Christmas with Santa

And Santa



And Santa

And Santa
Each time Morgan saw Santa this year, it was a little better. She never cried or screamed but was just a little nervous. She always asked for a Doll House and was glad she did because he delivered.

San Francisco

This year for Christmas, my mom decided to take the "married" girls on a little trip. I say "married" because my brother's fiance, Alyssa, came even though they aren't married yet. We went to San Francisco and had a fabulous time. We drove up in the afternoon and headed straight to Union Square to eat at the Cheescake Factory on the 8th floor of Macys. It was gorgeous all decorated for Christmas.


However, the three hour wait on a Tuesday night deterred us and we went to Joe's Crab Shack at Fisherman's Wharf instead.

Then we went to our great hotel and enjoyed some room service dessert. Breakfast was wonderful in the indoor gardens and it had a beautiful view.


After leaving our hotel, we went and saw some of the sights, including Lomard Street (the most crooked street in the world), the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz, and more at Fisherman's Wharf. We ate lunch at Tommy's Joynt and headed for home.


While stuck in some pretty bad traffic, we enjoyed this beautiful rainbow and it helped the time go by much more pleasantly.

Thanks mom for a great trip full of fun times and wonderful memories.

Anchors away

I had the opportunity to go out on an air craft carrier for a week to provide eye exams. I flew out to the ship on a Monday and rode the ship back into San Diego. This was my first time being on a ship. Up until now I had only sat in a clinic doing eye exams. This experience helped me develop a sense of being part of the Navy, rather than just working for the Navy.

I stayed very busy doing eye exams. I found out that sailors out on ships don't work the nice comfortable 8 hour shifts most are used to. I worked from 7:00 am until 8:00 pm with breaks for lunch and dinner. I thought I was working hard but quickly realized that I had one of the easiest schedules on the ship. My respect for our sailors has significantly increased. On my lunch and dinner breaks I tried to make it out to watch the air operations. To me this was like being a kid on Christmas morning all over. There is something about all that power harnessed into a machine that really gets the adrenaline going. As you can tell from the pictures, I really enjoyed watching the jets take off and land.







The Carnival cruise ship got stranded while I was out on the carrier. We responded and provided relief to the ship. The picture below is of one of the helicopters that transported supplies to the stranded ship.

Morgan's Photo Shoot

I have been wanting to take family pictures for a Christmas card before I get too huge. Since I'm not sure that's going to happen, I decided to take some pictures of Morgan to possibly use. Brent would probably be embarrassed of me posting some of these but he's not here so he can't have an opinion. I have no clue how to edit pictures either so I was just playing with color a little in Windows Photo Gallery. Again, I'm sure Brent would be embarrassed but I had fun.






These are for those of you who don't live close and miss out on Morgan's many facial expressions. That girl always has us laughing at the faces she makes. Keep in mind, these were completely unsolicited. She was just done taking pictures.




Let me know if you have a favorite out of the ones above.

Enjoying the outdoors

We knew Brent was going to be going out to sea for a week so we wanted to do something fun together as a family. We headed up to Torrey Pines near La Jolla to do some hiking. It was beautiful and Morgan had a great time. We did a 3.25 mile loop and Morgan walked for probably 2 miles of it. We hiked down to the beach, had lunch, played and then hiked back. It was a great day.

Halloween, way late

We started off by going to a neighborhood parade. Morgan wasn't terribly interested and we left early. I have to admit, I wasn't terribly interested either. It was kind of boring.

But she did wear her Lion costume for a few minutes and was a big hit.


This is her ferocious growl.

Saturday morning, we carved pumpkins with Jarom and Alyssa. The boys took forever.

From the left, Jarom, Brent, Paij, Alyssa

We went to our ward trunk or treat that night but didn't stay very long or take any pictures.
We drew on some whiskers for Halloween and didn't get them off before bed. We thought it was pretty cute.

Morgan the Explorer

Morgan is totally obsessed with Dora the Explorer. She would watch it all day if we let her. We try to limit her to three episodes a day. Anyway, Brent decided he would take Morgan exploring in our backyard. We have 1/2 an acre but it's not exactly a place to play since it's on a huge hill. She was very excited. If you haven't seen the show, this will mean little to you but they started out drawing a map so they would know where to go. They put the map in her Dora backpack that I made and headed out the door.

After the mystery fruit tree, they had to check the map and see where to go next.
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Then they went to the pink flower plant and picked some flowers for mommy.

After that they went to the big rocks but I couldn't get a picture from the house. She came back with all sorts of treasures in her backpack that she had found. I think this will become a new Sunday afternoon tradition for Morgan the Explorer and her friend, Dad.