TRAVELING IN STYLE

Stephanie was traveling in style on Saturday when a limousine picked her up to go to Annie Powell's 5th birthday party in Modesto! She was super excited about riding in the limo, but told me that she was "a little shy" on the ride to the Ice Cream Factory.

GUESS WHAT'S NEW AT OUR HOUSE???

T'WAS ONE CRAZY NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

Amanda and Daniel participated in another great musical through Hickman Charter. It was called "T'was One Crazy Night Before Christmas". It was a funny spin-off of the popular children's story. The show was very upbeat and high-energy.

We are very excited that the kids have so many wonderful opportunities to develop their talents. Way to go, Amanda and Daniel!

ONE CRAZY CHRISTMAS

Daniel sang a solo called "Something To Believe In". He did an amazing job! He enjoys performing with the choir and has a great voice. Way to go, Daniel! We are very proud of you!

PARTYING WITH THE PATTEN'S

Doug Patten taught the kids a new version of checkers. The winner was the first person to lose all of their checkers. It was trickier than one might think!



Martha and Laura in their festive Thanksgiving attire. Yes, the plate of yams is sitting in front of Laura, but don't be fooled! Again this year, she declined to even sample the marshmallow-covered yams! YUCK!!! (Sorry Martha! Nothing personal)



Martha and Rachel burn off a few holiday calories on the dance mat. It was a real spectator sport for the rest of us.



Stephanie and Daniel Patten had their own way of exercising. They played "tickle tag".



Sarah, Doug, and Stephanie are stuffed, little turkeys after our Thanksgiving feast.

GUESS WHO WE KIDNAPPED!!!

THE PATTENS!!

Our family decided to kidnap Doug and Martha Patten for a day of fun. We took them to Boomers for arcades and mini-golf. They were twenty-something the last time that they played mini-golf and arcades. It was fun to watch as they played Skeeball and air hockey for the first time. Martha did a great job squashing the spiders with Stephanie on the Spidermash game. I have to admit that they were pretty good at
mini-golf.

After Boomers, we came home for a few friendly games and then Nerf dart tag. As you can clearly see, Doug Patten was a huge target for us. Sorry Doug! Better luck next time!

STEPHANIE'S FIRST HAIRCUT!!

Stephie was super excited about her first haircut. You can just feel the enthusiasm oozing from her little body. Mom was excited to see that the curls were still there, even after cutting off a couple of inches.

AND THE WINNER IS .............AMANDA!!!!

As one of Amanda's GATE projects, she organized and hosted the 2nd annual Hickman Charter School spelling bee. The spelling bee was held on Friday, October 19th. She was super excited to be the winner for the junior high level. She won with the word "possess". She will now go to the county spelling bee in November. Congratulations and good luck, Amanda! We are proud of your hard work.

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME!!

We are finally home after our 17-day vacation back home to Illinois. It was our first trip home after living here in California for almost 2 1/2 years. We had a wonderful trip packed full of fun, adventures, family, friends, and much more. We want to thank everyone who helped to make our vacation so awesome. We sure do miss all of you in the Midwest, and we were glad to spend time with you, but we are also grateful for our home, family, and friends here in California, too! We wanted to share with you a few photos from our vacation. Enjoy!

FAMILY & FRIENDS

THE MEMORIES!

STEPHANIE'S BEST FRIENDS!

MOM'S FAVORITES

Aladdin Musical

Before our vacation to the Midwest, Amanda and Daniel were in the play Aladdin through Hickman School. Daniel played Iago, the parrot, and Amanda was the snake charmer, the butcher and a townsperson. The play took a lot of time and commitment, but it was definitely worth it. All of the kids in the choir did an excellent job, and the show was amazing!!!

ARE WE MOVING?

As some of you may know, Doug has an opportunity to interview and possibly transfer back to Illinois. It would be to a town called Jacksonville, about 1/2 hour from Springfield, the capital.

If we were still living in Chicago, we would have jumped at the opportunity to move to Jacksonville, but now that we are settled in CA, it is a much bigger decision to move there. We are so involved in the local homeschool activities and church callings that we don't know what we would do without these wonderful opportunities for our kids. Jacksonville does not have any type of homeschool support group and no charter schools.

After a long week of evaluating our life and stressing over our decision, we have decided to stay here. We love the things that we are doing here for our family. It was a hard decision, but it feels like the right one for us at this time.

Sorry to those family members and friends who were voting for us to return home. At least you will all have a great vacation spot to come to when it is -10 degrees in December, January, February, March. We are excited about seeing all of you for our family vacation in a few weeks.

To all of you who helped to persuade us to stay-THANKS! We couldn't have made this decision without you.

Ellen-Thanks for reminding me about the long, cold winters.
Brad-Thanks for being such an awesome choir director and piano teacher-irreplaceable.
Eleace-Thanks for researching the logistics of Jacksonville and finding all of the drawbacks, even before I could.
Hickman School teachers and staff-Thanks to all of the teachers who love and nurture my children through your wonderful programs, classes, field trips, etc.
Martha-Thanks for saying how much you would miss me and truly meaning it. I am glad that I am needed here.
Uncle Frank-Thanks for always being so excited about "seeing" us when we come down to LA.

And to any others who found reasons for us to stay here, THANKS!!! Besides, we still haven't made that first trip to Disneyland. We certainly can't move out of California if we haven't gone to Disney. That just isn't the American way!
Yes, we do have a Disney trip planned for March. Look out, Disneyland, here we come!

The Davis' Clan

KING'S CANYON

Over the weekend, our family had the opportunity to go camping in King's Canyon with some friends. It was our first chance to camp in the mountains among the giant sequoias and the redwoods.

We enjoyed hiking to Weaver Lake for a quick dip in the lake. Doug and Daniel spent a lot of time shooting with Daniel's bow and arrow set and whittling wood with Daniel's new scout pocket knife. Amanda enjoyed being with her friend, Carolyn. Stephanie enjoyed the entire trip with her new little pal-Lipia (a stuffed raccoon from her friend, Emily). I loved the peaceful beauty that you can only find when you are far away the cares of everyday life.

We are very grateful that we could go to King's Canyon and look forward to returning in the future.

Photobucket Album

WEAVER LAKE

THE UPS AND DOWNS OF LIFE

THE UPS!!!

**Stephanie was super excited about starting her first day of kindergarten at Hickman School. On Mondays, she participates in an 1 1/2 hour special class for kindergarten homeschool students called "The Children's Garden".

**Stephanie's friend, Lauren, also attends her kindergarten class. Steph was happy to already have a friend to talk to and share with during class.

**Stephanie had fun working with shapes, tracing her body, and playing "freeze dance" with Miss Shelly, her teacher and our family friend.


THE DOWNS!!!


**Her name on her nametag was spelled incorrectly. Stephanie just laughed.

**After class, we were talking with a friend who noticed that Stephanie had a little bit of yucky in the corner of her eye. She told us that she thought that Stephanie might have pink eye, even though her eye was not pink. We went to the school nurse, and she felt like it probably was pink eye.

**Stephanie hasn't been sick since we moved here, so she hasn't been to the doctor in over two years. Several tears were shed on the way to the doctor-hers, then mine.

**She now has to have eye drops 3 times a day for the next 5 days. Because it is very contagious, we have to sanitize everything that she touches for the next 24 hours.



Life is full of ups and downs!!!

Hopefully tomorrow will have more ups than downs.