Body Worlds 2

Non stop fun. Patty and I took 2 older kids from the neighborhood and met Brent and Sarah at the Tech Museum and looked at dead bodies.
This was really quite an interesting exhibit. I asked everyone what was their favorite part and most said seeing the different fetus' on display. Everything on display was real. Not fabricated plastic or rubber manekins but real people that were preserved in a process called plastination.
I liked the part of the human lungs. They had one healthy, next to that one was a smokers lung, and the last one belonged to a worker in a coal mine. Pretty amazing the differences. Every kid should see that if they ever consider smoking!
But something also struck me as I walked through. There were probably a lot of people at the museum that thought these crazy, wonderful bodies we were looking at were an evolved accident! This is too intricate of a machine to me to just "happen" or "evolve". I believe we were created by a pretty amazing God.

New Years Eve

We opened the Center for New Year's Eve so the kids had someplace to go for the evening. Below is a video I captured while we were sitting around the fire pit before we made Smores.

Just press the arrow button to watch.

Listen to the music in the background. It was NOT the music that was playing for most of the night!

We could not decide if we were going to stay up til midnight or not, so we decided to see how it played out. Of course there were lots of kids still around and Patty had some Poppers for the kids to shoot off. They had lots of fun. There were also some kids that came around that are "too old" to be at the Center but they still came by. It was nice to at least say hello to them.

We had fun playing different games and of course they always enjoy making and eating s'mores. It was a little crazy when we were making them. Probably 10 kids making s'mores while we still had another 10-15 standing around at the same time!

NEW YEAR'S EVE DANCE PARTY

Some of the kids wanted to have a dance party on New Year's Eve. So here is some of it that I captured on video. This is Anthony. He is 4 years old. Just click on the arrow below the video and it will start playing.

Enjoy

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.