New Year, New Word

 Last year my friend Jill told me about a traditon that the women in her family practice. Each year they select a word that they will focus on the next year. I love this. Last year I picked grace. I feel like I grew in my grace towards others and myself, but that will always be something that I need to grow in and will always be a life goal (how could it not be if I am trying to become more like Jesus)

This year I wanted my word to be very focused and I thought a lot about what I would choose. I made lists of words that described my vision for the next year of my life and looked for themes. One of my biggest problems is that I feel like I am a very passive participant in my life. I let things happen and react. I want to be a more active particpant in my life, shaping the future that I want for myself and my family. This takes a lot of thought, intentionallity, and effort. I have been thinking about the words of Jesus in John 10:10, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" What does abundant like look like? There are some very obvious implications of what this verse means but I wanted to dig deeper into what abundance looked like in my life. One of the definitions of abundance is an overflowing fullness. I desire to have an overflowing fullness in many areas of my life but abudance wasn't quite the word I was looking for. I looked up similar words that led me to my word for the year--> Thrive. I feel like thrive captures my desire to to live an abudant, active life.

One defintion of thrive is to grow or develop vigorously; to flourish. A word picture that kept coming to mind was a rose growing from the concrete. A great example of flourishing where you are. I want to flourish in my relationship with my kids and husband. In my relationship with God. In my work. In my health. In my finances.In my circumstances.Where I am at.

A Shamu Christmas

One of my favorite things about having our own family now is creating traditions for our kids. After Moses' first Christmas, Jarrell and I had several conversations about what we wanted Christmas to be like for our children. One of the things that was important to us was the aspect of family and creating memories and formative experiences during the Christmas season. The idea that we came up with was instead of doing a lot of presents we would take a trip each year as a family and do something together. Last year we went to the San Diego Zoo and this year we visited Sea World. Some of our close friends gave us annual passes as Christmas presents and went with us. We were extremely blessed to spend our Christmas with our good friends the Escobedos. 

We stayed in Old Town San Diego which was extremely beautiful. It was the location of the first European settlement on the West Coast of the present day United States. There were a lot of little shops, outdoor markets, Mexican restaurants with women making tortillas right in front of you, and live mariachi music. We ate at a Mexican restaurant that had a balloon man in it and he recreated Moses' Mickey Mouse.

We visited Sea World on Christmas Eve Day and Christmas Day. There were so many fun shows to go to and there was a whole Seasame Street themed area for the kids. The highlight of the trip for Emery was meeting Elmo. She was so excited, we went back three times :) There are some pictures below highlighting the time spent. 

Emery putting on her glasses for the 4D Showing of Polar Express. It snowed inside the theater. Definitely the only snow San Diego will see.

Emery loved the starfish. She wasn't suppose to pull them out of the water though and we couldn't get her to stop!

Our friend bought some fish so that Moses could feed the sea lions but he was too grossed out. I was holding out the fish and trying to show Moses it was okay and a bird came by and stole it.

All of the shows were amazing but the Killer Whales were my favorite. They were so beautiful and entertaining to watch. We saw them up close and I couldn't believe how big they were.

We were really only there to see Elmo but Grover hopped in the picture too.

The babies playing together in Elmo's Bay of Play. They had so much fun throwing these cubes at each other. 

Now that we have done the San Diego Zoo and Sea World, what should we do next Christmas? What are some of the traditions that you do as a family?