Riley's Presents Galore!

So celebrate we did this past Saturday...our own mini Christmas and Birthday celebration with Riley! The night before and morning of were not quite as planned and we were all extremely sleep deprived...I'll elaborate in a bit...but we didn't let that stop us!

First things first...the reason for the season...we had to set up Riley's Little People nativity scene by her tree!

She had lots of fun putting her Noah's ark animals in the nativity as well...you know the two wise giraffe's...you've heard of them right?
Well the best way to share our little celebration is with the video we took so enjoy...I love her excitement when her eyes were still shut and Jason asks her if she's ready to open her eyes...love this girl!

As you can see we had a lot of fun...Riley's biggest dilemma was which toy to ride...the bike or the scooter!

Although she wasn't too interested in opening presents at one point when she got the hang of it she did have fun...she was a tad bit serious about it though...we'll have to work on that!

Daddy's little girl...
Riley and her Mama
And later on that day we made it outside to test out the bike and scooter as well

Family Pic...we went to dinner that evening with several of our friends...it seems that all the boys decided to leave on the same day...Jason left for a TDY and Paul and Bobby left for a deployment...so we celebrated with Mexican food...and we've had lots of girl time since then!

So...about our sleepless night prior to the party. Well we had an actual thunderstorm the Friday before and the weather forecast predicted strong winds...it does get windy here but we were in for a wind storm like nothing we have ever seen before. The winds started howling late Friday evening and they were so loud...gusting up to 50 mph. I kept hearing a strange noise by the side of our house but was too tired to nag Jason about it...until it kept waking Riley up too. It turns out the winds were literally moving our full trashcans on the side of our house and since they reside right outside Riley's window I'm sure it sounded pretty scary to her amongst the howling wind. She ended up waking up 3 times that night so the morning definitely came way too soon!

We woke up to beautifully sunny skies and looked out the window to find destruction.

Our gas grill was completely on its side...
A few fence boards were knocked out and the fence was leaning pretty badly...

and one of our trees was nearly uprooted...

The winds hadn't stopped though...they kept on ALL day. It was the most surreal thing because the winds alone were reminiscent of some close tornado calls from our days in Arkansas but it was just beautiful outside...apparently the winds in November and May are the worst because that is the change of seasons...here's some video just to give you an idea of how loud and crazy the wind was...

By Sunday afternoon the winds finally subsided and we have several neighbors with fences down and such. The tree in the pic above didn't make it...by the end of Saturday it was completely on the ground...so our fence and the tree are getting cleaned up Friday...I will really miss that tree.

When I was talking with our landlord about the damage I was expressing my sadness about losing the tree and he said "Well you've lived in California for a few months now you should sue somebody." Ha! I told him I would sue the wind and he said I probably wouldn't be the first...gotta love Cali!

Jason left Sunday and Riley and I are keeping busy...hanging out with friends, getting ready for Christmas, and we have lots of Christmas parties coming up before we head to the great state of Texas!

On a more serious note, some dear friends of ours that we were stationed with in Little Rock and who are now stationed in Guam lost their twin baby girls this past weekend and we are so heavy with sadness for them and what they are going through. Please keep Chuck and Stacy in your prayers. In honor of Emilyn and Hailey whose lives were cut way too short all I can ask is that you hug and kiss your kids extra today and don't miss any opportunity to love on your family.