Child SHARE Picnic

All the kids got these cute teddy bears! You might notice you won't see David (he is enjoying his last summer before college and spending LOTS of time with friends - no time for a picnic with family).

We played a "musical chair" game with hula hoops.

The petting zoo was very popular and the bald rat was cute!

Another cute pet and a dancing contest where Doug "danced" and Matthew didn't.

Water balloon catching contest - Angelica and Matthew had a balloon that broke early on in the contest, but Doug and Jennifer kept catching till almost the end.

Before and after the balloon break!

Los Angeles Marathon 2009

We spent Memorial Day morning at the LA Marathon cheering for the runners and Team Child SHARE.

Child SHARE is our foster care agency and it is an official charity of the LA Marathon. Our church raised money for Child SHARE by forming Team Evergreen to walk, bike and run the marathon and raise money for children.

The elite women came by our cheering section (mile 14) at 1:04.o6 (they had a head start on the elite men). The woman in red won!

The elite men came by at 1:07.41.

We had fun cheering for the runners and handing out water and fruit.

Matthew was a great water passer outer (our teenagers weren't with us because they were at our church youth retreat).

Go runners, go!

We ended our volunteer service with some yummy in-n-out burgers! = - )

We watched the winners win on tv later in the day.

Child SHARE Christmas Party

We went to the annual Child SHARE Christmas party this afternoon. Child SHARE is the foster care group that we belong to and the organization that we've partnered with for the past 20 years.

Our teenagers (and their Dad) were happy that they could text during the boring part of the celebration.

Santa even danced with some of the kids and then everyone sat down for a delicious lunch.

Of course we had to get a picture with Santa - another tradition.

Matthew had the lucky gold star under his chair and won the cake!

Matthew reunited with the 3 Menendez brothers who were also adopted with the help of Child SHARE. Dessert was KING SIZED ice cream sandwiches - YUM!

David, Angelica and Jennifer all chose Barbies as one of their gifts so that they can take them to various white elephant gift exchanges. = -) On the way home some of the kids tried out the helium and entertained us with their high pitched singing.

As we were leaving the party we had a great view of the winter storm that is headed our way - it's supposed to rain for the next 4 to 5 days! Look at all those clouds, leaves blowing and colorful trees - I bet you didn't think we ever saw fall colors in Los Angeles - we do!

On a side note...we also saw gas for only $1.59 a gallon. This is LOW for southern California and sadly I heard that prices are supposed to start going back up again. = - ( It was great while it lasted!