April 2014

 For Jacen's 18th birthday we bought him a skydiving experience. We went to Hollister for the weekend and it was so fun watching him skydive! He loved it and I felt a little jealous. I need to go someday.

 This guy was his skydiving partner/expert. He was really cool. He said he wished his mom would have taken him skydiving for his 18th birthday.

 On the way to the skydiving field, I saw these huge metal dinosaurs on the side of the road and had to take pictures to show Micah, who loves dinosaurs.

 Leif and Jen and their family came to visit and we went to the Fresno zoo. Above is Haley and Gavin looking on at the elephants.

 My niece, Erica, moved into an apartment with two pools that we have actually used a TON all summer long. But back in April we went for the first time with Leif's family and enjoyed it on one of the first warm days.

New Year's Day Hike At Millerton Lake

 For New Years we met up with my Mom and brother and his family for a picnic and hike at Millerton Lake. It was a perfect sunny day and we had so much fun. I love that the lake is only 25 minutes away. The lake is really low right now during winter. Hopefully we get some rain/snow this winter so it will be higher in the summer!

 We came down on this beach and we all skipped rocks. The kids (me too) were so excited when they were able to skip rocks!

 Gollum (Garet) below

 lots of climbing on rocks

 My studly brother. He says he dresses for a workout every time he takes his kids out because it is a workout. (: He's right! I learned that when he asked me to watch one of his Autistic kids once at the zoo and I had him nicely cornered where he couldn't escape and then in a split second he had jumped over a fence and climbing down some rocks. I headed after him in my non-running shoes. He was way ahead of me and a little child passed by and asked his Mom why I was climbing in the restricted area. She quickly said, "We don't do that." If only they knew I wasn't just climbing there for the fun of it! Anyhow, I digress... That was another day.

 Pretty cool tree huh. And a very cool kid.

Lesson Learned

 This is what I came home to after church. I had left our dog, Henry, in the house and apparently he was bored and figured out how to open the cupboard doors where the trash and recycle cans are kept.

Lesson: Don't leave the dog in the house for an extended amount of time alone.

But we still love him.

Christmas

 Christmas Eve was a bit of an adventure. The Sunday before my van broke down on the way to church and then Monday I didn't have a vehicle to do any "getting ready for Christmas" errands. So Tuesday on Christmas Eve, I waited for Albert to get home for work at noon and we went out car shopping. We came home by 4:30 with a new Nissan Rogue, which I love! Everyone had been telling me it was time for me to get a new car and I didn't want to. Frugal me wanted to avoid another car payment and make do, hoping that my van would last me through Jacen's whole mission. Oh well. It didn't happen. I am grateful that paying a little extra each month on Albert's trailblazer paid off in being able to pay it off a year early. So in doing so, we will pay off the trailblazer this January and our new car payment on the Rogue will start in February. I'm grateful that their isn't any overlapping. Anyhow, I felt a bit unprepared for Christmas Eve and Christmas with all of that going on. We made it over to my parent's house that night and ate dinner there. We had a nice nativity play with all the children. The sweet sister missionary read a nice Christmas story. It was nice to have both the older sister missionaries there and the young Elders. I was thinking that next year Jacen will be somewhere in the world in someone else's home for Christmas.

 Christmas morning the kids woke up and had presents at home.

 Then that afternoon we went to Coalinga and visited with Albert's parents and brothers.

It was a nice Christmas. I'm kind of glad its over. The next day I took down the Christmas decorations and was glad to get rid of the clutter and clean house.

Flute

My little budding flute player. Isn't he cute?

I love playing my flute. It's one of my happy times. (:

This time of year I get an extra excuse to practice because I get extra opportunities to perform. I am very amateur but I enjoy playing and sharing what bit of gift I have to share. Tomorrow I will play "What Child is This" along with Linnea on her violin and her friend, Soraya, on her violin and our friend, Lexi, singing. I will also play an obbligato part along with the congregation singing "Silent Night". I hope I don't mess up. I need to be confident. Next Sunday we will also play for another congregation that heard about our little group and asked us to please play for them.

I get to play on a new flute that my Dad gave to me. (:

Christmas Letter

Christmastime 2013

            As another year draws to a close, we wish you a happy Christmas! Please know that our thoughts and prayers are with you. We are settled in Clovis, CA and we love it here! We moved the last day of May and made it through the shocking heat as we unpacked and settled in between swim days, spending time with extended family nearby and trips to the lake. Micah loved picking apricots and ollalaberries and making jam and all the kids loved the water park! They enjoyed bare feet and popsicles. They are now enjoying their new schools. Albert and I had the opportunity to go to Hawaii this summer for a very late honeymoon and we loved it! I’m so blessed to be married to Him.

            Jacen is a Senior at Buchanan High School. He has straight A grades and is enjoying working out at his uncle Chris’ house. He recently ran a half marathon. He also enjoys playing the guitar with his extra time. He is so ready to move on to the next stage in his life! He plans on submitting papers for his church mission in early spring to leave after he graduates. He received his Eagle Scout award last May and will have his court of honor for it in December. It is a huge accomplishment! He still keeps in contact with many of the Fijians he served. We are so proud of him.

            Linnea is in 8^th grade and is a social butterfly! She loves spending time with her new friends and attending parties. She helped establish a CTR club (stands for “choose the right”) at school and loves it. She is a great student and continues to play the violin beautifully. She is such a sweet helper around the house and we are so blessed to have her in our family.

            Gavin is in 4^th grade and stays busy with sports and scouts and school and friends. He likes having friends in the neighborhood to play with. He loves riding his bike, jumping on the trampoline, playing basketball and ping pong. He is our soccer star! He is a high honor roll student and such a great big brother to Micah.

            Micah is four and we are enjoying our days together before he starts kindergarten next year. I love spending time with him. We enjoy reading and gardening and taking walks. He is such a sweet boy. I love being a mother. I also love teaching the 14 and 15 year old girls at church. I love to read, play my flute and piano and lots of kind of activities such as tennis and weight lifting and running.

            Albert has recently spent his time outside of work coaching Gavin’s soccer team, working out, serving as the executive secretary at church and lots of basketball games and walks with the family and our Newfoundland puppy, Henry.

            We are so grateful for the peace and love in our lives and in our family and know that his peace only comes through our Savior, Jesus Christ. This is the true spirit of Christmas. We hope this letter finds you healthy and happy. We love you.

The Zuniga Family

Albert, Jaime, Jacen, Linnea, Gavin and Micah

October/November

 Linnea has been busily working on her personal progress. Here she had me teach her to make lasagna. Then we invited Grama and Grampa over to eat it with us. I have such a testimony of personal progress! It's such a great program, helping girls to become the young women God intends them to be. I am working alongside Linnea and I love it.

Micah was a ninja for Halloween. Yay--he gets to wear Gavin's old costumes! My Mom threw a cute Halloween party for lots of the grandchildren.

Below is Micah's jack-o-lantern that he carved all by himself. Seriously, I was inside the house the whole time making dinner. I think he did a great job!

For Veteran's Day, Fresno had a huge, great parade. The band is always my favorite part.

I guess the flags make it festive but really, how much talent does it require to twirl a flag compared with playing a musical instrument?

My birthday came rolling along in November. I went to the temple with my Dad and Micah hung out with my Mom doing birthday party preparations. He said that I needed a new doormat. He picked out this one. Cute, huh.

I also got pine nuts. I love pine nuts, really. Albert got me some cute new dishes from my favorite store, Anthropologie. Tera gave me a beautiful vase from the same store.

My Dad's birthday is right after mine. Tera came over and brought this yummy cake from Layers that was seriously so good. We had a party at my house. Chris and his family was there and Erica, my niece and her girls.

We had a nice Thanksgiving at Albert's parents house. I don't have any pictures, unfortunately. The next day we decorated gingerbread houses. I have such great memories of doing this as a child with my best friend. I used to make all the gingerbread from scratch and it would take me all day when Jacen and Linnea were little but now I just buy the kits. My favorite is the one from Trader Joes from Germany (Micah's). I love how each of the kids decorated according to their personality. If I hadn't seen them decorating and then had to guess who's was who's, I totally would have known. I am missing a picture of Linnea's.  It totally looks like what she was do...very neat and orderly and color coordinating with patterns all over. (:

Gavin was spending the day with my mom (its nice living near them!) and he called me up and asked if he could bring home a leopard gecko. He'd been asking me for a while to let him have one. (I wanted a bearded dragon.) I somewhat reluctantly agreed. He is pretty cool. I haven't held him yet. I think the bearded dragons are less scary looking. Anyway, I like him. His name is Spiker. He is still alive. Oh, and I didn't realize I would have to also keep crickets alive. I HATE crickets. I have not been as successful at keeping them alive, although I have tried. I let Gavin deal with the feeding. The fun things about having boys! (: