Meeting Santa

It may be February but I didn't want to skip all the wonderful things that happened in December and January.  I have been sick with a cold off and on since October and very busy with life in between so I am going to try to catch up in several posts. 

 This particular night we planned on making an emergency trip to Los Angeles to look at a new car for Justin.  The white cavalier needed a new engine ($5,000) so we were in desperate need of something else.  We searched through several listings on craigslist which turned out to be scams, but there were a couple promising options 2 hours away.  With Justin's limited time off, we made a last minute decision to make the trip to look at the cars but because it was a weekend, we could not get the cast out of the bank to purchase said cars and didn't end up going afterall. 

 This turned out to fine afterall because I had the evening packed with Christmas activities I had been looking forward to.  First we went to the stake center to enjoy the Creche Festival and some lovely live music.  The nativity scenes and hands on children;s room made this activity very pleasant and a good way to spend a Christmasy evening.  Instead of waiting for 45 minutes for a flute choir that I really wanted to hear, we went over and had dinner at KFC and then went back for the music.  When that was done we made a mad dash over to the the Palmdale mall and caught Santa 5 minutes before they closed.  There was no line, so I snapped some not-so-clear pictures and we had our Santa moment.  I thought Holland would be more scared but he actually let Santa hold him on his lap.

We walked the mall a little and then let them run loose in the play area until we had to get home.  It was a packed evening! 

As for the car situation, we ended up making a 2 hour trip to a city outside LA to pick up a used Dodge Durango that Justin and Holland are in love with.  It has 3 rows of seats so it will hold our growing family.  We just have to plan more because it is not the fuel efficiency vehicle like I wanted, however Justin has his "truck" and seems to be very happy with a more manly vehicle.  And we were able to pay cash!