Todd Family Christmas 2008

Bria, left out when we first decorated tree, adds her touches.

Bria, home from work and school gives her dog Chloe some

attention.

Oh, to be a dog at times. Chloe and Coda rest from their

walk and play.

A little more awake. Coda on left, Chloe on the right.

The clan. From left to right; Joy; Tim, son-in-law; Lupe;

Steve; Bria; Sean; Seth, in front; and, Sarah, our daughter-in-law.

Just for laughs, there's always cleaning to do before

company comes. The following is a little break from cleaning.

Although hard to see, Coda has a fascination with the vacumn cleaner.

Merry Christmas 2008

A Christmas card for you:


From the Todd Family in Lemoore to your family,
Merry Christmas and a Happy New year!

Check our blog for the latest update on our family. Look
for new pictures and news articles. If you missed Sean
and Sarah's wedding pictures look in the right hand column
and look for past postings and click on October.

Court of Honor

Seth conducted voluntarily a Boy Scout Court of Honor
held on December 18th.

Seth received four merit badges,
three of which are required for the rank of Eagle. He
received merit badges for Family Life, Environmental
Science, Citizenship in the Community, and one for cinematography.

He lacks two required merit badges for Eagle and is currently
working on one and is looking for a counselor for the other.

Two of our ward's eleven year old scouts made first class before
their 12th birthday. They are honored for that by receiving a
manzanita carved neckerchief slide from our former stake
president. Several in our ward have done this including Seth.
If they can make first class rank before turning 12
they are more likely to make Eagle.

Christmas 2008 Underway At 465 Mike Ct. Lemoore, CA, 93245

We bought a tree the day before Seth's birthday and decorated it the next day on his birthday, December 7th. For the past few years we have bought our tree from the nearby Armona Fire Department. The trees are a little expensive but I believe it goes towards their community outreach programs. The other reason is that it is close enough to maybe make it home without the tree and luggage carrier falling off the car (happened once).

Lights were put up on the house after Thanksgiving. Steve usually tries to get them up before but it was wet on the roof and Steve has fallen off twice before. I think he learned his lesson, finally.

It was a stretch for the short, fat guy.

Seth's 14th Birthday

Seth celebrated his 14th birthday at his choice of restaurants which
was the Olive Garden. The location was convenient for Sean, Sarah,
and Bria. Sean and Sarah were coming from out of town and Bria had
to work. Also their were Steve, Lupe and Joy.

Seth has shown a recent interest in drawing and is joining the ranks
of Sean and Bria as well as several of his cousins who have some artistic talent.
Also of interest to him are dragons. He has read several stories involving
dragons and he wears clothing with dragons.

For his birthday he received a box of candy called "Zours," "Drawing for Dummies,"
"How to Draw Dragons," a jacket designed with a dragon, cards, and a $2.00 bill along with a check for 14 dollars from his grandparents. And at grandma's age, she got Seth's age right
considering all the grand and great-grand children that she has.





Olive Garden sang "Happy Birthday" to Seth.

Dead Bird Day

We had our whole family together for Thanksgiving minus our son-in-law Tim who opted to work double shifts for the extra money (in today's economy, I didn't blame him and it wasn't like he didn't have some of our turkey dinner sent to him).


Pics by Seth (Some were lucky and didn't get caught on camera, others, well, I'll kill that kid!)


Dinner is ready.



The Dead Bird

Bria with her gorgeous smile.

Sean kicking back. What you don't see is Bria practicing

a reflexology foot massage that she is learning to do on her own.

A little scratch and a little tongue. Content dog.

Bria massaging Sean's smelly feet.

The newlyweds, Sean and Sarah.

Seth loves to have fun With Bria.

Crazy kids.

Sean, stuffed with turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and a foot massage.

I think he enjoyed Thanksgiving.

Whoa! Is this my daughter-in-law, or

America's next top model. The original photo

was very striking. Sean, you did well.

Kisses!

Somebody needs a kiss from Chloe.

Girl problems, Koda moves in for the kiss, kiss, kiss.

Dog day afternoon.

Yep, a stuffed turkey. I mean, doesn't she look like

Sleeping Beauty.

Out for the count.

Yes, I've got bling. And I'm a pampered thing.

Matching teeth. They both need braces.

Donations, please.

This is my happy face.

10 minutes into the movie and he was unconscious.

Dog like master.

Steve's U10 Soccer Team

Stephen's U10 girls team presented quite a few challenges. Mostly, it involved girls who did not show up to practice (practicing with less than a full team was hard), didn't know their left from their right, thought they should have the ball only or showed up as the game was to start or even after.

In league, we placed seventh out of nine teams. In an end of season tournament, we beat the team that placed fourth in league. After the first round, teams were placed into a gold, silver, or bronze bracket. We ended up in the silver (fourth place team went to bronze) where we lost to the fifth and sixth placed teams each 2-0. Those games were played on Sunday and our star player is the bishop's daughter, Sadee Ball, who didn't play.

All in all, the team showed great improvement. To beat the fourth place team with Sadee and losing to the other teams by only two goals (they beat us by 3 goals or more in league) without Sadee says a lot. I was very proud of how we ended up.

Above all, I fulfilled my dream to coach a team on which I had no son or daughter. It felt great but I was busy. As for Lupe, she wasn't always a happy camper about this so instead of a coach's gift I talked them into a coach's wifes' gift of $50 to Kohls. That made us both happy.

Safe and Secure

There was one time, perhaps a year ago, when I used PayPal to make a purchase, I think on Amazon.com. Anyway, on Sunday, October 12, someone gained access to my PayPal account which was tied to my bank account. That evening we began to receive emails from PayPal which
seemed to be odd. I didn't trust the emails so I went to the PayPal site and logged in and everything looked Chinese. They changed the language on the account. The next day on Monday I found out that they had accessed my bank account for $137.50. We contacted the bank. Stop payments were issued. And we were not out of pocket but had to close the account and open a new one. The interesting part is, after a round about way of contacting PayPal in English (which was not easy), I found that purchases were made in Euros not US dollars.

Safe and Secure. Yeah, right.

Seth's School

Seth attends the University Charter School located on the

community college campus of West Hills Lemoore. Steve

was on the school board when it was decided to go into

partnership with West Hills and Fresno State. The joint use

facility relationship with the college allowed this school

to be built without having to pass a bond. (Our second school

built without a bond or borrowing money). This school

has two classes each of 5th through 8th grade.

It doesn't take much to hit water around here. Near the

school there are some drainage ponds that were used

in order to lay pipe to the school. Between the school and

Lemoore NAS lies the Kings River wetlands.

At the West Hills College, Seth has access to the Library

because he has a West Hills Student Body card.

Pumpkin Carving October 2008

An anuual event is pumpkin carving.
And yes,
Bria's mother had her carve a pumpkin.