2008: The Year in Review with Pictures (and Brief Explanations)

Before I get to the year in review, I wanted to just post a note that if you are looking for the S2S (Songs 2 Share) feature, they will no longer be posted on this blog. I have created a blog just for those, and you can find the link to the left under the blog list, titled Songs 2 Share. And now, on to the year in review!

JANUARY

The highlight of January was celebrating Skyler's 2nd birthday. As you can tell it was a Tinker Bell theme, which is what she was really into at the time. It was great to have so many family and friends celebrate with us.

FEBRUARY

It was hard to pick just one picture for February as Traci and Courtney each celebrated their birthdays. Traci's was a milestone birthday of sorts as she hit 30 and began her fourth decade of life. (Don't worry, I'm a couple of years into my fourth decade.) I hosted a girly party for her and it seems like everyone had a lot of fun. As for Courtney, she turned 4 and enjoyed spending time with good friends Kate (left) and Charis (right). She calls Kate her best friend and it would seem that Charis is her best friend at school. This year will present Courtney with some adversity as Charis and her family are moving to Hungary in January to become missionaries. She already misses her.

MARCH

We were crazy enough to get tickets to the exhibition game between my Dodgers and the Red Sox. The crowd set an all-time record for attendance at a baseball game (115,000). While this in general was not a positive experience between the hour and a half wait at Dodger Stadium for the shuttle to the Coliseum (and back was longer), the horrible crowds once we got to the Coliseum, the nearly overflowing outhouses, and keeping the kids from getting trampled (literally) on the way to our seats. However, seeing 115,000 people doing the wave was freakin' awesome!

APRIL

April means it's time to celebrate my birthday. We just went to dinner and don't have any pictures from that night because, well, we lost our camera that night. So if you see any pictures floating around the internet, they've been doctored! Just kidding. One tradition we have is for me to take a picture with my nephew Steven. He and I have the same birthday. This may have been the last time we will get to do this picture as they are moving to Colorado as I type this. We will probably try to get out there once a year, but more than likely it will be during the summer.

MAY

The end of May was great as we took a trip to Colorado to visit my sister Susie and brother-in-law Adam, pictured here with Courtney at the Denver Zoo. We had a great time spending the week with them and visiting other family in Colorado. If I went into more detail about the trip, I would need to hire a publisher. (If you want more details, check out my past blogs about it.) The next time we go out to see them, hopefully mid-2009, we will get to meet our niece! Susie is due in mid-February! (As if we needed anymore birthdays that month...hers is then too.) Yay!

JUNE

June brought the end to Courtney's first year in preschool. She is pictured here with Charis. She had a great year and we were amazed at everything she learned and were glad that she enjoyed it so much, but being the social butterfly that she is, that didn't surprise us much. Oh, and Traci and I had our 9th anniversary, but that will be covered in August.

JULY

While Traci went to PartyLite's national convention in St. Louis and I enjoyed spending time alone with the girls (despite two trips to Urgent Care for Skyler in a 3-day period), the highlight was camping with Traci's parents and family at Lake Lopez. They have a water park there in the campgrounds, which is where this picture was taken. Courtney loves stuff like this and it was all the more enjoyable with family. She loved going down the water slides with her cousins. In this picture, she is going down with Kayde who lives up in Northern California and came down with her family for the camping trip. Courtney loves hanging out with Kayde.

AUGUST

August falls into the too-good-for-just-one-picture category. Two amazing trips can summarize my August this year. Traci and I celebrated our 9th anniversary a couple of months late by going on a cruise. Words cannot express how much I enjoyed this trip, which took me to Catalina and Mexico for the first time. (It was also my first cruise.) It was a much needed break, which was enhanced by the lack of our wee ones who had a great week with the grandparents (both sets).

And as if the cruise wasn't enough, I spent a long weekend, with a couple of really good friends from high school, in Boston. From the Freedom Trail to Harvard to bar hopping (my first time) and consuming more than I ever had before to taking in a Sox game at Fenway. There is a reason it took me several blogs to explain how enjoyable this was. And all at the suggestion (of a guys trip) by Traci since she had taken two trips without me already. What a wife! She really is the best.

SEPTEMBER

Less than a week after returning from Boston, it was off to Temecula for Traci's cousin Teri's wedding. Courtney and Skyler have grown to love weddings for the chance to dance with coordination that didn't come from me! Courtney loved dancing with Teri a few times. The picture above is one of those times. You can tell her excitement from the expression on her face.

OCTOBER

Susie and Adam swung into town for a week in early October, and although we only had the opportunity to spend a few days with them, it was great seeing them and hanging out. We miss having them around. We had a baby shower for her and that made the time with them so fun. My sister makes me proud to be her brother and I loved seeing her pregnant, knowing that I'll have a new niece in just a matter of weeks now. I love this picture of her and Traci.

NOVEMBER

The highlight of November, besides Thanksgiving, was getting to take in a concert at our church. This is a picture of us with Robbie Seay from the Robbie Seay Band. I almost never go to concerts, but the music is so much better live. I am a big fan of this band now and am glad we had the opportunity to see them and actually talk with Robbie Seay for a couple of minutes after the show. I also gained a greater appreciation of musicians from this concert. (You can check out my blog about the concert for more details.)

DECEMBER

And now we have come to December and the end of the year. Christmas is by far the highlight of the month. This is just a great picture of our family, taken the day after Christmas at my in-laws' house. I love seeing the kids having a good time with their cousins and opening gifts that they really enjoy. It is amazing to see them gain a greater appreciation of Christmas every year. It was also great to hear Courtney say "It's not about presents. It's about Jesus." repeatedly this year. I guess we're doing something right.
And now we move on to a new year full of amazing opportunities, beginnings and blessings. I know it will be an interesting year as I am trying for a new position at Chevron. Skyler will begin preschool in the Fall and Courtney will start Kindergarten at the same time. We'll have a new niece. (Have I mentioned that yet?) We're also working on growing the Sunday School class that I lead at church. We'll also have to deal with challenges such as family (Traci's brother and his family) and friends (Courtney's friend Charis and her family) moving away. You never know what life will throw at you. At least we know that God is with us and that with him, all things are possible. May you have a blessed New Year.

Following In Daddy's Footsteps & A Christmas Poem

This past Sunday, we went to Disneyland after church for our Advent activity. We went on a few rides, but the highlight was when a cast member, Bekah, at the Village Haus restaurant in Fantasyland let Skyler help her ring up our order. I decided to post the picture here because it came out really good and Skyler did really well following Bekah's directions. It makes me wonder if Skyler will follow in my footsteps and work at Disneyland someday (although I was in attractions, but that's no big deal).


And now I would like to attempt a Christmas poem:


The Night Before the Night Before Christmas

Twas the night before the night before Christmas
And all through the house
Germs were abundant;
At least there's no mouse.

Courtney is hacking
And Skyler is too.
Traci is better and
My eyes are all goo.

The shopping is done
And most gifts are wrapped.
With all of this illness
We're feeling quite zapped.

Tomorrow we'll kick off
The festivities
With energy high
From activities.

Kids will be plenty
And food overflowing.
Santa is coming,
The kids will be knowing.

Gifts will be opened
With smiles everywhere.
"Where is my gift?"
"Why, it's over there!"

After the fun,
There will be a big mess,
But the girls will be happy
In their fancy dress.

Toys will be scattered
And jokes will be said,
All while I'm sitting
With bows on my head.

Four generations
Will be at the party.
Hugs will be real,
And the love will be hearty.

At the end of the night
We'll all be so tired,
But with all of the sugar
The kids will be wired.

We'll go our own ways
And head to our homes
With visions of sugarplums,
But I'll dream of gnomes.

Christmas is here
And I'm quite excited
To see all the trees
So brilliantly lighted.

Tomorrow's forecast
Calls for precipitation
And kids will be anxious
Across the whole nation.

Santa had better be
Very prepared,
For in inclement weather
The reindeer get scared.

As for me, I know
That Santa will come,
But if his reindeer back out
He'll use his thumb.

As we prepare
For these joyous days
There's so much to say
In so many ways.

But I'll keep it simple;
I'm not good with words.
If I try to be eloquent
I may get the birds.

With that being said,
I'll leave you with this:
Just one simple thought
Like a hug and a kiss.

May you enjoy this Christmas
And think of the reason
That we celebrate
This holiest of season.

(c) Scott Steinman, 2008

We Did it! Lo Hicimos!

Well, somehow we managed to get through our Christmas cards and letters tonight. They are all at the post office waiting to go out tomorrow. This all despite dealing with Courtney being sick, Traci being sick and me having Pink Eye. I won't even mention how much ink we burned through on the printer tonight or the money we spent on postage and supplies in general.

On the bright side, we are done with Christmas shopping. (Traci will argue otherwise saying she needs to get me more stuff, but I'm having a hard time convincing her not to.) Traci has been doing an awesome job of wrapping. I think we may be all ready for Christmas before Christmas, even if only for a few hours. I personally will be finding my happy place around 4:00 tomorrow I leave work, knowing that I will be off the rest of this week, returning only Monday next week and then not returning until January 5. All using only 2 days of vacation!

And on that note, I will sign off and try to get ready for bed. Merry Christmas!

S2S - "Mary Did You Know?"

Here is the latest S2S and you've probably heard the song before, but it has a great message and story. I hope you enjoy listening to it. If you haven't heard it before, take it in, it's good.

Disney Knows What's Up!

How's this for cool?

Blogging 101

Clever title for being my 101st blog, huh? Well, I really just wanted to say I could blog right now, but really, I'm more interested in playing Wii. It should be able to take my mind off the way-more-mentally-exahusting-than-it-should-have-been day. (It was just "one of those" parenting days, which is a bummer after having had the girls spend last night at my parents' house while Traci and I were at my work Christmas party.) Girls are down, Traci is next door doing a party so I'm off to conquer the (Wii) world!!!!!

I Survived Last Weekend!

I've been meaning to post the fact that I made it through last weekend unscathed, for the most part. So I thought I would post a brief summary of how things went along with a picture from each day/night.

FRIDAY:

Courtney had her preschool Christmas musical and it went as well as it could. It was hard to see her because she was in the third row of students that were on the stage and not on risers. It was fun to see her singing and doing all the motions this year as it was sporadic at best last year. It was fun to have all our parents as well as the (Great) Grandparents McCarthy, Aunt Maureen, the Hoopers (who had Josh and Madi performing as well) and the Shoemakers in attendance. Below is a picture of the four of us after the performance.

SATURDAY:

This day started off with Courtney's rehearsal for the Christmas program at church. It lasted an hour and went well as they went though their program three times, twice in the sanctuary (ok, worship center). Then the first performance was at 5:00. We only stayed for that part of the service since we would be back the following day at 9:30 to see the whole service, which included the elementary program. The picture below is of Courtney outside the worship center in her beautiful dress that she enjoyed wearing and is looking forward to wearing again on Christmas Eve.

SUNDAY:

This day was chaotic at best. As mentioned above, Courtney had two more performances at church in the morning. Traci left after the 9:30 service to go and get ready for the Candlelight Procession at Disneyland. After church, I brought the girls home, had lunch, changed, Courtney's clothes and then took off for Disneyland. As suspected, Disneyland was busy, but mainly for the two performances. Traffic was at a standstill once we got on the off-ramp. However, we got in the park about 3:30, two hours before the first performance started. We found our place to watch the show from and established our territory. Fortunately, I brought the girls' Leapsters to play with while we waited as well as some snacks. Unfortunately, Skyler needed to make two bathroom trips after we had our spot. Fortunately, there was a very nice lady in front of us who watched our spot both times. By the time we got back from the second trip, it was about 10 people deep from front to back in the viewing (standing) area. Try that with two little ones in tow! All the seating area was reserved for those who bought dinner packages. Ont thing that really sucked was that they made us stand the whole time from about 4:00 on. Although it was a challenge to get through the performance, right before which Skyler decided to have a meltdown. (At least she calmed down once the show started!) Afterwards, we grabbed dinner in Fantasyland and then proceeded to get on two rides before heading out of the park while the second performance was going on. The picture below is of the second performance as we were passing it while we were leaving.

S2S - Newsong "Christmas Shoes"

I have a feeling that a number of you have heard this song. I consider it the "I Can Only Imagine" of Christmas songs. There are no lyrics included here because I think they are pretty clear in the song and many of you may have already heard the song. I hope you enjoy it.

Tha's Wassup!

We've almost made it through the crazy weekend. We got kind of lucky on Friday night when our church's preschool/kindergarten choir rehearsal was cancelled (due to how well rehearsal on Tuesday went) so we only had to go to her preschool's Christmas musical. It was very cute and I was proud of how well Courtney did. It's amazing to see the difference from last year.

Then tonight she had her first performance at church and it was great! Only about 15 minutes long or so, but she did great in that as well. Now she has two more performances at the 9:30 and 11:10 services at church tomorrow and then she's done for this year.

However, it will quickly get crazy after that. After church we 9me and the girls...Traci will be on her way to Disneyland) are going to come home, change, eat lunch and then head off to Disneyland to hopefully see the Candlelight Procession, which Traci is singing in this year. I know the crowds, at least in the area of the performance will be crazy. They always have a celebrity reading the story of the birth of Baby Jesus between the songs (which is pretty sweet considering it is Disneyland) and this year it is John Stamos. She has to be there at about 12:15 tomorrow for performances at 5:30 and 8:00. She probably won't get home until almost 10:00 since each performance is about 45 minutes or so. I'm excited to see her sing tomorrow (as well as walking the parade route as a choir to get there), but she is nervous about it. I know she will do fine and have a good time doing it. I'm a little nervous myself about keeping an eye on the girls while the performance is going on. We'll do some rides after (without Traci) to make it a full day since we'll be trying to catch the 5:30 performance. If you have the chance to get down there, I would say go for it. I remember hearing about it when I worked at Disneyland, but have never seen it. I'm looking forward to it from that point of view.

Toss into this leading a discussion with the Sunday School class I lead about our class' direction and changes we want to make and that adds a little to my stress level for tomorrow. Fortunately, though, it appears most of the class is on the same wavelength based on the responses I've received for the survey I sent out the members earlier this week. That's encouraging.

And finally, the reason for the title of this posting. I was finally able to beat Lou on Guitar Hero to officially be done with the easy level. It took battling him three straight time today to do it, but I rocked him! It's kind of odd, but that's one thing I've been trying to do for a while. Maybe it's a sad sign that I actually felt some relief after beating him. Whatever, I'm past him now.

I'll try post some pictures from this weekend sometime this week. Speaking of pictures, we're a little behind on Christmas cards this year. We've had pictures taken and should have access to them soon to get the cards done, but for now, you'll have to settle for a few snapshots from our photographer's blog. (There is a picture of Courtney, my favorite picture ever of Skyler and a great picture of the fam!) Plus, we haven't even started our Christmas letter yet. At least things will calm down after this weekend, not to mention, we'll be without the kids overnight next Friday night thanks to my work party going until midnight and my parents being willing to keep them. Pretty sweet if you ask me!

S2S - Mercy Me "Joseph's Lullaby"

I thought about combining a general posting with this but decided against it. Anyway, here is the latest song I've chosen to post. This is a song I only hear around Christmas and it's a great song by Mercy Me called "Joseph's Lullaby." I hope you enjoy it.

Here We Go

Gotta love Christmas time. Usually this time of year gets pretty crazy and we're off and running already. Here's a rundown of this week: how it has gone and how it's going to go.

Last night - Courtney had a rehearsal for our church's children's Christmas musical at 5:00. However, she had to miss it because she had an audition for a Six Flags commercial in West L.A at 4:30. It was great getting there, only took 45 minutes, but coming home in rush hour took an hour and a half.

Tonight - as I type this, Traci is at church setting up for the final MOPS meeting of the year. Also, it was 14 years ago that we started dating (this time around...long story...too long for this blog). So it's kind of a sappy day. Brings back lots of good memories like asking her to be my girlfriend as we walked to her parents car to go to her grandpa's birthday party (which is also today). We did our annual ornament exchange tonight to celebrate.

Tomorrow night - Traci has one last choir rehearsal before performing in Disneyland's Candlelight Procession on Sunday.

Friday - Courtney has a church choir rehearsal at 5:00. As soon as that ends we whisk her away to Uptown for her preschool's Christmas performance which she is singing in. Performance starts at 7:00, but she needs to be there by 6:30 and we have to get dinner on the way there. Also, this is a Friday I work so I won't be home until about 4:15 or so.

Saturday - Courtney has a church choir dress rehearsal at 9:00, then the first (of three) performance at 5:00.

Sunday (take a deep breath!) - Courtney is in the Christmas musical at the 9:30 and 11:10 services. Traci needs to leave to be at Disneyland by 12:15 to be ready for the Candlelight Procession which is at 5:30 and 8:00. So after church lets out, the girls and I will have lunch and then probably head to Disneyland to try to somehow get a seat for the first performance. This is a very popular performance that some people travel from all over the country just to see so there will probably an insane amount of people there, especially along the parade route and where the performance is near the Main Street train station. By the time Traci gets home, hopefully the girls will be in bed and I will be nearly passed out myself.

Just another Christmas week at the Steinman house.