Wheeler Family

Monday, January 19, 2026

Temple & Basketball

Thomas got to perform baptisms for the first time on Tuesday! We went to the Newport Beach temple. We went as a whole family and Catherine and I stayed in the waiting room while Brian took Lydia and Thomas back to do baptisms. The temple workers were so kind and let me sneak over for a few minutes to watch while Catherine hung out with them. It was a great experience!

On Saturday, Catherine and Thomas had their first basketball practices of the season. I think they enjoyed getting back into it. It will be a good season!

Monday, January 12, 2026

Our Week

Last Monday, Brian and Tom took Tom's friend and his dad to a Clippers Warriors game. It was an exciting ending where the Clippers won. Tom loved hanging out with a friend.

Basketball season is beginning! Tom and Cat are playing this season, and they had assessments on Saturday. Their first practice will be next Saturday. It's fun to see them playing again.

Catherine was asked to speak at the Stake Primary Baptism Preview about her baptism experience last year. She did a wonderful job!

Monday, January 5, 2026

Happy New Year

The girls and I finished the NYE Times Square puzzle on New Year's Eve. Lydia also went to the youth dance that night. Catherine and Thomas fell asleep early so Brian and I got to play a game of Upwords. The younger 2 woke up at about 12:30 am and were bummed to have missed the ball drop.

On New Year's Day, Catherine made this oversized cookie all by herself! She's becoming quite the baker.

On Sunday, Brian ordained Thomas to the Aaronic Priesthood as a Deacon! He's excited to begin passing the sacrament and participating in YM.

Rancho Mirage

After Christmas we headed out to our condo in Rancho Mirage. We found an escape room to for our whole family! We've decided that we love escape rooms.

We explored more of the trails around the condo.

We also checked out the Air Museum in Palm Springs. We were able to go into a plane from WW2.

Kids could sit in the cockpits of multiple planes as well.

(some of them fictional)

We found the uniform my grandpa wore during the war!

They also had a stealth fighter!

The next day we went to the Living Desert Zoo again. We fed the giraffes this time!

walking around with the wallabys

We also had fun swimming, playing tennis and playing pickleball.

Christmas

We had a nice candlelit dinner on Christmas Eve. We read the Christmas story from the New Testament and the Book of Mormon.

Then we got into our Christmas pjs!

Christmas morning--bright and early!

Robbie was able to call us and we opened presents with him! At one point all the kids including Robbie were working on their new Lego sets together. It was so fun to still have him be apart of our holiday.

Then we had our traditional strawberry waffles.

Christmas Break, pt 1

With the kids on break from school, we went to Knotts for a day. Lydia's friend met us there and we had a lot of fun. Catherine rode Silver Bullet for the first time! She was so excited to finally be tall enough!