Dad's birthday was Sunday, January 15. He turned 50-something and said it was in the top 5 list for favorite birthdays. We were glad that we could all be there to celebrate with him!

Awwwww...Our baby brother had his 17th birthday on Wednesday, January 11. Hard to believe! Hope you had a great day! We'll celebrate with you this weekend! We love you :)

On Tuesday night we had a surprise Congratulations party for Aaron at CiCi's Pizza. We had over 20 people come to celebrate with him! Sunday school friends and neighbors were there. We made a brief presentation of this trophy (which Mr. and Mrs. Sampson had made for him) and just enjoyed pizza and conversation. Everyone had a bunch of questions for Aaron about what he did. I was so proud! We are so blessed by the support we have down here.

the marathon group, from left to right: Jonathan, Chris, Aaron, Travis, and Trent. This is the morning of the marathon...they had to be there around 4 a.m.!

the marathon group after the race! Still smiling!


view more pictures of Aaron here:

Mussrat had her baby! Mussrat is the mother of two students of mine from Pakistan. In November we had a baby shower for her (see post). Muhsan Ayaz was born January 3. He weighed 9 lb, 5 ounces, and was 22 inches long! She was very tired when we brought dinner over there for them. She had to be put in the hospital for a few days last weekend because of an infection, but is fine now.

From Thursday, Dec. 29 to Monday, Jan. 2, we were in Pasadena, California. We had a blast! It was a special trip because we were able to celebrate our anniversary, Christmas, New Years, and rest all at the same time. Granddaddy and Grandma Carolyn graciously gave us this trip as a gift and we are so thankful. We were also grateful for Ms. Barbara Weeks, who donated this trip at a silent auction for the Boys and Girls Home. She was wonderful to arrange everything for us and let us use her condo. She was so helpful while we were there, also!
Enjoy these pictures. They are not in order but I'll work on that later.

On Friday morning we went for breakfast at Starbucks and walked around to see if we could see something happening. We knew where we needed to go, but didn't realize how far it was. It was about a 1-2 hour walk! It was fun, though, because we walked on Colorado Street, which is very busy and interesting. They were already setting up the seating for the parade. It has any kind of store or restaurant that you could think of. We also got to see some of California's unique architecture for their houses. When we reached our destination, we found the Rose Bowl Football Stadium, and a barn in which you could see volunteers putting the finishing touches on the floats. There were so many people around! Lots of tour groups. Aaron and I were happy to be on our own. We looked around and then headed back...glad we had on tennis shoes. We stopped at a Mexican Restaurant on Colorado St. for an early lunch- the best Mexican buffet we've ever experienced! Our waiter gave us helpful hints on what to do while we were in town. Aaron wanted to go back there to eat before we left, but we didn't get another chance.
The homes are situated on the sides of small mountains! The landscaping is beautiful.
This is empty Colorado St. seating. Where it all goes down...
This is the extremely long line of people waiting to get inside the barn to see the floats being finished. We didn't have the guts to get in the back of it.

This is a very sickening example of the liberalism that is infecting churches. What Bible are they preaching from? We saw this sign on our walk, near Colorado St. We were very sorry to get this glimpse of Calif.

On Friday night we ventured over to Hollywood, which was about 15 minutes from where we were staying. They have a place called CityWalk...shops, restaurants, and live entertainment, movie theatres, etc. It is beside Universal Studios. We didn't eat at Hard Rock, but this is a cool picture. We walked around for about 2 hours, just taking everything in and trying not to spend too much money!
This is an aerial view of CityWalk. It was hoppin'.
The Santa version of King Kong and I.
We had a great time. We tried on sunglasses for at least 20 minutes!

On Saturday we drove back to Hollywood to check it out. It was chilly and rainy, but it didn't stop us! We ate lunch at a Mongolian grill...if you haven't been to one, you should. They have a couple in Raleigh/Cary.
There is a large shopping arena beside the Kodak Theatre. We walked around and I treated myself to an hour in Ann Taylor Loft. It has been awhile since I have been in one. Didn't get anything...just trying on is fun!

We saw SpiderMan! I really don't know what this guy was doing, but he was funny.
This is a very old theatre that is interesting to look in. It's huge- there were movies playing there, but we decided on another movie theater across the street in which to see that new movie with Sarah Jessica Parker. Also a very liberal taste of American culture.

On New Year's Eve we went to a fancy Italian restaurant close to where we stayed. It was very unique but tasty! Afterwards, Aaron took me to Cold Stone, which I had been pleading to do ever since we got there and I saw it. I think he was tired of me taking so many pictures, so he got silly :)
After ice cream, we went in search of medicine (I didn't feel so hot) and root beer. We took a nap before the ball dropped, but woke up in time to hear Dick Clark count it down. We rang in the New Year with ice cold root beer- what we had been dreaming about all last year while we were doing without. Now we can drink soda whenever we want! It was a memorable root beer.

On Sunday we drove to downtown L.A. to see what was going on. Broadway Street was about the only thing that was alive...everyone else was still sleeping off the buzz I guess. That is a street that is strictly Hispanic-owned...we didn't see any English signs or English-speaking people. We walked around until we found an IHOP.
After we left downtown, we came back to Pasadena and drove around a nearby residential area. This residential area is not like our residential area. Pretty impressive. The average cost of a house in Pasadena is $405,000, but I bet this one was at least a couple million. Some of them were very beautiful!
This is also in downtown L.A. They were having a special event- ice skating. It wasn't too fancy. Not like New York's Rockefeller! There were a lot of homeless people around. I learned today in an article on foxnews.com that there are about 82,000 homeless in L.A. County.

Sandra Day O'Connor was the Grand Marshal. They were lucky to be inside a car!
This was Aaron's favorite float (ESPN). It was really impressive...


We got there around 6:30 that morning and got to see everyone scrambling to get ready! It didn't actually start raining until the parade started.
I took a lot of pictures of floats, but these were some of our favorites...

AARON FERNANDEZ | Bib #11614 | ALBANY, GA - USA | Age 24 | M
START 6:05:38 AM EST 10 Mile 1:31:28 Half 1:58:16 20 Mile 2:59:33 FINISH 4:02:03

TIME Chip Time: 4:02:03

Placement Overall: 1,872 of 10,131 Gender: 1403 Division: 73 of 288

Hey! My apologies for not keeping the blog updated recently. We are scrambling to get settled from our trip to L.A. and from life in general. We have been on the run for quite a while and we're still going! I have pictures from our vacation that I'd like to share, but it's going to have to wait. There's a lot of other "stuff" to do and it has priority. I hope to get it up here soon.
Aaron is in DisneyWorld right now getting ready for his race tomorrow. Please pray for him! I am very proud of him already- he's been so disciplined in preparing for this marathon. I think it starts tomorrow early morning...be thinking of him. Thanks to everyone who supported him with donations and with prayers.
Since it was a guys only trip, I went to a prayer retreat with the women of First Baptist Leesburg this weekend. We met last night and finished this afternoon. It was a unique experience. I spent a lot of time praying for you. God has been faithful to meet me in prayer and consider my requests. It was an encouraging time for fellowship (I met some really nice ladies) and for worship in other ways. I didn't get much sleep- that's one of the priorities I was talking about before. Have a great weekend. We'll let you know how Aaron does tomorrow.

A Hawaiian Christmas 2004. This year we weren't exactly wearing bathing suits, and Santa Claus wasn't wearing a flowery t-shirt, but it was still pretty mild here in GA! We went to the church service yesterday morning, and then relaxed together for the rest of the day. We saw "Rumor Has It" with Kevin Costner at the movie theatre. We played with Aaron's new Quicken computer software, tried out the board game we got (Wit's End), and cooked lunch and dinner together. It was a great Christmas!
Going backwards...Friday night we camped out in the backyard. It was an experience to be had! Even though it was cold that night, we were warm in our sleeping bags with the 10 blankets over us. We didn't last until 3 a.m., though, because the ground was so uncomfortable compared to our pillowtop mattress.
Saturday we spent time around the house and at the mall. We had a nice lunch at Outback (thanks to Stephen and Michael!). Saturday night we went to the church for communion at the candelight service. It was beautiful. Afterwards, we stopped by a couple's house to hang out with Gary and Beth and some of that group. They served lots of sweets!
We hope everyone had a memorable Christmas. We'll post more about our gifts later. We also have to take a picture in our Christmas boxers/pajamas.
Today Aaron has the day off also, so we'll go looking for tables again.