"Hi train, wait a second..."

Grandpa Stan got a neat toy this year, a remote controlled train that rides in a circle around the Christmas tree. As Grandpa and Bryson were playing with the train, Grandpa said, "Hi train, wait a second, Bye train. Wait a second, Hi train." Bryson thought this was so funny, he repeated it over and over for a good part of the night.

Coming down from the Christmas High

As you can see, Christmas really wipes us out. Both Chris's and my family live very close. I'm talking blocks away from each other. Christmas for us is planned out with schedules and lists to make sure both families get their share of the wonderfulness that is us. For example, our day went something like this.

6:45am- Wake up, get video camera ready, wake Bryson up, open presents, get ready to go to Grandma Debbie's.

8:30am- Go to Grandma Debbie and Grandpa Stan's house. Open presents and eat a warm-up breakfast (actual breakfast will follow, however, I am pregnant and could not wait until 9:00 to put something in my stomach). Consolidate presents and put them in an empty corner for pick-up later.

10:00am- Pick up Sister Snow (an elderly friend from our church), go to Grandma Pauline and Grandpa Steve's house. Help finish actual breakfast, eat breakfast and proceed to open more presents. By this time, Bryson has got the present thing down.

1:30pm- Grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins come over to my parents'. We proceed to, guess what, open presents and eat some more.

5:00pm- Go to Chris's Aunt and Uncle's house. We hadn't even set our stuff down, when we were pummeled with presents. There wasn't any time to find a seat, so Bryson opened his gifts on the kitchen floor, which was actually helpful because it meant we had direct access to more food.

We were so worn out by the end of the night. We back tracked to all the houses we had visited that day, picking up the gifts we had left behind earlier and saying our final exhausted thank yous and Merry Christmases. Now, don't get me wrong, we are very blessed to live so close to so many of our family members. We wouldn't have it any other way and pray that we can afford to live in San Diego forever. I'm just saying that that was our Christmas day- exhausting, draining and absolutely wonderful!

Sea World at Christmas

We like Sea World. They always have fun stuff going on at Christmas. We went to a special preview night for season pass holders last night. We got great seats for the Shamu Christmas show. Here's a few photos.

November wrap up

So a few things happened the last week of November. First, Jessica's homecoming.

Jessica came home from her mission to New York the day before Thanksgiving. We were so happy to see her. This is us outside the stake center after she gave her talk.

For Thanksgiving we went up to Whittier. The two hour drive up turned into four hours and at a rest stop Angele accidently put a bee in her mouth while she was eating an orange. It stung her on the inside of the cheek and she had to suck out the stinger. Sorry, but it's too wierd not to tell. Anyway, she was in pain, but when we finally got there we had a good time. Bryson really liked playing with Scrabble the dog. Real sweet dog.

The next photo is of Bryson and one of his first violin lessons. Steve brought home a 1/8th size violin and taught Bryson how to hold it. He catches on quick.

Premature Christmas Fun

A little less than a week before Thanksgiving and the Santee Trolley Center decided it was the perfect time to have a Holiday Lighting Celebration. I needed to take pictures for the paper so we all decided to go.

Angele and Bryson got some sweet Christmas tatoos.

Bryson was happy because he got to eat candy AND cookies. He got to decorate the one he's chomping on.

We waited in a really long line to ride a horse-drawn carriage through the parking lot. They were running two, one with two long benches and a fancy smaller one for just a few people with cushioned seats. We were lucky and got to ride the fancy one. Bryson didn't like waiting in line, but he had lots of fun on the ride.

I don't think that we've made an official announcement on our blog that we are pregnant! Angele is about 20 weeks along now and last week we found out that we are having a GIRL! Cameryn Diane Coburn is due to join our family around March 16th. She is already very active and quite feisty. We are very excited for our new addition.

SD City Beat Fiction 101 Contest

We are very proud to boast that Chris just won THIRD place in the San Diego City Beat Fiction 101 Contest! This is his first time entering the 101 word contest. He submitted three pieces and was truly hoping just to get published in the magazine. We're all hoping this gives him the confidence and motivation he needs to start writing his book.

Here is the link to read his entry. http://www.sdcitybeat.com/cms/story/detail/2008_fiction_101_contest/7415/

We love October!

I've been a little worried about how Bryson would do when Halloween came around. At 2 years old, almost everything can seem big and scary. Our saving grace has been Bryson's overwhelming love for anything pirates. Chris and I have taught him some cool pirate phrases and he and his friend Drew play pirates non-stop at Grandma Pauline's house. Now, when he sees something that we think will scare him (i.e. skeletons, ghosts, anything with blood and creepy things) he says, "Ooooo, Pirate Stuff!"

Here are some pictures that we have taken in October. The family picture was taken at Oma's Pumkin Patch in Lakeside. And here is a sneek peek at our Halloween costumes. I will have to post Chris's costume later as he did not pose for Stan at our church's Halloween carnival.

Bryson Sings!

Get ready for the new musical, Bryson Sings!

Okay, so not really, but he had fun recording a few songs.

Here's "C is for Cookie"

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"Elmo's Song"

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"Little Red Caboose"

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Pictures to come later.

Where's the Gun Show?

Our family is a huge fan of The Office. When Justin was home, he taught Bryson how to do the Gun Show. Justin would say, "Where's the gun show?" and Bryson would immediately put both hands behind his head to show off his muscles. Well, since Justin left on a mission for our church, Bryson has missed him very much. With the mere mention of his name, Bryson's "muscles" are out. It's has even progressed to happening when he sees someone that remotely looks like Justin. We love that he still remembers and thinks of his Uncle Justin. So when you see him next, just ask him, "Where's the Gun Show?"

4th of July!!!

I love the 4th of July and this year seemed to top them all. Everything went so smoothly and the day was really fun. We started it off at our church's annual pancake breakfast. The sun was scorching, but the food was deeeelicious! Then it was off to Chris's parents for their annual block party. Bryson loved waving the flags. He's very patriotic, you know.

The day was nice and warm, so Bryson helped Grandma fill the pool.

So of course, we could all stay cool.

The Galls had a big jumpy thingy in front of their house. Bryson finally got a turn when all the bigger kids found something different to do.

Their was a lot of good food.

And Grandma Debbie brought out her special bubble wands. The whole family loved them, but Bryson especially loved making "big bubbles."

Sorry we don't have pictures of the fireworks. Bryson has loved them up until this year. He went back and forth from being completely scared to completely in awe. He would cry and say, "Big Boom, Inside!" And then say, "Oooo, nice!" It was actually pretty funny. Chris kept moving back until they we in another parking lot. We hope everyone had a great 4th of July!

Oooo, So Handsome!

Bryson got a big boy haircut. This isn't his first, but it is the most drastic of them all. It also has played with his mind. With a big boy haircut, he has gained a big boy attitude. Terrible twos are coming a little early in our family. Bryson's vocabulary has exploded since his haircut. He mimics every word he hears and is putting three and four words together.

Con"grad"ulations Mom!!!

Angele's mom, Pauline, just graduated with her associate's degree in Early Childhood Development from Grossmont College. She has worked really hard and deserves much recognition. She has already got a job offer as a teacher's aid for the 3 and 4-year-old class with the preschool where she did her student teaching. We are very proud of her! CONGRATULATIONS MOM!!!

We Have Our Own Place!!!

I (Angele) recently started managing Orchard Villa Townhomes. Substitute teaching has been really fun and I have learned a lot from all the teachers that I worked with; however, because of the unsteadiness in income and for the chance to finally get our own place, we decided to take this opportunity. We love it! I have actually been able to use a lot of the skills I learned as a teacher while managing: helping people get along, kindly telling tenants to do or not to do things, keeping things picked up and clean, patiently listening to complaints and exuses, and making sure everything runs smoothly. Some days are really hectic, but I'm getting the hang of it. The best part is that I can stay at home with Bryson! It is fun to be able to do things with him in the morning. The hard part is trying to get things done in the afternoon when he decides not to take a good nap. All in all, I think this is going to work out.

Oh, What the Heck. Take the Box!

So our friends and family are getting really frustrated with us because we don't post very often. For this reason, I am learning to do this. Maybe I'll be able to put a few things on while I'm suppose to be working.

If you were wondering what Bryson's favorite thing to do is, it is eating. The first thing he asks for when he wakes up is food. Then immediately after he has eaten breakfast, he wants a snack to eat while he watches Word World ("Wo Wo") and Super Why ("Why Why"). He decided to stop waiting for Mom and Dad (and Grandma Pauline) to get him snacks and did it himself. Fortunately in our new apartment the snacks are not so accessible.

Jumper

Yesterday we made this set up for Bryson. He must have jumped for 20 minutes straight.

Huge Bomber

This is actually from a few months ago, but I'm finally getting around to posting it. This thing was flying over the neighborhood all weekend. It was pretty cool to see it almost crashing into trees and powerlines. Did I say cool? I meant cool and scary.

Mac and Cheese

These are some old pictures just to prove that, yes, we do let Bryson get dirty from time to time.

Wild Animal Park

So today we went to the Wild Animal Park and had an absolute blast. Everything seemed to work in our favor.

First we went to the petting zoo. They have deer, antelope and gazelles. The smaller gazelles ignored Bryson because he didn't have food so he walked right up to the biggest deer in the place and literally said, "Hi!" Then a nice woman let Bryson have some of her deer food and it ate right out of Bryson's hand. It wasn't crowded with kids and all the animals were really nice so our timing was perfect.




Next we walked down to the new Lion Camp exhibit, which lets you get pretty close to the lions via tall glass panels. They have 7 cubs with their mothers. The cubs were playing around and jumping on each other. We were laughing and having a great time. One of the mothers looked at us from a distance and slowly walked up to the glass panel we were at. The glass goes from the floor to the top of the structure and looks almost like an open door, with glass where the whole should be. She came right up to the glass and looked us over, just to make sure we knew who was in charge. Bryson was a little freaked out at first, but then he calmed down and the lion went back to play with her cubs. Couldn't have timed that better. This is a shot of two cubs chillin' on top of a car in their area.



Next we walked along the trail that overlooks the open plains. The giraffes were on the other side of the park so we took a few pictures with this fake one.



But then some keepers came out and hoisted some food on wooded poles and the giraffes came from everywhere to right in front of us. Perfect timing once again.



We saw lots more, including a mother and baby elephant, lots of birds and gorillas. It was lots of fun and Bryson fell asleep on our way out. Perfect timing.