Oakland Temple

On December 27th, the Twitchell family and Grandpa Luker drove to Oakland California to see the visitor center and the lights.

After 3 hours of driving (due to lots of Traffic) we arrived! We were excited to see Angela Johnson's special display of sculptures. This is one they had out that we were allowed to photograph.

Her work is so amazing! She came and told all the Sister Missionaries about each sculpture so they could share her and their testimony of each piece and of the Savior.
Sister Hui was the sister who took us for our tour. She was really cute and asked Shayla what language her name was in. Shayla said Chinese and was right. The sister asked her if she knew any Chinese and Shayla promptly did the polite bow and said hello to her in Chinese! Aren't kids tv shows great! That's where Shayla learned it from.

This is a view of the Bay Area from the Oakland Temple, Isn't it amazing!

After the tour of the sculptures, we went outside to see all the lights. The kids had fun checking out all the lights and the Nativity!

Christmas 2008

December was a hectic and busy month in the Twitchell Household as Larry had to be in LA the last couple of weeks in November and all of December until Christmas. Boy oh Boy did we miss Daddy! Although Larry was gone an awful lot we still did some fun things like viewing the lights on Strand Road, going out for hot chocolate and doughnuts( the kids favorite I think) Making goodies and treats for all of our neighbors. Grandpa Luker even flew in from Utah for Christmas! We were so excited to have him visit because he hasn't been to our new house in California! Jaden was really excited for Christmas this year and his favorite present was the new Red Xbox controller that he got!


Shayla was excited to get her Bratz hair magic color set and promptly set up shop in the bathroom and opened her own salon and invited us all to get hair do's.



Andrew's favorite part was his new alphabet choo choo train and Diego ATV. He's really excited to have Jaden and Shayla back in school so they will stop playing with all his toys!

All in All we had a wonderful Christmas day! We were just so excited to have Grandpa here and Daddy home!

Mommy has been enjoying her new computer and hopes to be more consistent with her blog this year!

Chocolates!

This year, Joanne Taylor and I dipped around 40 pounds of chocolates! Whew! That was a lot of Work!

Winco Field Trip

On November 3, 2008, Jaden and all the first graders at Antelope Creek got to go on a field Trip to WINCO grocery store. Jaden was a little nervous but got excited when I told him we get to tour the bakery where they make doughnuts! He was interested after that!
He watched them decorate cupcakes and then got to eat a cookie. We toured the big freezer, the humongous trash compactor, the Meat department and got to see the machine stack all the huge crates of groceries. Then Winco sent them back to school with Pizza for Lunch!
Yummy!

Brownies in Roseville Holiday Parade

On Saturday, November 21, 2008, Shayla and her brownie Troop got to ride in The Fountains Train in the Roseville Holiday Parade! The girls had fun jingling jingle bells and waving high to all the people watching the parade. Shayla chose to dress as Rudolph.

Shayla has had fun with brownies and enjoys being in the Girl Scout Program.

In December, The girls had a Christmas party where they made decorations, yummy treats and held an ornaments exchange. Except Mommy forgot to bring the ornament and instead showed up with a mini muffin loaf filled with chocolates to exchange.

Happy Halloween !!!!

This year for Halloween, Shayla decided to be a witch and Jaden was the Emperor from Star Wars. They don't do trunk or treats here, so Dad took them out around the neighborhood this year.

Andrew was a sad little pumpkin until he figured out that he got treats! Suckers, YUM YUM! He was much happier and on quite the sugar high when they returned!

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Meagan's Birthday Bash!

On Friday October 24th, Meagan celebrated her 13th Birthday by inviting her friends to a sleepover slumber party! They started with Pizza followed by the famous Better than Anything cake. They Karoked, watched movies and partied the night away!

The girls in order left to right: Victoria, Meg S, Taylor , Kaitlyn, Meagan, & Kaitlin H

Oh boy! It's official ! We have a teenager in the house now! AHGHHHHHH!

Bishop's Pumpkin Farm

On Monday, October 6th, we went to the Bishops Pumpkin Farm for our Family Home Evening. The kids were so excited to go, especially since Daddy could come this time!

The kids had fun on the Hayride. They kept throwing hay at each other. Even Daddy was throwing some.

The kids also had fun feeding the goats and petting the animals in the petting zoo. Even Andrew got in on the act. He had fun playing with the goats.


It was a lot of fun!

Evan's Birthday

On Saturday, September 26th, we went to Evan Taylor's party. The 1st party was a friends party, and I helped Joanne out with some of the activities. The theme was Superman and the kids had fun building their "superhero muslces" with activites such as a bouncing house.

Later I picked up pizza's at Costco for the family party while Joanne hurried and cleaned up. Grandpa Kelly and Grandma Linda, Mike and his kids and Staci came to celebrate!

It's fun living so close to family and joining in all the celebrations. Larry had fun filling Mike and John in on the Journey Concert we went the night before.

Journey !

On September 25th, 2008, Larry and I journied in our Dodge Journey to the Journey Concert up in Wheatland (sacramento area). Larry's Co-worker, has a friend who is the head of security up at the Sleep Train Amphitheater, got us in for free. It is one of those outdoor ones like at Sundance. The stadium is only supposed to have 16,500 max capacity but somehow their ended up being over 18,000 there.

While looking for a spot on the grass to sit, we ran into a couple in our ward who happened to be there, so we sat with them. It was a lot of fun. Larry was excited to see and hear Arnell Pineda whose the new lead singer for Journey!

It was a great concert! The only difficult thing was trying to find our car afterwards! That was quite an adventure! Meagan did an awesome job babysitting for us too!

Springing into Junior High!

On August 13, Meagan got her big intro to her new Junior High. She and Kaitlyn got to check out their new school, SpringView Junior High home of the Eagles.

They went all around campus, and got to even try some of the food! They also found out that they divide the students into academies. Meagan is in the Meridian and Kaitlyn is in Discovery.

Meagan is really enjoying junior high!

Shayla's Spa Party!

On July 22, 2008, Shayla threw a Spa Party for her friends to attend. They had fun doing manicures, pedicures, and facials.




It was a lot of fun and Shayla and her friends had a great time! After everyone left, mommy had a fun time and pampered herself to a facial, mannicure, and pedicure before cleaning up!

Shayla's Baptism

Shayla Nicole Twitchell was baptized an official member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints on June 7th 2008, Shayla loved dressing up in her new baptism dress from Grandpa Luker.



She felt and looked like a princess! She was so excited to be baptized by her father Larry. John & Joanne gave wonderful talks on baptism and The Holy Ghost and Linda Taylor played the piano. Brother Wheeler welcomed her into the ward. Her favorite song to sing was When I am Baptized.

Afterwards, we invited everyone over for a yummy Lunch at our house !

Away We Go To Washington!

Over Memorial Weekend, we drove up to Tacoma Washington to visit. It was great to stay and visit with Suzee & Dick Boyd and Meagan had fun staying with Melanie at the Gifford's home. We went and visited Mason's grave and Andrew had fun playing with the cars and flowers.

That evening we went to Emily Jolley's Wedding reception and enjoyed visiting with all our old friends! We sure miss Washington!