Happy 2015!

The holidays blew right past us this (past) year! Here we are two weeks into 2015 and I've been quite silent. We haven't even been that busy at home. Just relaxing. Cameron finished putting together his Christmas present last week. 

This and his Elk hunt over New Year's weekend delayed us from even starting our annual tradition of watching all extended versions of the Lord of The Rings Trilogy around New Years. We made sure to get that started this last weekend. We're just over half way through. It's hard now that the girls stay up later - and I swear we go to bed earlier! We opted to not watch the two Hobbit movies since we recently watched them after Desolation of Smaug came out with the extended version. 
 
 And, while my parents were here, we did sneak away for an afternoon to watch the final Hobbit film in theaters now. It was great, as expected and I'll admit, had me in tears toward the end. We also felt Peter Jackson actually left it open for two possible spin-off movies. One could be around following Legolas as he sets out to find Strider/Aragon. This would fill in some of what went on between the end of The Hobbit and the beginning of The Lord of The Rings. We also felt that Tauriel's story could continue since Peter Jackson made her character up any how.We've also decided that once this movie comes out on DVD we will begin watching all three Hobbit films around Thanksgiving - that way we have a little break between the two sets of trilogies.

Now we're full steam ahead for 2015. The weather has been dry, so we've been taking advantage of it over the weekends to enjoy the sun and get some Vitamin D. This has mostly consisted of my sitting outside reading a magazine while the girls play and get some energy out. But we are soon going to be turning our attention to some outdoor projects as well. Of course, there is the hope more rain comes soon. What we had at the end of November and early December was great but California needs more. And our lake has now dried up. It was actually really nice to look out and see this after all the rain: 

At one point it actually got higher than this. Don't worry, the house and we were fine and never in danger of flooding.

 

The road to the side of our house flooded as well. Made for great entertainment of people getting stuck attempting to drive through it - it was 3 feet deep or more in some areas. This was the view looking toward our house.

Last week, we went to our local feed store to inquire as to when chicks available for purchase would be arriving - February 5th! Which means we need to get in gear with building our chicken coop. This involves building two coops - one for egg layers and one for broilers. Then we need to build two, side-by-side enclosures to protect the chickens. While they will have plenty of space to roam, we don't want them completely free roaming, for two reasons. One, because I hate the idea of having chicken poop everywhere (it's just not sanitary and dangerous for the girls), and two, because we have coyotes and hawks to worry about eating our chickens. They will only be eaten by us (I hope). 

We also have another outside project in the works, which I will go into more detail soon. And of course, kindergarten registration for London is just around the corner. We completed the paperwork last week and have received our Inter-district transfer request from our current school district, so we have all our ducks in a row for when registration in the new district begins, which opens February 2.

Stay tuned for projects and Christmas celebration recaps.