CHRISTMAS EVE

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas! It indeed is a day to be thankful and most importantly joyful, that our loving God sent His Son to be with us on this blessed day!


We spent Christmas Eve with our neighborhood friends enjoying pazole, tamales, flan, and punch. It was a good night full of laughing, talking, eating and taking lots of pictures.


These are our friends, the Mora family...


and the other friends we spent Christmas Eve with was the Corona family.

And here we are, all the Havens, in front of the Christmas tree in ...yes...Disneyland! On Friday we flew down to LA to see Jessica. Saturday we went as a family to Disneyland...something we hadn't done in 10 or so years. Beautiful warm weather...not too crowded...it was a great time! (Space Mountain is a family favorite). Being together with Jon and Jessica was the best present we could have asked for! We flew back on Christmas Eve morning.

Bethlehem

On Monday, the 10th, the High School group took a bus load of FD kids to Santa Clara to a live nativity scene that a church was putting on. Below the exciting and loud bus ride along with a full complement of Camp MayMac songs!


Each high school student was responsible for one or two kids and they stayed together as they went around the place.

The church basically re-created what it may have been like in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. They built a small town in their parking lot complete with Roman soldiers controlling the crowd, booths that displayed perfume, woodworking, woolmaking, wine tasting (non-alcoholic), mud stone making, food samples, etc. Lots of people dressed up and there were lots of animals including a real camel that the wise men came in on!

Though of course some of the nativity scene was not accurate, it still told the message of Jesus' humble beginnings. I started walking around with some of the kids then I sort of stood off to the side and people watched. A feeling of actually getting a taste of what it was really like to be there during the Savior's birth came over me. There were the smells of fires, animals, and perfumes that pervaded the air. It was crowded as if everybody was there for the census. There were the shouts of the Roman soldiers keeping people in line. There were the faces of the people trying to see what was going on in this small town, especially once they heard from the shepherds what they saw out in their fields. Everyone went over to where the baby Jesus was born to see what this was all about.

2000 years later we still are doing the same thing.

Iglesia Libre Concert

This past Saturday, our Hispanic Church, Iglesia Libre sponsored a concert at the church. They had this group come and the main singer used to be a very familar and popular singer in Mexico. He since has become a Christian and dedicates his music to Him. Below is a picture of him. He reminded me of Carlos Santana except was he playing bass!





We took a handful of girls with us to see the concert. Handful is a very accurate description of this group! Spunky group!

But is was fun and the music was very good though I understood very little of it!

Dinner at Neighbors

On Monday night the 2nd of December, we were invited next door to have dinner with our neighbors along with friends Holly and Betsy. We had a dinner of Chicken Pezole with Chips. It was very good! It was nice to sit down and talk with our neighbors. They had twins this past summer and they are truly adorable:

This is Anahi the oldest daughter who helps out quite a lot with the work load.

These are the other daughters, Angie and Sara, doing Betsy and Holly's hair. Yes, 5 kids that all are girls except one of the twins is a boy! (yes, the one in blue above!)

Dad came home a little later. We had a nice conversation in Spanish about work and what it is like to live with all those girls! It was great to spend time with them and get to know them a little better.