The Week After Christmas

Phew! What a busy, crazy, and fun few days! We were all exhausted after Christmas and the wedding and needed a week to just relax, hang out, and have some fun. Here are a few activities we did in California the week after Christmas.
Bounce-A-Rama!
We had never gone to this place before, but my Dad had 5 free admission tickets (which was perfect), so we thought we'd give it a try. It's just one of those places where they have tons of huge inflatables for the kids to bounce around on - of course they loved it!

Bowling
We also checked out a new bowling alley in the area, and it was really nice! So, now we have a new place to go bowling. We're not die hard bowlers or anything, but it's always fun to go.

We even convinced my mom to bowl this time!

Some people get really excited when they do well.And others get really disappointed when they don't do so well.But we all had a great time! yay! we love to bowl! Have you ever tried to get a picture of 5 kids all jumping at the same time? It's pretty much impossible.

We got 3 of them off the ground in this one! good enough.

Six Flags Discovery Kingdom

Well, we still call it "Marine World." We had such a fun day here. Not only do they have tons of rides, but they have animal shows as well. Here is Annie on the swings with my little brother Michael. Don't they look like they could be siblings? Michael and I look alot alike, and Annie looks just like me, so it makes sense:)

These cousins just love being together and they had so much fun running from ride to ride.

And we also love spending quality time with Grandpa and Grandma.

Waiting for the dolphin show to start.

Watching Shouka the Killer Whale show at night.And here we are looking like homeless people trying to get warm. It got pretty chilly once the sun went down!

We were in California until January 3rd. Besides doing fun activities, Dan spent a lot of time checking out some orthodontic practices in the area. 3 months until graduation and we still don't know where we're going. Yikes!

The Wedding!

Kristen and John got married on December 26th, 2009 in the Oakland temple! The ceremony was nice, and it's always a great experience to be in the temple with so many family members. Thank you to Ash and Michael who stayed in the suburban with our kids. Here is some of the group waiting for the married couple to come out. It was a little chilly out, but we were just happy that it never rained, because there was some rain in the forecast. "Here they come! WooooHooooo!" Can't believe she's now Kristen Shafer!
Posing with my parents.

Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters . . . . . haha, I was pregnant at Stephanie's wedding as well, almost the same amount of weeks along. Ashley, please, please be nicer to me!

Adorable flower girls!

After a while, Scotty went on strike, and decided he had had enough of picture taking. Or maybe he was just feeling a little left out because he wasn't wearing a plum dress:)

Our family picture:)

The beautiful Oakland temple - my parents were married here, and so far all of my siblings have been married here.

The Reception

The reception was later that night and it was absolutely amazing. I'm so glad my parents decided to do it at the Marriott Hotel, and not at the church . . . . there is no way we would have had time to decorate a cultural hall on Christmas, and there is no way it would have looked anything like this: The beautiful Kristen Shafer . . . . still can't believe it!

A picture of my family. See that big Christmas tree we're standing in front of? Well, it has quite the story on how it made its way there. At around 10:00 am on Christmas Eve, the boys (Dan, Jeff, Brigham, and my Dad) set out to find Christmas tree lots to buy some Christmas trees to decorate the huge reception room at the Marriott. After driving all over town, with many failed attempts, they found 4 trees. 2 very big ones, and 2 small ones. We told the boys to get them, at least we'll have some trees (Kathy, my mom's friend and our "wedding planner," wanted 9 trees). They strapped the trees to the tops of the cars, and made their way over to Home Depot and Lowe's, looking for Christmas tree stands and white lights to decorate. Everywhere was sold out of stands and lights. So they bought some lumber to make stands (Brigham cut his hand on his saw, even after many warnings from my mom to not cut his hand:) and they stripped all the white lights from my parents' front yard to decorate the trees with. Then, while driving down Lawrence Expressway, the huge tree strapped to Brigham's car flew off and landed in the road, so Dan and Brigham had to retrieve it. They finally got them to the Marriott, set them up, and got home around 5:30 pm, just in time to shower and go over to my grandparents house for Christmas Eve. Anyway, it was a hassle, but the trees were beautiful in the room, and so many people commented on them. "Where did you get these beautiful huge trees?" haha . . . . I guess it was worth it after all. I really loved the centerpieces as well - the tables were beautiful. The wedding had a pearl theme. There were pearls in the flower arrangements, in the hurricanes, spread out on the table, in the bridesmaids' bouquets, on the flower girls' balls they carried, one in the bows in their hair, and the little girls even had on real pearl necklaces. It was all perfect.

Jeff and Katherine signing the cute guest book Stephanie made for John and Kristen.

And of course the food was delicious. The Marriott did all the food as well. So nice.

Cutting the cake.

Taking time out to eat!

Another great part about this reception was the dance floor. It was so nice having a space where the kids could run around while everyone was eating dinner. Kristen and John had their first dance, danced with family members, and Kristen threw her bouquet. And then the party really started! Ashley and I had made the song play list for the reception. Michael Buble type stuff for the dinner part, some love songs for Kristen and John to dance to, and then some fun party songs. Lots of people got up and danced. So fun! My girls were so into it . . . . I had told Annie that we were going to all dance at the reception, and she was so excited. She loves to dance. She loved dancing with Daddy, but when he was taking a turn with Leah, Annie would go up to anyone and ask them if they would dance with her. She danced with Jeff, Brigham, Kristen, my dad, etc. She danced the night away. I wish I had some good pictures of the dancing, but I was mostly video recording it all.
And then, just like that, it was over. It was a great reception. Everything was perfect and so fun. What a way to start your life together! We love you John and Kristen!!

And then we crashed. (well, after a few hours of clean up) What a crazy few days! It was fun, but never, ever again will we do a wedding the day after Christmas.

"Santa Came!"

And the Christmas morning craziness begins! It looks like chaos, but we did try to maintain some kind of order.Santa knew to bring Annie a tea set!
And the girls both got American Girl Dolls:)
My mom got all the girls these adorable suitcases . . . . sturdy ones too. Just what we needed. Thanks G-ma!


Making our traditional German pancake breakfast.
The six Cole kids rockin' out to Michael's new Beetles Rockband. We spent the rest of the day playing with new toys, relaxing, hanging out, making our Christmas dinner, . . . . . oh yeah, and getting ready for Kristen's wedding in the morning!