A Traveling We Will Go - Part 2

To here to read part one!

We arrived safely in San Diego about 6:00pm and went out to eat with John's grandpa to "...The best Mexican restaurant in town." The food was pretty good! We were in San Diego all day Sunday. We spent the morning visiting with John's Grandpa and his wife, then spent the afternoon at Balboa Park. Going to the park was a little bit like going to a foreign country! (the architecture, people, etc.) The late afternoon was spent napping, and the evening was spent visiting again.

John's grandpa playing with James.

The entrance to Balboa Park in San Diego, CA.

The architecture was amazingly intricate!

 

This is an outdoor organ. We were there at the right time to hear part of a concert!

It was interesting to see that some people were dressed for a concert in their Sunday best, and others just in their jogging clothes! Quite a mix!

 

 

This is (believe it or not) a fig tree in the park!

 

 

These are the roots. The trees are throughout the park.

 

Before we left on Monday morning, we drove down to a place called 'The Point' to see the lighthouse. Sadly, we were there before they opened, and couldn't wait an hour for them to open since we had to head out soon. Instead, we drove through the war memorial graveyard that is just before the lighthouse.

 

The lighthouse from a distance.

 

The ocean

Some headstones over-looking the ocean.

 

Over-looking the city and port of San Diego.

 

We left San Diego about 9:30am to head to Nevada. We stopped at the Hoover Dam, and went on the new bridge they built across from it. It's amazing how high they are!

Driving to the dam, we passed the bridge.

Quite an amazing structure!

 

The dam. This was taken from the bridge. As you can see, the water was pretty low compared to normal.

After the dam, we drove to Las Vegas to our hotel, The Fabulous Flamingo, to check in. Driving to the hotel, and bringing our needed belongings for the next several days to our room, we felt a little bit like country hicks in the big city - amazed by all the dazzling lights and bringing up our own food to our room. Our hotel room was on the 17th floor. It was about a 15-20 minute walk round trip from our room to the van. We tried really hard to make sure we had everything we needed to try to cut down on trips back and forth, but it didn't really work. :-p

The front of our hotel. Pretty snazzy!

 

Our room. Their theme is pink and black, like flamingos.

 

In a garden they had flamingos, along with other animals (pelican, black swan, ducks, and koi fish). James enjoyed stopping to see the flamingos each time we went past them.

The view from our 17th floor room.

 

Tuesday was the first day of the International Builders Show - the main reason for this trip. The three days were full of walking, seeing some neat new products, meeting new people, and lots more walking! ;-) The learning sessions John went to these three days were very informative and good reminders in several areas for his business. When John was in classes, James and I were either at the room taking a nap, or walking around the exhibit halls. After John's classes we would walk around the halls together.

Outside of the convention center just before going in to the show.

 

This is the Kohler booth. It's one of the largest boothes in the show. Practically it's own room!

 

On Tuesday night we walked over to the Bellagio to see the water fountain show (set to music) they are most famous for - It was pretty cool to see it in person! I only took video, so no still shots. The music to the water show I videoed isn't preferable (some country love song), so I won't be posting it unless I can figure out how to put different music to it. Until then, you can probably search Google for pictures :-) We were bummed that they weren't playing any classical music like they do sometimes.

Exciting News!

 

Baby #2 is due in mid-November of this year!

Happy Birthday, James!

One year ago today, James Anthony Pedersen, was welcomed into this world. We are so blessed to be his parents, and to watch him grow each day!
Happy Birthday, James!! We love you!

 

A Traveling We Will Go - Part 1

In mid-January, we took a trip along part of the West Coast.  We were gone from January 15th-29th.

Our trip went well.  James did very well despite being in his car seat for so long. John did all the driving, and I was back and forth from front to back either navigating for John, or keeping James amused. We had a small box of toys that he would go through throughout the day, and eventually I would just end up giving him the whole box loaded with the toys for "something new"! Keeping the box in the car even when we were in other places kept the toys fairly 'new' and exciting for the day(s) of driving.

James being cute :)


On our first day we stopped in San Antonio about 1pm to tour the Alamo.

 

In front of the Alamo.

 

 

This was a shrine on the property of the Alamo. We weren't able to tour the inside due to floor renovations. The architecture is pretty intricate!

 

 

The sprawling live oaks were around the property. They are huge!!

We left about 3:30pm to our reservation at South Llano State Park in Junction, TX (The LAST town of civilization before El Paso!) and arrived at our site at 5:30pm. We tried to quickly get camp (Tent, and camp stove to make dinner) set up despite it being really cold.  John had a realization of how cold it was when after I had washed dishes from dinner, he went to pick up our soup pot off of the park bench to put it away, and it was frozen to the bench! This was in a span of no more than 10 minutes.

 

James and I warming up and getting the tent ready so we can go to bed.

 

 

The next morning the camp ranger said the temperature dipped down to 14 degrees! John's contacts were even frozen in the solution in their case! Thankfully we had a heater and plenty of warm blankets, so we survived the cold. We have that out of our system, so we won't be camping in weather that cold anymore! We forgot to look at the weather before we left home...Next time we will remember to check!

 

 

Our camp. You would never know that it was 19*F when this was taken!

 

 

Our hose froze...After letting the water run, it finally spit all the ice chunks out. :) The piece on the bottom left was at the opening of the hose.

 Despite the freezing temperatures, the night sky was like nothing I have ever seen before! Such a clear slate blue night sky - And so many stars!! With no lights around us, we could see nearly every constellation in the sky! God's creation is so beautiful! Living in the suburbs, there are too many lights around us to see very many stars.

The next evening we arrived in Alamogordo, NM, to stay with a family from the A Candle in the Window Hospitality Network. (To learn more about the Candle in the Window Network, visit their website.) They were a very sweet family of eight. We actually stayed with a different family than we originally planned to stay with due to the first family coming down with a virus, so we stayed with some friends of theirs.

 

The sweet family (minus the husband who had to leave early for work) that we stayed with for an evening.

We arrived in Chandler, AZ. at 5:30pm on Thursday to stay with my Pepere (Grandpa) for a couple days. The first morning we stopped at the house I (Megan) used to live in. It was fun to reminisce and for John to be able to see some of my past!

 

My old bedroom is the front right window.

 

 

James enjoyed playing with Pepere's dog, Old Cyrus.

Later in the morning we went to a place called "Hole in the Rock" (Quite a fitting name for the place). It's a large rock formation with a large hole in it. At the top, we were able to see the whole city of Phoenix. It was quite a view!

 

Hole in the Rock before going up.

 

The city.

 

At the hole in the rock.

 

John, James, and my Pepere!

 

All of us.

 

John and James looking out from the top of the rock over the city of Phoenix.

 

Me and my Pepere!

 

My Uncle Nathan was able to visit with us the few days we were there.

This was taken the morning we left.

We left Saturday morning at 8am to drive to California to visit my friend Ali in San Clemente (south of LA) in the early afternoon, and then to San Diego in time for dinner with John's Grandpa.

 

Us with my friend Ali. We met at a beautiful park in San Clemente.

Guests = Bathroom Progress!

The last update we had about the guest bathroom was the sink installation. It stayed that way for six months, but the weekend after Christmas we had some out of town company. This gave us the push we needed to get moving along on our bathroom.

 

Our guests would need a mirror, so we bought and installed one. It really helps lighten up the space!

We have plans to put a frame around the mirror.

 

 

Next, is cabinet doors to hide the under the sink stuff.  We saw this style of door in a library book on bathrooms, and loved it! Our medicine cabinet door is the same as the vanity ones.

 

 

Add a lamp, towels, and soap, and it's ready for company!

A Belated Merry Christmas - Picture Heavy

This post is quite late in coming, but better late than never!

 

This was our second Christmas, and James' first!!

We celebrated Christmas in a different order this time than we did last Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we celebrated our own Christmas.

 

We had a brunch of homemade cinnamon rolls, and our special holiday drink of hot chocolate with vanilla chia tea.

 

 

 

We spent the day just relaxing and enjoying one another's company, and John played Christmas carols on a tenor banjo he was given from a friend at church.

 

 

 

 

For dinner we had a turkey dinner! The turkey was a (frozen) gift earlier in the month, so we saved it for our Christmas dinner. It was a very yummy smoked turkey. Along with it, we had mashed potatoes, green beans, and a salad.

 

After dinner and dishes, we went out to a neighborhood in our area that is famous in the Houston/Cy-Fair area for their Christmas light displays. Sadly, we didn't take any pictures, but it was a very enjoyable evening. After James realized there were interesting things to see outside our car windows, he got more interested in just sitting on my lap and looking at the lights as we drove by. There were some pretty impressive displays!

On Christmas Day we spent pretty much all day at the other Pedersen's house. We arrived about 8:30am for a breakfast of fruit and a Danish version of a pancake called aebleskiv.  The morning was a relaxed time of visiting and playing instruments.  At noon, we had a main meal of beef stew, salad, and dinner rolls. After the meal, we all departed to go home for naps. Some of the other Pedersens and Wades went Christmas caroling in their neighborhood. In the late afternoon we all gathered back at the house for more fellowship, and food! We even had a friend come join us for the evening! Dinner was a light finger-food meal of munchies.

 

Breakfast with the three households.

 

 

Anna making the aebleskiver. The pans are called "Puff Pastry Pans".

Aebleskiver is plural, and aebleskiv is singular.

 

Samuel demonstrating the art of aebleskiv eating!

 

 

Cousins having fun!

On December 27th, we went to the Lemay's house for Christmas. We celebrated later in the week due to my dad's new work schedule (He was out of town on Christmas day).  We spent the afternoon and evening with them. There was a time of opening gifts, food, and fellowship - and more Christmas carols! :-)

 

James and his Uncle Riley

 

 

They are quite the pair! ;-)

 

 

One tradition my family has is eating Jello Salad that my Grandma makes. I don't remember a Christmas without it!

 

 

 

Below is our Christmas letter:

 

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope this letter finds you well. This past year has been an exciting year with many firsts!

On March 21, 2012, we welcomed our first son into the world! James Anthony Pedersen was born at home at 2:24pm, weighed 6 pounds 15 ½ ounces, and was 19 ½ inches long.  The labor was fast (Four hours) and relatively easy for a first-time mom!  He is now a busy 9 month old who enjoys life, outside, and his parents. He does the army crawl and can pull himself up to a standing position now!

On June 4, 2012, we celebrated our one year anniversary! To celebrate we went to the Houston Zoo, and had a very special dinner at home. We are very grateful to the Lord for the first out
of – Lord willing - many blessed years together as husband and wife.

John’s work has been going very well. This year he completed a partial remodel of a kitchen – his largest project to date. It was a drab gray and outdated 1940’s kitchen and now it’s a nice bright white 21^st century kitchen!  It turned out great, and his customer is very happy with the work!

Megan stays at home to care for our home and family. She enjoys it despite challenges that arise with household chores, or caring for James. She is hoping to get some more sewing time in to make 18inch doll clothes to sell on Etsy for her store (www.legacydollshoppe.etsy.com).

The first week of October we went on a camping trip to Pedernales Falls State Park just west of Austin, Texas. The weather was warm and there was some rain, but it was an enjoyable weekend despite those elements. Thankfully our tent didn’t get flooded by the one night of heavy rain. Some friends of ours though, didn’t fare so well.  James enjoyed being outside and also the camp fires! We brought along his Johnny Jump-up (doorway jumper) and hung it on a tree limb. He loves his jumper and it proved a very valuable item to have along!

Our guest bathroom remodel is going very well. The walls are textured and painted, the vanity is in place with the soap stone counter top in – which John cut to fit the vanity and cut out the sink hole – , the tile is in on the floor and in the shower.  The medicine cabinet, vanity doors and drawers are cut, and we just need to stain and varnish them and then they can be installed. It’s a lot of fun to see it all come together!

May you all have a blessed Christmas and new year!

Love in Christ,John, Megan, and James Pedersen