now...trust me. We also did a lot of work in the back of the house, pulling weeds, etc. Peter had the weeder on the hill and cleared away most of the stuff there.
Whew!!! That wore us out!

Bee Gone! I Say!!!!!

The bee guy was gonna charge us an arm and a leg to remove the hive, so we decided to do it ourselves. Here is the place where the panel was that you could see the honeycomb behind. Peter took off that panel and started to remove the honey from there. He soon realized there was much more than we thought so he went up on the roof.

Peter attempted to scrape the honeycomb off the roof here, but decided he would have more success if he took off that part of the rood instead...so that's what he did.

WOW!!! Can you bee-lieve all that?!
I love how the honeycomb is lined up in rows like that. I had no idea it would look like that. I guess i don't know enough about bees and their hives. Towards the right, you can see where they built some new comb, but hadn't started to use it yet. This is such a beauty, and a wonder, that I almost hate to see it go. But we were warned that if we didn't remove it, we would get all kinds of critters looking to get at that honey.

This is the after shot...hive removed.

Can you believe all the bees here? WOW!

Here's what's left of the hive. But the bee guy said we needed to remove all the honey and the hive. The bees can smell the pheromones so bees from another hive may come and work on it here it we don't get rid of in all and seal up the holes.
Here's a piece of the new stuff that we kept for a souvenir.

Now that it's all piled up on the floor, it doesn't look so impressive. Kinda sad really.

Couple's Retreat

Here is the one and only picture we got from the couple's retreat. We had thought about going on the men's and women's retreats with our church, but when we heard they had one for couple's...

We left for Venture on Friday and came home on Sunday. Behind us there is the pier, and the restaurant is Eric Erickson's. On our way out on Sunday we went to the harbor to Andria's. This is a really good little fish and chips place...very popular. It's the type of place where you wait in line to order and they call out your number...I guess that sounds like fast food, but it didn't seem like that. It was very good.

We learned a lot at the retreat and had a blast. The speaker was pastor Philip DeCourcey, the former pastor of PBC. He talked about the roles we have as husband and wife, the importance of communication, and things to watch for that can break it down, and many other very helpful subjects. Peter and I were volunteered for a game called the shoe game. The couples sit back to back and swap a shoe so you each have one of your shoes and one of you spouses shoes in each hand. Then they ask questions and you have to guess how your spouse will respond. "who is the better driver" for example. You hold up the shoe of the person you think is the better driver and hope they agree. It was a blast! We actually got pretty far being newlyweds. We had a great time all weekend and met several new people. It was great to be back in church the following Sunday and see many of the couples we met at the retreat.

Bee Gone!

This may be a bit morbid, but we were glad to see that the bee spray was working. He did say to give it 5 days, so we will see how things are when we get back. We are going on a couple's retreat with our church this weekend. We are so looking forward to it.

Going... going... gone?

We had a guy come out on Monday and spray the bees. He said we need to give them about 5 days, and if there are still some bees here, he'll come back and spray again. Now we just need to get rid of the honey before it starts attracting other critters, and/or starts melting.

We didn't see this before, but if you look there under the ripples, where the bee is coming out, you can see the honeycomb. Pretty cool huh!? I love this shot!

He had to go inside the house too, to spray from our closet, to be sure he got them from both sides. He had to poke a hole in the ceiling with his screwdriver. I thought it was small enough, but pretty soon, a bee came in the house seeking to get away from the poison. Not to worry, though, he put a piece of scotch tape over it and we haven't had a problem.

Our Bee Problem

What's all that stuff in the tree. It's a bird! It's a plane! Nope, it's a whole bunch of bees!

I went to the lot to bring Molly in the house and there were tons of bee flying around. We have know for some time that we have bees living in the eves of the house, but now that it's getting warmer, it seems to be a much bigger problem than we realized. We went in the house for a few minutes and called an exterminator. When we went back out it was very strange. There were hardly any bees. We went around to the corner of the house, and then I saw them! They had landed...probably to take a little break, and so we ran in to get the camera. 1st thing everyone thinks of when there are thousands of little stinging insects near their house right?

Peter got the best pictures. The above is really from zoom. I was about to go inside and get the phone ready to call 911 if he got any closer. When we were putting up the lights at Christmas time, he told me he was allergic to bee stings when he was a kid, but not any more. He got stung a couple of times putting up the lights, and I had the phone ready, but never had to call 911. They were a problem then, but this was so much worse, so if he got them to come after him, we would have really been in trouble. My dad told me later that they were swarming around the queen and they can be really unpredictable like this. They could have turned on us at any time. I'm glad we went back in the house when we did. We may have stayed out a little longer, but I was getting paranoid about them all flying around. My mistake was telling Peter that. When I finally got the camera to take some pictures, he stuck his finger in my hair pretending to be a bee. Hahahaha, very funny. I don't think I screamed, but I'm sure I swatted, and that was it for me.

This is their hub, and the place that was a problem putting up the lights, as you may well imagine. The problem is they are not only in this one spot any more. They are spreading out, and we can see them coming in and out on each side of this too now.

The strangest thing of all is that when we left a couple hours later, they were gone. There wasn't a single bee on that tree, and they were flying around a bit more, but not nearly as much as before. Now we think they may have killed the queen. I guess they can do that when they all swarm around her.

Weekend at the Cabin

The Hatton's, close family friends, allowed us to use their cabin for the weekend. It is up in the hills in Posey, about an hour east of Bakersfield. We had an absolutely fabulous time! Thanks, Dave and Denise! On Saturday, we pretty much stayed indoors because it rained and snowed off and on all day. Above is some snow in Peter's hair as he admires the scenery. Sunday we went to chuch with the Hatton's. They had a lovely Palm Sunday service. We spent much of the rest of the day haning out with them and their grand kids who were also visiting that weekend. The whole day was fun, but one of the best moments was when Dale, a freind and owner of the restaurant we ate at for lunch, asked Dave and I to sing one of her favorite hymns, "In the Garden". We had a great time visiting with them all and look forward to the next time we get to come up.

Peter on the porch which overlooks the creek and in the background you can see a few of the lovely daffodils. OK they are really small so I'll point them out. Look about halfway up the green cover on the right, and then just above the bottom railing, and you may see a slight yellow blur. In the picture, it came out much more clear. :)

Tracy enjoying the snow all bundled up in Peter's jacket.

I couldn't just leave you with a thought of daffodils, so I found a picture of the ones Denise had picked and put there in the cabin for us. It was so sweet of her to do that for us, and when we parted on Sunday, she said we could take them home with us. They smelled great and brightened our kitchen for quite a while.

The car COVERED in snow.

Before we left Peter insisted I get some peanuts. We just have to have some. He said. And make sure you get a lot. Well we had a blast eating them and feeding them to the blue jays. It's a bit tough to tell but I know this one has several in his mouth. We would put them on the ledge, and then go inside where it was warm and watch them all come after them. It was a great past time.

I was hoping I could catch a blue jay this close, but they were patient and waited until we were a little farther away before they came for the peanuts...

...so I got him in the tree instead.

At first, It hailed, but it wasn't normal hail. It was like little pellets of pressed snow rather than the ice that I'm used to.

Here is one of the lovely views of the landscape as we were heading back home. Ah, the beauty! God truly is an artist.

Ventura Raceway

Peter has been a fan of car races for I don't know how long. He and Uncle Ed used to go all the time, until his work schedule changed, and Uncle Ed moved away, and Oh yeah, there's me. We met in February of last year, so I don't think he was able to go to a single event last year. OK maybe one with Ed while he was in town, but that's about it, so on opening day at Ventura Raceway...here we are.

It looks like a hot sunny day, but we are going to be here for a while, and Ventura, as you know, is right on the beach, and it's going to get cold. Peter used to own a little dwarf car, and raced it a few times, but it can be an expensive hobby, and time consuming as well. In the background, is the car that he used to own. Steve and Cindy own it now and we get to see it in action tonight.

A nice view of the track.

The view from the stands of the surrounding area was spectacular!

If you look closely in Tracy's right lens, you can see Peter taking this picture of us. Isn't that hilarious?!!!

OK, it's getting cold so we need our jackets now. Also perhaps you noticed Tracy's new cap.

Here is a close up of Peter's old car. When he had it, it was #71. Cindy drives it now.

Here are a few shots of Cindy racing. It was fun actually knowing someone that was on the track, and being able to root for them.

Steve is also #33. They have been racing for a while, and sure seems like they have a lot of fun out there together.
The track is so small and tight, that there are many reasons people aren't able to finish a race. There were several crashes throughout the evening, but I'm pretty sure no one got hurt.

Another one of Cindy.
Before all the adults came out, they had some even smaller dwarf cars called minis. These were driven by kids ages 5 - 11, I think. They may have been a little older than that. I just couldn't imagine Ellie, my niece, or Adam or Gregory, Peter's nephews, out there driving around. It looked like they were having fun, but...

Guess whose driving that one...
Another thing they do is put a flag in the back window of all the rookies. It's pretty cool to see how far they get. Some are really good.

Unfortunately, we didn't get any pics of the Sprint cars, but they were there too. The funny thing about them is they have larger tires, and they go faster. Well this is my first time at the races, and though Peter warned me about the mud that would fly, I wasn't prepared for what happened. I was expecting slimy, wet mud that would get all over you, but it came at us in rather large chunks. It was moist but not at all like I was thinking. In fact, when they first started coming, I just couldn't stop laughing. I think I embarrassed Peter. I just know he was thinking, "I just can't take this girl anywhere".