Decorating for Christmas!

Tonight for FHE we are decorating the inside of the house for Christmas.  At least a little bit.  We are waiting for Grandma Candee to get home from California and put away her Thanksgiving decorations. :)

For Thanksgiving we had planned on going camping but at the last minute we decided the overnight temps were too low for tent camping.  However, we still camp cooked and did a fire outside and all the fun stuff of camping.  We just had a nice warm place to sleep at night.  The perfect combination. ;)

Almost New Year

This post is written by the entire Yanda family....

It's Family Home Evening night and we have just decided to commit to writing as a family on this blog once a week.

This past week we had a swim meet.  All three kids competed and did very well on their times.  Stella and I saw the second Hunger Games movie and it was REALLY good!!

We also cleared out the back yard last weekend and this weekend was really, really cold so it was a good thing we got it done last weekend!  We have enjoyed a weekend full of fires thanks to the Master Fire Lord Ray Yanda!  He even found a new use for an old CPAP machine.

 

Stella turns 12!!!

Stella started playing french horn this year in 6th grade. This is her dressed up before her first concert!

Wow!! How did that happen? I haven't blogged in welllllll over a year!! ooops! :)

Honestly, it was probably because I didn't have much to say. I've just been living life and the day to day. But, recently we've had some exciting events, so I thought to blog about them!

This entry is to pour out my feelings about Stella turning 12. It's soooo bitter sweet. Of course it's exciting. An age she gets to try and do so many new things. It's really a pivitol age for her at church. Today she started young womens. She did really well. She said she was really nervous, but then they had testimonies at the end and she decided to share her testimony and she said she felt FINE afterwards. Isn't that amazing? I'm so proud of her and happy that she has the gospel in her life and she has a testimony of it. Amazing!

We went BIG this year for her birthday. She got a few of her friends together early in December and Ray took them to play outdoor laser tag. It was at a paintball park but it was laser tag. They had a BLAST!!! We had pizza afterwards and she really enjoyed the whole night. Then we went on vacation.

I'll be posting about our vacation as soon as I can put it all together, but in a nutshell, on her 12th birthday Stella was at Universal Island of Adventure (aka Harry Potter Amusement Park)!!!

It was a looong car ride from Texas to Florida. Sometimes I spent my time taking pictures of my beautiful daughter Stella. :)

Stella is a HUGE Harry Potter fan so she was super excited to pick out her wand on her birthday! The sleeping picture is her on Christmas Eve! She's still my baby no matter what! She was sooo exhausted she went right to sleep. I had to snap a quick pic!

This AFTER she turned 12! We saw an almost instant transformation in how she carried herself. It's quite amusing, hahah! Such the diva! :D

Long story short, she lost her phone on the trip. She has been REALLY good with phone for over 3 years now. It happens. Luckily Ray and I had just upgraded and so she is now using my old iphone 3g.....yeah I know....LOL!

April 2010

Here are a few updates of things we did in April 2010!

Kyle got new flip flops to go with his swimsuit. We're gearing up for swim season! Woohoo!!!

Cambria got a new swimsuit and flip flops! She's ready to swim!

Stella also got a new swimsuit and flip flops! Look how she's all legs! haha! Sooo pretty Stella!

Cambria played a lot of soccer. She even scored the winning goal in the very first game! She's catching on and working on her endurance! Goooo Cambria!

(she's in the gold shirt behind the red players)

(she's #5 right in the middle of this picture)

We went to Kyle's Museum school open house. They just finished building the new Fort Worth Science and History Museum and they had the whole thing open for the museum school families that night. It was a blast! Our last open house as he only has a few weeks left and then goes onto Kindergarten in August. It's been a FANTASTIC program for both him and Cambria!

Cambria had her 1st grade musical at school. She was a monkey. She did AWESOME!

(the picture quality is not as good, but we had an amateur photographer that night - good job Stella!)

(Cambria is right in the middle with the yellow mask on her head)

(pretty blurry, but Cambria is the monkey in the middle with the rainbow on her brown shirt)

Here she as for her after picture! :D Cute monkey!

Easter 2010

I have been BAD about blogging! Ack!! I'm updating today though! :D
We had a good Easter this year!

The kids dyed eggs.

Grandma Candee gave Easter baskets. Grandpa and Grandma Yanda sent gift cards. Such lucky kids! They even got a visit from the Easter Bunny!!

They played with bubbles in Grandma Candee's backyard.

We had an easter egg hunt at Grandma Candee's house.

Like I said, a very good Easter! :D

The New Year's Letter

I'm getting ready to send my New Year's letter out, but thought I'd post it here just to get this blog up and active. I really want to update my pictures on here and start blogging more about the kids, but it will have to wait. This will have to suffice:

Happy New Year 2010!
We hope the new year finds all of our friends and family well and blessed just as we are. I’ve always been a rebel of sorts about traditions, so I’m breaking the mold of Christmas letters and giving you a New Years letter.
Ray spent most of the year working. He found himself transferred to the flight line down at Lockheed Martin in February. While working up close with the actual plane had it’s high points, the stress level, demands and overtime were taxing. It came to a final payoff of sorts in November when the plane had first flight and just this week he has made a transition to an area that is more suited for him. While working 6 and 7 days a week, Ray still managed to find time for the family, be scoutmaster for the boyscout troop at church and lay new flooring in the good majority of our house.
Allison spent most of the year running kids to and fro. She has started to hit the “taxi years” but still enjoys being mom to three great kids. She spends a lot of time volunteering, every Wednesday at the elementary school, as secretary to a new gifted and talented advocacy group she helped to start, and various jobs at church. Allison looks forward to her new opportunity to teach the 7 year olds at church this coming year.
Stella (10) spent most of the year reading and singing. She spent the whole year singing with The Texas Girls choir and enjoyed it very much. The organization is a great one, but she is taking a leave of absence so she can try other things this year. One of her goals in the 4th grade at school this year is to break the school record for most AR reading points. She is well on her way and we are quite proud of her many accomplishments!
Cambria (7) spent most of the year smiling and learning. She is always full of joy no matter what she’s doing and has really blossomed into a great student in 1st grade. Cambria tried soccer this past season and really enjoyed it and is thinking about what she wants to try next. She constantly amazes us with what she can do. Both Cambria and Stella have no inflammation from their arthritis at this time which is a true miracle and blessing!
Kyle (4) spent most of the year building and growing. He loves to build things and fix things. Kyle goes one morning a week to museum school where he learns about animals, plants, bodies and even the moon and stars. He will be starting Kindergarten in August of this year! Kyle loves to have play dates with Grandma Candee and whenever Ray is home, Kyle is right behind him.
We were blessed to take a great trip as a family down to the coast of Texas this past summer. We stayed on the beach near Corpus Christi in our travel trailer and had a GREAT time! Allison and the kids also enjoyed a short visit to Iowa in August and had a wonderful time with those she was able to visit. We plan on staying close to home this year, so we hope any and all of you will come visit us here in Texas!

Cursed when vacationing???

Don’t open an umbrella up inside the house or you’ll have bad luck. If by chance you happen to open an umbrella up inside the house, quickly grab some salt and throw it over your shoulder so the bad luck will depart! Soooo…what’s the antecdote for bad luck on seemingly EVERY family vacation we take??? If you recall last year, we got stuck in Gallup, NM for a couple days when our transmission went out on the vehicle. On the way home from the same vacation, we had not one, but TWO tires on the trailer blow out and ended up spending the night in a walmart parking lot! Yep, it was one of those vacations that you blog about and talk about for years to come as being one of the worst vacations you’ve ever had. You pretty much just chalk it up to bad luck and an experience to last a lifetime and move on. What do you do when the very next year, you have a very similar experience?

The kids traveling in the car, stopping at our favorite stop off of 35 in West, Texas to get kolaches for breakfast the next morning and our campsite at Mckinney Falls State Park.

DAY 1
We pulled out early on Friday to head down to McKinney Falls State Park. It was only a 4 hour drive and the plan was to set up camp and then head into Austin to see the capitol and have some dinner. We traveled about 30 minutes before I noticed that the air conditioner was not working properly. Ray pulled off at an auto parts store to see if he could figure out what was wrong with it. Fifteen minutes later he knew it needed to be fixed in a shop. He got a recommendation from the auto parts store and we headed over there. The shop let us plug our trailer in, so we had a cool spot to rest while they fixed our air conditioner compressor over the next 3 hours. Ray and I and the kids walked over to the Babe’s chicken restaurant to have some lunch and my mom and the dog stayed in the cool trailer. We got back and the car was done and we hooked up and headed down to Austin. The air worked just fine. We picked up some subway sandwiches along the way since we got into the campground late. No visits into Austin this trip. Oh well, not the end of the world!
DAY 2
We didn’t even unhook the night before, so breaking camp wasn’t a big deal. We got on the road rather early after stopping at the falls to take some pictures. There were not falls this time of year, but it was still pretty at Mckinney Falls. We stopped at a little mexican restaurant in Pleasanton, Texas.

The plan was to made the 4 hour drive down to Mustang Island State Park and then head in for some dinner at Corpus Christi. We were driving along in our nice cool air conditioned car for about 2 hours before we heard something funny happen on the car. Ray said it sounded like a belt that came loose. It only took a few minutes to figure out that our air conditioner had gone out yet again! We pulled into a gas station and Ray found that the air conditioner clutch had burned up again! We weren’t near ANY large towns, so we had no choice but to the make the rest of our drive down to the shore in the heat. The kids changed into their bathing suits and we kept cold washcloths handy to help with the heat. Stella said a great prayer, that was definitely answered many times over. About 10 minutes later we had a HUGE downpour of rain that cooled us down about 20 degrees for awhile which really helped a lot! My poor mom got stung by a bee on the neck, and then the next day, Stella pulled the left over stinger out. Crazy! We made it down to Mustang Island State Park, set up camp (our friends campsite is on the left and we are on the right with the dining canopy in the middle. :) ) Our shower that Ray rigged up for washing off the sand. It was a great thing to have all week!and then headed down to the beach. After a bit of time at the beach we went out for a GREAT dinner at Outback. We picked up some groceries for the week and some sand toys and such and then went back to camp. We couldn’t do anything about the car air conditioner until Monday morning when the dealership would open again. We just dealt with a hot car until then.