The Official Pau Family Web Site

On Thursday evening around sunset, the tide was scheduled to be fairly low (which makes for good pictures). So Justin, Josiah, and Tim drove down to the beach to take some pictures. The temperature was around 50 F and the breeze was quite chilly.

Here’s Justin taking some pictures. You can see that the tide is out.

The combination of rain clouds and the sun setting created an orange glow. Ruby’s Diner is a restaurant at the end of the Huntington Beach Pier.

In this picture, Catalina Island is visible in the distance on the left.

Saturday evening, a group of young people (mostly home schoolers or home school graduates) met at the Duck Club in Irvine for an evening of old country line dancing. Since this was Josiah’s first time, he was skeptical as to whether he’d enjoy himself. Of course, he had a GREAT time and said that he’d definitely come back.

Since there were (as always) more females than males, Jeri didn’t dance. Some of the girls/ladies danced as males to even things out.

No prior dance knowledge or experience was required to participate. The Hendricks led the dances and always gave us thorough instruction before each one. They would walk us through it and then call out the moves during the dances (similar to a square dance).

Run the River was a fun dance. Each group of four would eventually run down the river (the line of other dancers).

The Hand Jive required way too much coordination. It was a series of (seemingly simple) hand movements that were nearly impossible to repeat correctly.

We started with a Christmas Day service at 11:00 AM. We sang some Christmas carols, shared some stories of God’s blessings, and Pastor shared a Christmas message.

Back home, the women worked hard in the kitchen.

Jeffrey got Jeri’s saxophone out of the attic and worked at playing it.

Just before dinner, we took our family photo.

Joanna was helping Nicole get ready.

Family photo 2018. Front: Nicole, Sarah, Joanna, Lizzie, Victoria, and Jeri. Back: Tim, Justin, Josiah, Grandma Stogdill, Jason, and Jeffrey.

A crazy version.

Finally around mid-afternoon, the food is ready!

Around the table starting in the lower left with Lizzie, Nicole, Jeffrey, Victoria, Justin, Grandma Stogdill, Jeri, Joanna, Jason, Josiah, Sarah, and Tim.

Jeri, Nicole, Sarah, Victoria, and Lizzie went to Eileen Bouma’s to wish her a Merry Christmas. Sarah and Victoria finally returned around 5:30 PM after which we could open presents.

Justin got a Cole Porter songbook for Christmas. Here he’s playing from it. Jeffrey sings along.

Here’s a video montage that runs about 1 minute 18 seconds.

Tim, Jeri, Grandma Stogdill, Sarah, Jeffrey, and Lizzie went to Westminster Mall in the morning. We got hungry so Grandma treated us to pretzels.

Josiah was a master chef and created a swan from an apple.

Holland is back from Texas and is visiting her family. So she and Josiah played together.

We celebrated Lizzie’s birthday one day late. We had apple crisp instead of cake.

Jason entertained us with his phone by applying Facebook filters which added hilarious features to people’s faces.

Here are some of the videos that he made.

Here’s a video montage of the day.

Normally our church’s Christmas recital is in early December. But our vacation caused it to be pushed back (to Lizzie’s birthday).

Victoria, Sarah, and Joanna sang a beautiful arrangement of The First Noel.

Jeffrey played bass guitar with the guys on What Child Is This and Angels We Have Heard on High.

The youth ensemble created their own Christmas medley.

Because it was Lizzie’s birthday, Jeffrey asked everyone to join in singing Happy Birthday to her.

After the recital, we gathered in the fellowship hall for food and refreshments.

Grandma Stogdill is visiting us this Christmas for a week. She’ll get to celebrate two birthdays (Lizzie’s and Josiah’s) plus Christmas plus hear some of her grandchildren perform in the Christmas recital at church.

Josiah was initially a little discouraged because he was still full from a big lunch at Carlitta’s Diner. But later he got going and had five or six empty bowls on his tray.

So we chose self debarkation. That meant that we had to carry off our own luggage but it also meant that we didn’t have to pack up the night before. That was so much nicer. So finally on our last day, we used the elevator to get our luggage up to deck 3.

Since we had enough time to enjoy breakfast, we got a made-to-order omelette with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, spinach, arugula, bell peppers, and some cheddar cheese. Yum!

For our last evening with Aunt Vivian, she treated us to burgers at BurgerFi.

They had some vegan options. Jeri got the BEYOND BURGER: 100% Plant-Based Beyond Burger® From Beyond Meat®, American Cheese, Ketchup, Mustard, Mayonnaise, Lettuce, Tomato, Pickles, Onions. Tim got the VEGEFI BURGER: Crispy Quinoa + Fresh-Cut Veggie Burger, White Cheddar, Lettuce, Tomato, BurgerFi Sauce on a Multigrain Bun.

Aunt Vivian got a “real” burger plus she shared one of their chocolate shakes.