Christmas 2010

Snapshots from our Christmas this year:

Walking the neighborhood in Fountain Valley with all the lights

Making Gingerbread houses with Grandma Holly

Going to the Nutcracker ballet

Going to Peter Pan

Hosting Christmas Eve

Singing in choir at the Christmas Eve service

Our tree

Big gift - an MP3 player

Big gift - a DS

Garden Park Everglades

BeforeSplish Splash

How can you say no to this face?

After

So it's been raining here for 6 days straight now. Not just a little rain here and there but our yearly total of rain in less than a week. I'm so over living in Seattle. Oh wait that's NOT where we moved. Anyway there was a small respite this morning. It was brief and we even saw some blue patches in the sky. We were thrilled to be able to be outside. The girls wanted to go to the park next door and run around for a bit. They knew the blacktop would probably be the only surface available to them so they brought some balls to throw around. We ran for a bit but the lure of the giant puddles in the field was just irresistable. So we went home, put on grubby clothes, picked up Daddy and went back. Worried about pneumonia and neighbors calling the cops for child endangerment, we couldn't stay long but man did they have fun sliding in the puddles, kicking water at each other and giving Mommy big hugs while dripping wet. Emily claimed it is a new tradition any time we get rain like this. Fortunately by the time we get another series of storms like this she'll be taking her own kids.

After getting home, taking a warm shower and eating a hot lunch everyone was cozied up watching a little TV. When Daddy was done eating he was ready to head to the grocery store to buy what we need for our Christmas Eve celebration. Claire characteristically did not want to go. We told her that it was fine to stay home but the TV was turning off either way. Daddy said he didn't want to get home and find Claire staring at the TV. He did his best impression of a slack jawed, mesmerized, lost to the real world TV viewer. Claire took one look at him and said, "I don't do that! I keep my mouth shut!" That girl.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Letter 2010

Merry Christmas all!

The Leeb family is soldiering on, in the face of stiff opposition. John’s plans for a quick transition to a new career has taken an unwelcome turn, but after a year at JC Penney, things are looking up recently. Jenn continues to work at Disneyland and loves it. Recently she attended a breakfast commemorating her first year anniversary. Around the dinner table that night, she explained her chagrin to discover it consisted of only a glass of orange juice and a Danish in a wrapper. I mentioned that hot breakfast is really the way to show someone you care. Claire took it one step further, “Here’s how you make breakfast,” she paused dramatically with one hand poised over the table, “first, you kill something!” and she performed an air karate chop. We all started laughing, so she amended quickly, “Not just anything…whatever you want to eat.” We’re not savages after all—killing things in some early morning ritual to appease our pagan gods. “Then you cook it and eat it. That’s how you make breakfast.”
One of our daughters is nearly a vegetarian. Claire is not that daughter.

In April’s Easter break, Holly took Emily and Claire to Utah so the girls could get some snow time with Uncle Paul and Aunt Kim. They snowboarded, ice-skated and played in the back yard snow. Emily woke up one night to watch the snow fall, decided it was worth waking up Claire too, and they pressed their noses against the window just like they’re supposed to.

We’ve spent the last year enjoying Disneyland. With Jenn working there, the price is right. Emily loves the thrill rides (especially if her shorter sister is not allowed) and so we have spent a lot of time at California Adventure. My parents also purchased Knott’s/Soak City passes for all of us and we made the most of it during the summer.

Emily has a good friend with Leukemia (complete remission) and decided to donate ten inches of her hair to Locks of Love. A week after the cut she dressed as Amelia Earhart for a report at school. For this kind of planning I get no credit--she takes after her mother.

I was asked by my good friend Karl Bertain to perform a wedding service for him and his new wife Margarida. My utter lack of credentials seemed to bother neither the couple nor the state of California. A Universalist church was happy to take my $8 and send me a wallet-sized card saying I could perform weddings. It was a brief but lovely ceremony among the pines in the Sierras above Bishop. We made it a weekend camping trip and visited the Bristlecone pines, thousands of years old.

My brother and his daughters, Magdalen and Natalie, came to visit in July. They went to the beach and Emily said afterward, “It’s like having cool older sisters.” What more can you ask for?

Jenn’s high school reunion was in August. She found it hard to imagine that so much time has gone by and wondered if it would really be worth attending. The answer was absolutely yes! She got to spend the day with her 3 BFFs reminiscing as they looked at yearbooks, old letters (yes the handwritten type) and photos.

The tyrant mouse wouldn’t let my wife have two weeks off during Disneyland’s busy summer season so we went to Wisconsin without Jenn. Frogs, deer, tubing, canoeing, picnicking and all-purpose adventuring. We especially enjoy the time spent with Michelle, Jason, Zach and Mara.
Since Garden Grove Unified starts the Thursday after Labor Day, we had two more days of summer vacation than most and elected to visit the Getty Museum. We stayed about three hours, or two hours more than I thought the girls would tolerate, and they said they want to return to see more.

I had two fatherhood dreams come true this year. I coached Emily’s soccer team, the Fighting Flamingos, to a fantastic season (but a less than stellar record). Claire developed very quickly on her team, Pixie Dust. Soccer was great fun for us all. Also, we went rock climbing in Joshua Tree over Veterans’ Day. Good friends, stories around the campfire, star gazing, scrambling and hiking. We set up a rope on a steep slope and had fun struggling up and rappelling down. We even saw a desert tortoise! I lived in Yucca Valley for 2½ years and never saw one, but we spotted a juvenile alongside a trail to an oasis.

Emily chose to learn the violin at school and has already performed in a group recital about two weeks ago. Mary Had a Little Lamb is rarely played by a string section of forty: sounded good though.

If any of you have ever asked for directions to our house, you know the last phrase has always been, “You can see our five palm trees from a half mile away.” That is no longer the case. We have had them cut down—a thrilling and terrifying, and strictly vicarious experience. The tallest was 85 feet and this guy climbed up with three-inch spikes on his insteps and a harness with a loop of chain attached. Then, once he was at the top, he would haul up the chainsaw, start it, and the bombardment would begin. First surprisingly heavy palm fronds, then sections of trunk that THUNKED into the yard so deeply we felt it even while standing on the driveway. Once the wind picked up and the trees were swaying five or six feet, they decided to hang it up each day. There are large pieces of the bases left. If you know anyone who needs 300 pound sections of palm tree trunk, let us know. We won’t deliver, but we can help lift.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

The Leebs

Weekend? What weekend?

'Tis the season... when no one get to stop and there are so many fun things to do! Just a quick run down of our weekend. Not too many details or I will be here forever typing.
Friday:
The girls started off their weekend with Bend the Rules at school. The last hour of the school day is dedicated to doing all the things that would normally be no-nos. There is candy, soda, toys and fun for all the students who met their reading goal this trimester.
It was also report card day. No complaints here! We are always so proud of our girls.
Dinner was at Grandma Wendy and Papa John's house followed by our annual walk around the neighborhood with the overly decorated houses. It's fun to see our favorite decorations year after year. This year Claire was especially interested in making sure each heard of reindeer had at least one Rudolph present.
Saturday morning we finally got to see Tangled. Once a movie has been in release for a few weeks, Disney employees get to see it for free. It requires standing in line for awhile but the price is right! The girls and I left straight from Downtown Disney to drive up to Thousand Oaks. Grandma Holly had a full agenda for them there. There was a New England lighted house village to set up, two gingerbread houses to decorate and a super secret shopping trip to do. After dinner we went to Camarillo to see Aunt Kristin perform with her church choir. Emily loved being able to watch the orchestra play from a fairly close position.
Sunday morning we wasted little time and were back in the car to head home. After a quick lunch and a change of clothes, Claire got dropped off with her Brownie troop to go see the Nutcracker ballet. Emily and I didn't want to be left out of our yearly tradition so we went to a different production of the same ballet at the same time. We all rendevouzed back home later in the afternoon. Our Christmas tree had been delivered on Saturday while we were gone. It and the house needed some decoration. That lasted until almost bedtime. Phew! It's amazing how with a little planning you can sqeeze so much into a short amount of time.