Christmas With The Robin Warren Family - December 20 - 26th, 2004

What a great time we had in Palm Springs, CA. But it was even more fun to travel to Temecula, CA to have Christmas with Robin, Mary, and our granddaughters.

Rocke and I arrived at Robin and Mary's home around 5 pm on Monday, the 20th of December. The girls helped us unload the van and get our things into the house. They were really excited because we had Christmas gifts to put under the tree and they wanted to help carry them in. After Mary arranged all the gifts under the tree, we visited before eating a delicious meal that they had prepared for us. After dinner, we continued our visit and soon it was the girls bedtime.

Tuesday morning, Mary's folks, Donna and Bill Stegemeyer came over to visit. Donna had done some needlepoint for the front for the girls Christmas stockings. What a beautiful job she had done, the stockings turned out beautiful. While Donna helped Mary and the girls to make some Christmas cookies, Robin got out the sewing maching and finished up the Christmas stockings. Great job, Robin and Donna!

While the cookie dough was rising, Robin and Mary took us all out to the Claim Jumper for Christmas lunch. We all had a wonderful time visiting and enjoying the delicious food at this great restaurant. After lunch, we returned home, so that Donna, Mary and the girls could finish up the Christmas cookies. After some more visiting and the cookies were done, it was time for Donna and Bill to return to their home. They had to get ready for their trip to Arizona to visit their oldest son, Bill, for Christmas. We had such a big lunch at the Claim Jumper, we didn't want dinner. The girls had a snack, then we watched a movie with them, "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban".

Wednesday after breakfast, we visited a while, then Rocke and I got to watch Megan, while Robin and Mary took Erin and Kate to see "Polar Express". What fun watching Megan, she is such a good little girl. She loves to watch "Teletubbies", so Rocke and I watched a movie with her. She loves to dance and sing along with the movies, so she had Grandpa out on the dance floor with her. After playing with Grandma and Grandpa, Megan was tired and ready for her afternoon nap.

Robin, Mary and the girls returned home, then Rocke and I ventured out and did a little shopping. We came back to the house and played with the girls. Erin and Kate love to do "make over". They had already done a "make over" on me, so it was Grandpa's turn. They giggled and had a wonderful time painting Grandpa's nails and putting lip gloss on him. Then it was time for dinner. Mary fixed one of Rocke's and my favorites of hers, "Sweet & Sour Chicken".

Thursday, Robin and Mary took us all bowling. Rocke and I hadn't been bowling for years, so we both were looking forward to going to the bowling alley. While we waited for a couple of lanes to open up, we watched the girls play in the game room at the bowling alley. Finally, our lanes were open and we were ready to see how good (or bad) we were at knocking down the bowling pins. Everyone had a great time and we enjoyed our time bowling. After bowling, Rocke and I treated everyone to pizza at the Pizza Factory.

Friday, Christmas Eve, we all hung around the house and visited while getting some things done that had to be done before Christmas. Rocke and I enjoyed playing outside with the girls. Erin and Kate wanted to show us how good they were at riding their bikes. Kate still has training wheels on her bike, but Erin has graduated and riding her bike without training wheels. What a great job she does at riding the bike and keeping an eye on the road traffic at the same time. When it got dark, Rocke and I took a walk around the neighborhood and took some pictures of the beautifully decorated houses.

After dinner, it was time for the girls to have their tradition of opening one gift on Christmas Eve. They all got new Christmas PJ's and put them on. Then it was time for the tradition of Robin reading, ''Twas The Night Before Christmas," and then it was bedtime for the girls. Rocke and I were very impressed at how easily the girls went to bed and right to sleep.

Saturday morning and Santa had come! Everyone woke up and was ready to see what Santa Clause had left under the tree. It was also time to open all the gifts that Mom, Dad, Grandparents and all the other relatives had sent for Christmas. The girls were very excited and anxious to dig into the gifts. Rocke and I were both impressed at how they each waited their turns to open gifts.

After dinner, Robin surpised us by getting out his magic box and doing some magic tricks for us. Awesome!! Robin, in our opinion, was very good and we marveled at the tricks he did for us. What fun!! Thanks, Robin.

Rocke was coming down with something and not feeling too good, so we decided to leave late Sunday morning to return to Portland. This would give us a few days to get back to Portland and still have time to return the rental van.

Robin and Mary, thanks for the Christmas gift of letting us be with your 3 adorable girls and our sweet granddaughters. Being with them for the holidays was priceless. Thanks much for a wonderful Christmas!