In Lieu of Cards

We decided not to send cards this year, but I do like doing some type of recap of our year, so here is our year in short form:

Mercer Family’s 2017 Summary

	Favorite Activity*	Favorite Place Travelled*	Biggest Accomplishment	Favorite Book Read*	Christmas Wish
Kim	Local writing group at the public library	Idaho Falls for the eclipse	Survived the first year back in CA while homeschooling	Secrets of a Charmed Life, Echo, The Thief Lord	Peace, Love, and Quiet
Daddy-o	Sleeping in on non- seminary mornings (until 6:30 a.m.!)	Work trip to Las Vegas, which Kim tagged along for (4 days with no kids!)	Avoided all but 2 accidents on CA streets	Boys in the Boat	“For the kids to stop selling hot cocoa”
Bean	Awesome art class they’ve been in	Yosemite, Monterey, and day trips to SF	Her relay team got 2nd place at the swim championships	Wings of Fire series	“A cat and a phone, but I don’t expect to get either”
Bugaboo	Ice skating classes and cub scouts	Muir Woods, UT, and Legoland	Finishing 7 different books series he’s been reading	The final book in the How to Train Your Dragon Series	“Legos and Books, and more books, and more legos”
Peanut	Soccer (Ed. note: I’ve never seen someone get so much joy out of running around and not touching the ball.)	Legoland, UT, Muir Woods, and Oakland zoo	Swimming!!! He can put his face in and swim  a few yards and he’s turning into a champion treader.	Berenstain Bears	“A puppet theater the same size as my toy kitchen”

*We are terrible at picking favorites--always more than one!

Post Christmas Shenanigans

It seems like the day after Christmas can be a little bit of a let-down: no more anticipation, no more excitement, major sugar crash. It is not the kids favorite day of the year, for sure. But this year, it seemed like we did a good job of gift giving and activity planning for the week after Christmas.

There were lots of presents to enjoy.

The kids had fun hanging out in the pajamas and reading,

playing games,

and working with their new toys.

And then, there was the escape room, which was a gift from us/me to everyone. I don't manage to find something really fun for my brother very often, so when I came across this idea, I was really excited (and I figured everyone else would love it, too.) It was the perfect thing for the day after Christmas and gave us a fun hour working together to steal the jewel from the bank. 

Rara and Unkie left the next day and we spent the rest of the week with more pajama time, a short hike at Del Valle with friends, a finishing off all that Christmas candy.

Christmas Morn'

I love the pictures of the Christmas tree after Santa has come, and before the madness that the next couple hours brings.

Let the wild rumpus begin!

I will say, as excited as our kids are for their presents,

they are equally excited to give out the presents they picked out.

And are very generous in their thanks, too.

They made most of their gifts this year, either in art class or at home.

I love these beginning stages of being thoughtful.

And absolutely love seeing the sibling relationships at their best. We'll take these sweet moments and try to remember them the rest of the year.

Christmas Eve

We did our nice meal on Christmas Eve this year. We don't really have a traditional meal, or even day, just depends on the other events planned. But with Christmas on a Monday, Christmas Eve was much more relaxed than normal. No one had last minute shopping to do, or places to be. We only had an hour of church in the morning, and then the rest of the afternoon was for hanging out, playing games, finishing up last bits of wrapping, and putting out gifts.

The kids helped me make the candy cane place card holders and we actually set a complete table. (I'm always a little horrified when my kids have to ask what utensils go where, but I guess we just don't set the table often enough for it to stick.) We did a ham dinner with a berry pie for dessert, and then it was time to start wrapping things up.

After reading Luke 2 and singing a couple songs, the kids put out milk and cookies (and a couple carrots, of course), along with their list (I REALLY don't understand how this became a tradition, because putting out lists on Christmas Eve which may have some surprise requests on them is NOT a good idea.)

And then these three were off to bed, surprisingly easily, and kind of on the early side.

Christmas Means

Decorating Gingerbread/Graham Cracker houses

Thoughtful friends, near and far

Eating sugar by the bucket load

Seeing the lights, and doing service

Sweet little hands learning to wrap

Cookie baking galore

New decorations from Rara

Friends coming to play

Family coming to stay

The Longest Night of the Year

I think I've found my new favorite way to celebrate Winter Solstice--fire outside under the Christmas lights, hot dogs and marshmallows, neighbors and friends stopping by (okay, so that had nothing to do with solstice, and everything to do with the fact that we live across the street from a light extravaganza and the kids were selling hot chocolate at the other end of the driveway.)

It was a beautiful evening and we had fun hanging out outside, and loved sharing our fire with the cold Deacon Dave goers/workers. And now I'm just excited that the days will be getting longer from here on.

Ice Skating

One of the many sports the kids wanted to try out was ice skating, so we signed up for a session (we are seriously LOVING homeschooling through a charter--they've paid for all the kids sports and art lessons this year!)

6 weeks later, they still aren't pros, but they had so much fun and are much more comfortable on the ice. Maybe it will be enough to at least let them have fun when they get to go ice skating every year or two.

Deacon Dave's Time

The lights have returned to our street. The team at Deacon Dave's started working on this year's display in August--it gets a little bigger every year.

And that meant that December 1 started the kids' hot chocolate stand.

We were better prepared this year. They made a new sign. We stocked up on cups and cocoa making supplies. And they scheduled which nights they'd be open to maximize their sales.

Of course, we had plenty of time to go visit ourselves, many times, with friends and family.

Uncle C. even came from Utah for his annual visit (for work, but it's also his second year getting to go see the lights, too.)

This year's theme was an international christmas party.

Fishy, Fishy

Another ribbon for this guy! He has been working so hard in swim lessons, and it's paying off. We are seeing so much progress, it's hard to believe that he wouldn't put his face in the water just 8 months ago.

Peanut seems to like his teachers, and I think the small, quieter pool with only a couple classes going on at a time is also huge. I've heard it isn't like this when school is out, but for the day time classes, it's pretty awesome. Another point for homeschooling!

Look at him go!

He's also getting pretty good at treading water.

Sacramento Field Trip

We had the chance to go on a tour of the state capitol with our charter and I thought we should take advantage of the field trip. Sacramento is really not too far away for us--about 1.5 hours, which it easily takes us that long to get to SF most of the time, too.

I have found that homeschoolers tend to be habitually late. We were listening to a really good audio book on the way up, The Boys in the Boat, and were at a crucial part of the story when we got there, but even though we sat in the car until the last possible moment, we still were the first ones there and our tour started about 20 minutes late while they waited for everyone. It did give us a chance to look around the rotunda a little and take a few pictures.

Most of the group finally arrived.

I love old architecture, especially in these domes.

We got to visit the State Senate room and our tour guide explained how it runs in there.

Interesting note--everything in this room is green. The State Assembly room is a replica, but done in all red. Guess that would help you to make sure you weren't sitting in on the wrong meeting.

Another interesting fact--the state mammal is the bear, which I knew, but I found it funny to see the various artists interpretations of bears throughout the building. I wouldn't have recognized these wood carvings in the stair posts as bears if they weren't pointed out. Looks more like a wolverine or something.

And another one--a little more bear-like, but he has pretty scrawny legs.

Our guide was excellent with the kids and talked a lot with them about how important each individual is to making the system work for the people. Maybe it's time to get the kids involved a little more in politics. I need to pay attention to the opportunities that come up.

CA state seal--the kids were able to identify a lot of the symbols in here from our CA history last year, which was fun.

The capitol at Christmas--looks like they were just getting everything set up.

And then, our group went to the CA State Railroad Museum. We had just been there in May, but school groups can get in for free, so I figured why not? Plus, there were a couple things we had to rush through last time, so we tried to get to those.

And some things had a little more significance after the rest of our learning last summer. We listened to a great audio book about the Chinese involvement building the RR, the Dragon's Gate, and learned just how dangerous scenes like this were for the workers. 

And this diorama is of the spot of the Golden Spike, which we got to see in real life this summer.

We also toured the different cars, like this mail car, and a dining car, and sleeper cars. I would love to do an overnight train trip with the kids someday.

We also explored a circuit exhibit--these kids love hands on stuff.

And saw the models, which are always fun. Such a great field trip in the capitol.