December Happenings

Jenn came to visit

Warming himself by the fire

Puddle Jumper

Snuggled in bed watching cartoons with Oinky and Bun-Bun (his blanket)

On November 30th Pasadena had a huge windstorm. We had sustained winds of 90+ miles per hour that caused major damage in the city. Major parts of the area were without power for two weeks, hundreds of trees toppled, homes were severely damaged, schools were cancelled, and literally every leaf on every tree fell to the ground. We were very lucky, in that earlier this year we had several large, unstable trees removed, and all of our trees trimmed. We had one tree lose a branch and tons of leaves in our yard, but other than that we had no damage.  Windstorm debris was piled up on every curb in the city and city crews worked around the clock to clean it up in time for the Rose Bowl Parade and Game.  The clean up was Wyatt's nirvana. He is really into all types of construction vehicles right now. We have an array of bulldozers, dump trucks, diggers, front end loaders, etc. that he plays with. So when the work crews came out in with their big front end loaders to clean up the branches, we went outside to watch!

Heaven is watching heavy equipment

After the front end loader picked the debris up, it dumped it in to a dump truck for hauling to the compost centers set up all around the city

The GIANT tree that fell in our neighborhood - we visited this tree nearly everyday to watch as they removed it. This tree was a deodar pine tree with a trunk at least 10 feet around. The entire tree toppled, and amazingly fell right in between two houses. The houses had some minor damage and two BMWs were crushed (moment of silence...) but no one was hurt. The tree tore up the road, the curb, and the sidewalk so that the entire street had to be closed while they removed it.
Knott's Berry Farm

Continuing a Taft Family tradition we went to Knott's Berry Farm in early December. I was on maternity leave and a month away from my due date.  I had strict instructions from my doctor to take it easy and stay off my feet. I wasn't about to miss Knott's so we rented a scooter and I got to ride around the park in style! This year my family joined us for the fun. It is always so much fun to see Wyatt with all of his cousins. He loves them so much and especially likes to follow the big kids around. Wyatt was excited to be big enough to ride the rides at Camp Snoopy this year and was excited that he had Dean, Meghan, Hannah, and Jack to ride with.  One thing I'm sad about - we didn't take a group picture by the Christmas tree this year. It was fun to watch the kids ride the rides and to chat with Aunt Vicky, Aunt Pam, Uncle Scott, and Sean, who we don't get to see all that often.

 

 Racing Cars

 The Huff n Puff Ride

 Part of the annual tradition is lunch at Mrs. Knott's Chicken Restaurant. This was the first year Wyatt was old enough to actually eat the food. This is his reaction to his first taste of the legendary biscuits and boysenberry jam. We sent this video to his Great Grandma Jeanine and Great Grandpa Dick in New York just to rub it in that we were enjoying the yummy biscuits!