Looking Back at 2007

This time of year gives us an opportunity to look back at the events of the outgoing year and reflect on how we spent our time. For the Asdel family it was action packed as usual.
January started off with Morgan moving to Provo to attend BYU. She had taken enough credits after the first semester at Santa Barbara City College and her college classes in high school that she was able to transfer in as a sophomore to BYU. Since she was a sophomore she wasn't required to live in the dorms and went straight into apartment living. The first week of January Morgan and Dana spent running around Provo to buy everything she would need for her new apartment, bedding, mini fridge, winter clothes, snow boots, towels, food... The first apartment was not ideal and we could tell from the beginning that the roommates were not going to make things easy for Morgan. So about 6 wks later Morgan moved down from the 3rd floor to the 2nd floor and over one stairwell. This move put her in a new ward (crazy). The roommate situation improved greatly, and Morgan started to enjoy her BYU experience.
Also in January, Jake broke his wrist snowboarding in Mammoth. He had just landed a jump in the park and a skier came cutting across the landing and knocked him over. Of course the skier didn't even stop. Jake ended up in the emergency room for several hours. It was a holiday weekend and the conditions were icy, so the emergency room was packed.
February and March brought Dana's and Eddie's birthdays. Dana spent her birthday getting a massage and taking it easy. Eddie celebrated his 40th birthday by going out to a fun Italian restaurant in Beverly Hills called the Stinking Rose, and then over to the comedy club for a live show.
In April for Spring break we flew up to Utah, and stayed in Park City to go snowboarding. This was really fun because we got to visit Morgan, meet her new roommates. Then we went snowboarding at Park City, Brighton and Snowbird. It was lots of fun to ride at these resorts and explore the area.
June brought the end of the school year for both Morgan and Jake. Jake was ready to take off, and go up to Tehachapi to attend summer camp at Woodward West. Woodward West is a skateboard and gymnastics camp. Jake was able to spend 3wks at skateboard camp in June and July. He gets to skateboard all day and night. What could be better? Woodward has all types of terrains to skate and ramps and rails to ride. They have foam pits to practice harder tricks into. Indoor venues,outdoor venues, wood ramps or concrete ramps. Jake enjoys every minute of it.
While Jake was at skateboard camp Dana went to girls camp with our church youth group. Dana was asked to work with the girls youth program earlier this year which means going to girls camp. She also chaperones dances, and attends youth conferences. The youth programs aren't very big in this area so Ventura combines some of the larger activities with Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo youth groups. This has been interesting and challenging to travel to some of these events.
Once Morgan got home from school we were off to the lake for some fun in the sun, and some wakeboard riding. We all enjoy going to Lake Naciemiento to wakeboard and swim. This summer we had several long weekends and one whole week up at the lake.
September rolled around and that meant Morgan had to go back up to school. I know she enjoyed being home and going to the beach and hanging out with friends. Labor Day weekend brought family and little ones out to visit. Some of these kids had their first beach experience.
Jake turned 16 in September, and still has no interest in driving. He has a fixed gear bike that he enjoys riding, and a group of friends that he rides with.
Morgan had her 19th birthday in October. This was the first time we celebrated her birthday while she was away at school. She had classes all day and then some friends took her out for dinner.
Eddie has a new hobby. Eddie has purchased a couple of video cameras, and has quite the artistic eye for video taping, especially surfing. He was invited to go to Hawaii with a few pro surfers to video tape them. So November had us off to Hawaii. We celebrated another wedding anniversary while staying at the Turtle Bay beach resort on the North Shore of Oahu. It was a great vacation. We found lots of fun places to eat and we had beautiful beaches to hang out on. Eddie has previously sold his footage to Patagonia and other surf companies. His footage has been used in a couple of surf movies. He hopes the video footage he got in Hawaii helps promote these surfers and gets him invited on another surf trip soon.
And that brings us to December. Morgan is home for a couple of weeks, and Jake just finished his semester of school. We love the Christmas Spirit, and are happy to celebrate our Saviors birth. This is a special time of year to reflect on our Savior and his gift to each of us. We have been very blessed and hope that your year has been filled with family,friends, good times and special memories too.

State Champion

Congratulations to Jake! Last week Jake won the California State Street Skateboarding Championship. This is a picture of the trophy plaque Jake won. Jake competes each month for a series of skateboarding contests called CASL. He travels to different skating venues throughout Southern California to compete. The contest for December is an invitational championship competition between southern and northern California. This contest is held at a Woodward West. For skateboarders this is their mecca. Woodward West is where Jake spends 2 -3 weeks of his summer. Woodward is only open for summer camp. It's not open for public riding. So to go up in the winter is really cool. They only open it up for the contest. Jake and Eddie went to Woodward on Friday afternoon for a practice session and stayed the night, then contest was held on Saturday.

Christmas Tree

For the last few years we have had our Christmas tree delivered to our house. This is the best thing ever. I came home from work and the tree was on the front porch. We have a friend who runs a Christmas tree lot in Santa Barbara. We just make the call and tell him how big of a tree we want and he drops it off at our house. It is so nice not to have to go to a lot and pick one out, which always is an issue (someone always ends up unhappy) Having the tree delivered takes so much hassle out of getting the tree. These trees have always have really good shape and color. This year Eddie wanted a 12 ft tree. We have high ceilings and lots of space by our window for a big tree. Eddie got it standing straight in the stand on the first attempt. The tree smelled so good once we got it opened up. I love the smell of a real tree.

Dancing Elves

Click the picture.

Home Improvement

A major home improvement project was started and completed last Saturday.  We replaced two 8 ft sliding glass doors in our living room with two double-paned vinyl sliding doors.  We have needed to replace them ever since we moved into this house. We could only open one of the two doors. So the beach facing slider was totally unusable. 
Now I can open both doors with ease. Its amazing the sound reduction we've noticed from the passing traffic. And the upstairs is staying so much warmer. I have been wanting this done for so long that I told Eddie that Christmas was done for me. Now Eddie wants to do the bedrooms, all three bedrooms have sliding glass doors as well.