Christmas

The family has gone... the laundry has piled high... the email boxes are full of many unread messages... there is so much food in the house - not all of it good for you... and the holiday comes to a close...

We had a great time visiting with family over the Christmas holiday. We drove up to SLO to pick up my Grammy, then stopped in Lompoc to visit Matt's father, and returned home.


The next day my parents and Uncle Mark arrived. It's been a full house ever since. We just hung around the house, eating, drinking, visiting, playing...


On Christmas eve, the kids decorated their gingerbread house.




Christmas morning came and the kids were very excited to see what Santa had left them. They tore into their presents and squealed with glee at what they received. It was a good year for the Schnittker kids. There were many Playmobil toys, Polly Pockets, Hot Wheel cars, and a Big Wheel! Yes! They still make them (and in the USA)!


Sarah decorated the table with holiday decorations and I made Christmas dinner with a HoneyBaked Ham, wild rice with cranberries, mashed potatoes, candied yams, peas, and bread rolls... Then there was the homemade pecan and pumpkin pies... and, of course, the Emerald Dry... it was a lovely evening.

Get your 3D glasses...

You've received your holiday card and those funny blue and red glasses.... well, go grab them and check out these pictures.


Matt's specialty at work is "stereo" vision. Currently he's helping the team convert Beauty and the Beast to stereo or Disney Digital 3D. So, we decided to use his talent to create our holiday card. He had two identical cameras on a platform and took two pictures (one for each eye) at the same time. When we were at the Christmas Tree lot, we got a few strange looks from other tree hunters... He puts the images into a program that gives the blue and red colors used for the 3D glasses. Enjoy!

Disneyland Holiday Party & Santa Claus

This year we decided to go to the family holiday party at Disneyland... no strollers, no diaper bags, just kids and lots of fun! We got down to Anaheim about 6pm (the traffic gods were not very kind) and checked into our room. We headed to Downtown Disney for dinner at the Jazz Kitchen. It was very delicious. Matt had a couple of mint juleps and everything was fine to him :) After dinner we headed to the party...


Here is Sleeping Beauty's castle all done up for the holiday season. It's really quite pretty. They had snow on Main Street and the usual holiday decorations.



Small World was all done up in lights as well. We thought about getting our picture taken in front, but changed our minds when we saw the long lines...but it's still very pretty.



Sarah took Emma and Brandon on Dumbo. Ben went in his own elephant. It's nice that the kids are older and we can just watch and enjoy the rides from the ground.









The morning we left, Santa was taking visitors at the tree in the lobby of the hotel and the kids got to tell him what they wanted for Christmas.

Getting ready for Christmas

We didn't have a lot planned this last weekend and the kids were getting excited for the holidays, so I got out the decorations. Brandon and Emma decided to wear their stockings on their heads...



Then we got ready to go on a tree hunt. The first lot we went to had very sad looking trees. We didn't find what we were looking for and headed to another tree farm near Magic Mountain.



And then we found it! Our tree! Isn't it lovely??? Just kidding... for some reason out in the middle of the beautiful green tree forrest was this dead tree.



We found our tree...



Ben and Emma helped carry it to the car.



and we took it home.



Our decorated tree



Our candy cane cutie

USS Midway

On Friday after Thanksgiving... we visited the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier. It was commissioned in 1945 and opened as a museum in San Diego in 1992.



We toured the hanger deck and forecastle where we saw where the sailors slept. Matt is crammed in his bunk.



And here's where the junior officers slept! A huge step up!



This is our Sarah in the brig. She doesn't look very happy...



Then we went up to the flight deck...here's the island.



Here are the kids in the island looking at some of the equipment. The gentleman told the kids when we boarded the ship, "if you can climb on it, flip switches, crawl into it, DO IT!"



The hanger deck had a compartment open and it has a glass floor over it. Ben decided to "fly." It was a little nerve wracking... Instincts tell you no and the brain says it's OK...

Thanksgiving in Poway

This year we headed to Poway for the Thanksgiving feast at Bob's house. We spent the day eating, drinking, and having fun. We even "skyped" the family in San Francisco at Kevin's house!


Erika and Amanda are getting a little punchy while making dinner.



Lisa and Emily getting ready to eat.



Matt and Sarah finishing off dinner.



After dinner the kids enjoyed a game of Wii.

The Bolt Wrap Party

Last night, Matt and I went to the Disney Animation Studios wrap party for BOLT. We went downtown to Hollywood and Highland and watched the screening of the film in the Kodak theatre (where they do the Oscars)... after many speeches, the film began.



After the film, we headed to the Grand Ballroom and the party began! We got to see some old friends and I met many of the people that Matt works with. The food was catered by Wolfgang Puck and it was good, the music was loud and fun.







Here is our picture with the star of the show! BOLT.




Here is a picture of just outside the party... there was a quiet protest against the passing of Prop 8.

Dart Wars

Uncle Mark and Grandma came down for weekend and we had a Dart War. Through out the day and into the evening, Uncle Mark and Ben sparred with Matt and Sarah in a war with Nerf darts. Uncle Mark moved around the living room sofas and created two forts for each team to hide. Emma was a dart fetcher. They had a great time! Enjoy the pictures!

This is Halloween....

Here is a pic of our house Halloween decor. We had Darth Vader in the window (he's actually the Red Power Ranger dressed up). We had black lights, scary spider webs, ghosts, scary haunted mansion music, and a fog machine.

This Halloween, we were all pirates...

Here are the three kids getting ready for school.

They had a party and parade. I went to school and these are some of Sarah's friends all dressed up for the parade.

Here is Sarah and her friend Monique.


Then the kids went trick-or-treating. Brandon got the idea, but soon tired out and decided he had enough candy. Here is his loot.


Here is Matt and his pirate girls... we had a really good time...

as seen here by Emma, fast asleep by 9pm.