Our Fall, Thanksgiving,Christmas, and New Year's!

So very far behind here!! My appendix threw me off of blogging and then things got busy.

At the beginning of the school year the neighborhood had a Back to School party (similar to our end of year party in June).  Kids loved it.

Over Labor Day Spilkers invited us to go on a hike with them to Bell's Canyon....up to the water tank.  Started out well,....

and ended well.....
but in between it was a LONG hike!  My hiking abilities only go so far before I get really tired of only seeing this!

 Boulder after boulder to climb over, and over, and over.

This is what others see....beautiful isn't it?

If I concentrated on the beauty of nature around me, rather than the boulders under me, I'd have a much nicer time....for about 1 minute....before I fell and broke my leg, ankle, or neck. 

Fall was busy with the normal stuff.  Getting into the swing of things with school, etc.



Going back to August...Jacob lost his first front tooth!

In October Jacob lost his 2nd front tooth!  You can see it below in his crazy hair day picture.

We also went with Debby Kirby and her 3 kids to Gardner Village for our annual look at the "Witches."  We had a fun day together and that night the whole family came over and we had a fire pit with smores.  First and last fire pit of the year.  :)

They had crazy hair day at school and we had the chance to go to Cornbelly's,  Jacob rode this really tall slide down and loved it.

I LOVE this picture!!

Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump.....

I had to beg Jacob to take this picture with me!

Jacob began tutoring in Chinese before school.   He has really struggled liking Chinese...it is hard so he has fought it.  Math has been hard also, probably because it is being taught in Chinese.  He dislikes Chinese and it has carried into math.  We hope it is going to get better.

At the end of October we  had Jacob's class Halloween party and I went in to help.  That was fun!

 About a week before Halloween Draper has a Halloween party for families where kids can come and play games to get candy.  Jacob decided to wear his Spider man costume for this one and in this picture he has to "pick" the nose to get a prize.  It was pretty funny!


The biggest news in November was Parker getting home from his mission to Brazil!  It was so fun to see him again!  This picture is from the day after he got home while we were at my Mom's for Thanksgiving. David and Heidi went to pick him up and they came home on Heidi's birthday!





























The first part of December we went to Chevron's kid's Christmas party at the Living Planet Aquarium.

The second weekend of December was Olivia's baptism and Parker's homecoming talk.

Just a funny picture of Jacob!

Jacob helping clean the bathrooms with dad.  He is much more willing to help Jason with this than me!
















Sometime during the month I closed an account I had while working and held $500 in my lap!

Jared, Stephanie and the girls came on Christmas Eve to spend the weekend with us.  Santa came to our house for all of us!











Everyone waited on the stairs to see if Santa had come.












Checking out the stockings.

Jacob got a plasma ball from Gr. and Gr. Safsten.













A suitcase and a Snap Circuit electronics set,











I think he enjoyed his morning (as did the girls!)








After breakfast we went over to Randy and MarySue's house for lunch and gift exchange.

During December I came down with strep throat twice!  At the beginning of the month and then again 5 days after finishing my first round of medicine.  For me that is the way to be sick.  Feel sick for a day, get meds and you feel better and are no longer contagious!  By December 31st Jacob had strep so we spent New Year's together at home!

Happy New Year and on to 2015!

Appendix

On Tuesday night, Sept 9th, the fire alarm started to  beep.  Jason and I got up to put a new battery in it around 11 p.m.  My stomach began to feel a little upset.  I went to the bathroom, but it didn't help.  I thought that maybe it needed to work its way through.

I was up, off and on, during the night trying to feel better, but nothing seemed to help.  I got up with Jason and sent Jacob off to school...luckily it was car pool and not my week to drive.  I went back inside to lie down, but nothing felt comfortable.

I tried to throw up twice and then wondered if I had food poisoning.  I called Ask a Nurse. and she asked me a few questions about how I felt.  Did using the bathroom ever relieve my discomfort...it did not.  She said that I should get checked.

I drove myself to Instacare around 11 a.m.  They checked my stomach, did an x-ray to see if there was an obstruction and I felt worse and worse.  I called Jason and he left work to come and get me.  I was feeling so sick they gave me anti nausea  and pain medication.  After that I felt much better!

Jason took me to the ER where they checked me in.  Because of the medication I was not exhibiting any signs of pain.  They took blood and did a CT scan which revealed an inflamed appendix!
     
                                             

By this time it was about 2:30 p.m.  We arranged for MarySue to go to the house and be home for Jacob and the hospital began to check to see how soon I could have surgery.  It was planned for 6:30 p.m. and they said if there were no complications I could go home afterwards.

I was in at 6:30 and out by 7:30 p.m.  Heading home to pick up Jacob by 8:30 p.m!  Amazing!!  Next day I felt so much better.  Rested, but really was able to be back and at it again.  Felt sooo good!

First Day of School

Today Jacob started 1st grade!    Toothless grin and new school shoes ready to head off to Chinese immersion!

We started a tradition last year of going out to breakfast the first day.

Hope he has a fun day!!!

Dad and Jacob at IHop

All of us at breakfast.  Totally fine that you really can't see me!  

Last Days of Summer

Some of the things we have been doing before school starts...
We went to the library for fun activities

Marshmallow shooters

 We tried to go to Seven Peaks with some friends, but got rained out...it has been a very wet August.

We went to the Sandy Balloon festival early one Satuday morning








                                     We did an indoor pool                                      We hit a splash pad

We celebrated Mom and Dad's 53rd wedding anniversary by going out to dinner with them, Heidi's family and Elizabeth and Nathan

We went to Cowabunga for 6 hours!

                 
We had our house re-roofed                                            .....AND Jacob lost a tooth!

Outer Banks Safsten Family Reunion - July 6-13

We had a great time this year at the Safsten family reunion!  The family is spread out all over the U.S.  Joy in Chicago, Chris in Maryland, Erick in Florida, Kristina in Arizona.  Usually they all come out here for the reunion, but this year we went out by Chris to the Outer Banks, N.C.  We stayed in Corolla.

Jacob loved the airplane ride!

We flew to Chris' home, in Baltimore, on Wed., July 2nd.  We flew with Mom and Dad.

Visiting at Chris' house

 The following day we got up and took the subway into Washington D.C.  I had been there 20 years ago with Joy and had a great time seeing everything.  Having done this I realized that Jacob would probably not be up for all of the walking we would be doing.    I was so right!  It was hot and he was tired and told us several times how much he hated this place!  He actually had fun once we were in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

Riding the subway

Jacob sharing his loving feelings towards all of the walking

 After seeing the Smithsonian we walked down to see the WWII Memorial.  I would have loved to see the American History museum and Holocaust museum, but Jacob was done.  We walked to the subway and met Chris on his way home from work and went back together.

Riding the subway home

Slip and slide

 Friday, July 4th we went to Chris' ward 4th of July breakfast and then went down to Jen's parent's house for dinner.  They had a slip and slide...

Chris and Jen

Getting the ice ready
.....and they also did ice blocking in their yard (they have a several acres).   

Ready...set....

Go!!

Back up the hill to go down again

Jacob, Garrett and Ross' son (Jen's brother)

Trying to go down together

Dad trying it

 After dinner we went out for fireworks.















By the end of the day Jacob was tired!!!

 Saturday we spent the day shopping and packing the vans.  We had 2 vans and a Honda Accord.  We were stuffed to the gills going down with food, 20 boogie boards, etc.

That night the missionaries came over to dinner (Chris is the ward mission leader).  I think I would have been on overload about this point if I were Jen.  Having to cook for the missionaries and plan to leave the next morning???  She amazed me!!

Getting reading to leave

To avoid traffic we left on Sunday morning at 4:45 a.m!  We arrived around 11:30 a.m.
We to Kitty Hawk, where the Wright brothers made the first flight.

Jacob in front of replica of the first plane.  Cost over 1 million to replicate.  The original cost $700 to build.   

Looking down at where they took off

 We couldn't get into the beach house until 3 p.m. so we parked the cars at the house and took off to see the beach.

The previous week there had been a hurricane and so it took until 4:30 to get in as the owner had to make some repairs to the house.

Back view of home.  Just inside gate was the pool.

View from top deck

We walked out the back of the house and up the sand hill to go down to the beach.

Kristina, Adrienne, Me, Heidi and Jen relaxing

 Everyone arrived that night, we figured out rooms, cooked dinner and rested.  For meals each family took a night, picked the menu and cooked for everyone.  Worked out well.

Jason working with Jacob on the boogie board  

 Chris and Erick....having fun.

Stephanie, Madeline and Kristin

Even Mom and Dad came out a few days.  Mom even went out in the water to where everyone was boarding!

Olivia, Kennedy and Jacob digging in the sand

The walk down the hill. Joy & Matthew

Dad, Chris ad Malia

Dad and Chris ready to head out!

Chris cooking breakfast

The kids spent several days digging their own pools on the shore.

Pancakes anyone?

Saturday morning Chris, Stephanie, Jason and I got up at 5:45 to go out and see the sunrise.  It was so quiet, cool and beautiful!

Chris and Stephanie

Sun coming up!

 Each family had their own bedroom and bathroom, but all of the kids slept on couches and air beds.

Morning chat

There are other pictures I am waiting for from Chris.  Each night we had a family activity.  Monday we had Family Home Evening.  David and Heidi did it and they did  Minute to Win it.  We were divided up into 5 teams and had 6 rounds.  So funny!

Tuesday night we had joke and family history night.  Odd combination, but it worked.  

Wednesday night we celebrated Mom's birthday.  Chris had put together a video for it.

Thursday night was talent night. 

Friday was devotional night where kids who had gone to EFY told about their experiences.

Saturday the adults tried to go out to dinner, but the wait was 1 1/2 hours.  Came back home and had pizza with the kids.  This was the 7th night there and we had 6 families cooking...we had decided that this night no one cooked and we'd get take out.

Sunday we cleaned up and left.  We drove back to Maryland with Chris and family and stayed there that night.  Monday we got up and flew home.  It was so fun to stay with Chris and his family.  Jacob loved being with Garrett and fun to being with all of them!