Crystal's Baby Shower

Back to Soledad Canyon Thousand Trails in Acton, Ca for a week so Patty can attend Crystal's baby shower. We will meet Cynthia in Newhall on Wednesday and they will do some shopping and then Patty will spend a few nights at Cynthia's house before coming back to Soledad. After that we plan to go to Yuma, Az. and then Palm Springs before coming back to Santa Paula for the baby's birth.

We found a 50 amp site in the "N" section at Soledad Canyon.

Campsite at Soledad Canyon

The baby shower was held at Cynthia's house in Santa Paula. From left to right is Karen, Debra, Terri, Cynthia, Krista, Gracie, and Crystal.

Baby Shower

And of course here are the great grandma's Claire and Rosemarie!

Great Grandma's

Patty's sister Susie and our niece Stevie drove down from northern California for the party. Here they are posing with our future daughter-in-law Jasmine.

Stevie, Suzie and Jasmine

A good time was had by all!

Crystal had a doctor appointment and was told she was having early contractions. She is not due until the first week of March so she was told no lifting or even driving! She is fine but needed help especially with having the two year old.

We immediately called the park we stay at in Santa Paula, but they did not have any openings until our reservations on February 24th. We made the decision that I would stay in Acton and Patty would stay at Crystal and James' house. On Sunday's I would drive up and go to church and spend the day with them. Sunday evening I would go back.

Our Euro chairs are starting to wear down. Costco had a great price on plush Lazy Boy recliners. We decided to buy two new ones while I was in Acton. Here is a picture with the two next to each other. You can really see the difference!

New Lazy Boy

On the 24th we will be moving to Santa Paula. This will get us close for when baby Charlotte Hill is born! :)

That's it for now,

God Bless,

Brian and Patty

Wilderness Lakes

Diamond Lake Reservoir is about half way between Menifee and Hemet. There is a walking trail that takes you to a great viewpoint of the lake.

Diamond Lake

When in Menifee we attend Revival Christian Fellowship. It is a great Calvary Chapel Church that is pastored by John Miller. We still miss New Life of course!

Revival Christian Fellowship

On Tuesday we went to the Orange Empire Railroad Museum in Perris. This is a GREAT railroad museum that if you go during the week you will probably get a personalized one on one free tour by a docent.

OERM

There are four or five huge buildings with a lot of trains and train cars. It is a non-profit and of course donations are accepted.

Steam Locomotive

This was a whole building of electric trains and cable cars.

Electric train

This is an original San Francisco Cable Car.

San Francisco Cable Car

This is a 1932 Bullet Car. It reminded us of an Airstream because it is all aluminum. It was an electric city train.

1932 Bullet train

This trolley was a reversible trolley. It had two sets of controls, one on each end and the seats would reverse.

Trolley

This train was in the Ward Kimball building. It was all narrow track. Ward Kimball was a Disney animator and donated all the items in this building. He ran them all on his property and in fact one of the train stations at Disneyland is named in honor of Ward Kimball.

Ward Kimball Train

The docent suggested we go to the Motte's Auto Museum. The Motte family is a big farming family in the area.

Motte's Auto Museum

They have automobiles from the 1910's to the 1950's  Here are the 10's.

1910

And the 1920's.

1920's

the 30's.....

1930's

and the 1940's

1940's

Don't forget the 1950 Lincoln....

1950's

And who knew that Harley Davidson used to have a moped? 

I DID!!! LOL

Early 1900's Harley Davidson Moped

Next stop is Acton. Patty has to be back home for Crystal's Baby Shower.

God Bless,

Brian and Patty

Menifee, Ca

On January 6th we left Santa Paula and went to the Thousand Trails Wilderness Lakes for three weeks in Menifee, Ca. Not quite sure why it's called Wilderness Lakes because it's neither in the wilderness nor are there any lakes here.

Our Campsite at Wilderness Lakes

What there are here is canals through the campground! This is a photo out of our back window.

Canals behind our rig.

The mattresses in trailers are usually not very good. To help ours we had bought a memory foam topper. Our 5th wheel is 3 1/2 years old now and the bed has been sagging because of the cheap mattress. We have been considering purchasing a new one. Sams Club had this Sealy Perfect Sleeper one which is normally a good price at $600.00 on sale for $400.00. We decided it was time upgrade. It is just the way we like it, firm with a plush top and built in memory foam.

New Mattress

There are a lot of birds at Wilderness. Ducks, Geese, Herons and Cranes!

Night Heron

We have had the new truck for about six months now. It is truly a beast and we are very happy how it tows our 5th wheel! It is what we should have alway had, but God had it all in control. That we know!

The Beast! LOL

We drove to Oceanside to check out the pier and also the Surfers museum.

Oceanside Pier

There were a lot of people fishing off of the pier. The pelicans were trying to steal a few morsels for themselves.

Pelican

Just a few blocks from the pier was the surfing museum, The one on the left belonged to Duke Kahanamoku in the early 1900's.

Old Surfboards

This board is the surfboard that Bethany Hamilton was riding when she was attacked by the shark in Hawaii. She lost her arm but continued to surf within a few weeks winning competitions. She is a wonderful Christian women that the movie Soul Surfer was based on.

Soul Surfer

The shark was ultimately caught that bit Bethany. This is the jawbone of the shark.

Shark jawbone

We really like the Menifee area. It is near Perris, Lake Elsinore, Temecula, Hemet and Murrieta, Ca.

That's it for today,

God Bless,

Love you all,

Brian and Patty

Back in Ventura for the Holidays!

Like we normally do we are home for the holidays. Both Thanksgiving and Christmas. We did Thanksgiving at Cynthia's house which was very nice. All the family came up to Santa Paula to her house and it went very well!

For Christmas we did Christmas day at Crystal and James' house. With the new grandbaby coming Crystal has been very busy so they asked us to go pick out their tree for them this year. Here it is!

Patty picking the tree

We were a little out of order this year and did our Oxnard F and G street "Candy Cane Lane" Christmas lights viewing a day early so the kids could go with us. We went on Christmas Eve to the candlelight service at our church New Life Community. I got a rare picture of Matt and Jasmine on the worship team together and Jasmine was leading this song. She was so sick she could not even talk, but God blessed her with a beautiful voice to sing! You could not even tell she was sick until after services! The picture is of the big screens because we were back far and I couldn't get a good close picture. I didn't even realize they were BOTH in the picture together until after I looked at the photo! 

Matt and Jasmine worshiping our Savior!

We had a great Christmas and on to the new year! And what a new year it will be!

Christmas day!

1. Baby Charlotte will be born!

2. Matt and Jasmine will be getting married!

3. Patty and I will be celebrating our 40th anniversary!

Praise God!

Love you all,

until next year (2015),

Brian and Patty