A Celebration for Karlyn

Karlyn's family will be hosting a celebration of her life at Sierra Vista church in Oakhurst, California, on Saturday, December 1, 2007. Karlyn was the mother of 11, grandmother to 14, and "Mom" to so, so many others.

I think everyone who met her was blessed by the moment -- who could see her and not see a reflection of God's heart of love for people? Please feel free to join us as we look back on the life of a woman who was truly in love with Christ and touched the lives of so many people.

Blessings

A Fantastic Resurrection Sunday Family!

We welcome the cutest little bunny ever, Haley Elane, to our crazy family. (I mean that in the best way) Hey, I know, instead of looking at the new year as a starting over time, lets start a new tradition and have it be on Easter Sunday. It's spring and time for new beginnings for everyone. As you are all fruit of the Loons, I decided it was appropriate for me to pronounce a blessing over you all. No, I'm not allowing Jose to do it cause he'll just say "May all your babies be born naked!" He thinks he's so smart because they always are! Anyway, I'm doing the blessing so here goes...

Marc: May you always appreciate your beautiful wife, may you only have one more move in your lifetime and may Andrew play for USC. Paul: May all your children remain your best friends ever. May you forever throw the guilt bat away and have loads of free time to do whatever floats your boat, providing it includes all of us. Oh yeah, and 100.00 bucks extra on each paycheck. Tony: may all the great things and love you've shown for your boys come back to you when they're grown. May Michelle be blessed with beautiful things to surround her for all the loyalty and patience she has displayed. May you boys play for USC. Angie: May you fall into some ideas that will start a business that you can pass onto your kids and may it provide you with an income beyond your dreams. May you have the opportunity to go any place you want and visit whoever you want on your very own vacation. May all your kids play for USC. Amy: May you and Shaug live in a huge tri-level house that has lots of acres and a pool for all the kids to swim in and skateboard when its empty. May you have an awesome dog and a llama and may all your nephews and nieces play for USC. For Tonia: May you have just one more major move in your life, your own business so that you can use your talents as a business woman, more money and less hours for David, may the girls play soccer for USC. Anthony: May you understand always whats in your wife's heart and she what's in yours. May you own your own store and just hire people to run it. May you make one more major move in your life, may you boys play for USC and Haley be a Cheerleader there. Korina: May you marry a very very handsome prince with a kingdom and a lot of money to buy you your own forest with a castle in it. For Rick: May you be that handsome prince for a very worthy woman. May you continue to grow into a man of integrity & quick wit. Oh, & if you have kids, may they all attend USC. Katie: May you be a free spirit who is brave loyal and a model for little kids and also marry a very very handsome prince with a mansion in Orange County and then you will make one more major move. Angelina: may you never want to leave but do it anyway so that you too can marry a very very handsome prince that you meet on American Idol, cause he's a record producer, so you'll be famous enough to buy us a limo so we can go watch all our grandchildren at USC games.

Bless you all my children and Happy Easter!!!!!! Love your Mama, the Loon

Hello from County Down!

Hi, family! Just dropping a note to say hello from Northern Ireland. We're having a wonderful time getting to see the wee bit of the country where Korina is living. The countryside is gorgeous out here -- lush green farmland covers rolling hills everywhere you turn. The weather has been a bit... adventurous. We've had snow coming in sideways the last 2 days, but it hasn't been sticking, and it's interspersed with rain that washes it away soon enough. There's been a bit of sunshine, but rain and wind has been a lot more consistent. It's supposed to clear up the rest of the week -- we hope! -- so that should make the rest of the sightseeing and shopping fun.

We got to spend Thursday through Sunday hanging out with Korina. Our first day we were exhausted after an 8-hour negative timezone change and 20 hours of travel on 2 hours of sleep, so there wasn't much we could do even though we arrived at 7am. Driving here hasn't been as rough as I thought it would be, so on Friday we drove an hour north to Belfast to return our automatic car for a smaller, sportier manual-shift rental. Driving that on these winding country roads is a blast, but the locals seem to think I'm going pretty slow! We spent the rest of Friday walking around Belfast. Saturday was St. Patty's Day and we wanted to stay away from the raucous crowds, so we took a picnic lunch to Tollymore Forest and got to wander around the inspiration for some of Lewis and Tolkein's best adventures. Sunday we visited some of the smaller local towns (Castlewellan, Dundrum, & Newport); Dundrum Castle was incredible!

After a more relaxing day today -- more bad weather kept us from doing any outdoor sightseeing -- we'll be driving down into the Republic of Ireland tomorrow to see Dublin. It's been wonderful getting to see Korina. We're having some of her friends over on Wednesday to play games and eat chocolate chip banana bread (!); everyone we've met so far has been very friendly. There's a cow in the field next door that seems pretty grumpy, but I'll win him over by the end of the week. Katelyn, Amy says that she's only said "Shaug" once, at the airport (oops!), and "pants" once, in a shop, but the lady we were standing next to seemed pretty understanding ;)

We love you guys, and we'll see you all soon!

-- O'Shaughnessy & Amy

Irelands got me girls

Note to St. Patty
This year I won't be celebratin, the day that sports your name
Because you've got my darlins, not one but three that came
To see your lovely green hills and forests and castles too
To visit all your fine pubs and eat yer Irish stew.
But I'll not have it I tell ya, your hostages they'll not remain
I'll lure them with homemade cinnamon rolls and a game of Mexican train
With our green hills and wild flowers, The Office, and walks in the rain
With Beans and tacos and Saturday Night Live, Diet Coke and Corona beer
We have the laughs and the birthday breakfast in bed and their Mama's here!
So no Saint Patricks Day for California no not us, I'm mad as I can be
Till you give me back my Korina and Amy, and oh yeah, O'Shaunessey!

Congratulations Amanda

Amanda made the Yosemite High School softball
team. We have yet another Badger athlete in
the family. We're so excited for you & we look
forward to yelling at umps from the sidelines.

Mas Peliculas

Hey Fam! So I went ahead and uploaded some more video on my myspace. Angie one of them is for you! I'll put a reminder in the next update letter too! I love you all and miss you mucho!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Cheyenne's Jog-a -thon

Hi everybody! My school is having a Jog-a-Thon to raise money for Science Camp. I need to raise $140.oo more dollars to be able to go have a blast. If you would like to donate, please reply with your pledge per lap and maximum donation. Or you can also make a flat donation. Thanks for any help you can do. Love you all and miss you very much. My e-mail is c_lassos@yahoo.com. You can e-mail me any time you would like!



Love,
Cheyenne (Yittles)

I made it here alive!

Hello Family!
I love you all so much and I cannot believe I am actually here! So far everyone is amazing and all have amazing stories. There ended up being only 16 of us and we are all very diverse. Some from Australia, Ukraine, Northern Ireland, Israel etc. Here's a link to a video from our walk this morning. It cuts off at the end but basically I said "Talk to you soon and I love you"
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3621599746802332878

Korina's off to the Emerald Isle!

I'm sure this will be an amazing 6 months, and it's going to fly bye so fast. There's so much to say, but I want to leave room for everybody to say "hi" and "bye" here, so I'll resist the temptation to just fill space with lots of advice that you're just gonna learn on your own anyway :^)

We all love you so much, Korina, and we look forward to sharing in both your adventures and your humdrum days, the great things and the difficult things. Keep a journal for us so we can stay in touch (and remember that the little details will make all the difference when we won't see each other every day). I guess we gotta let go, too, and let you live your experience without watching over your shoulder too much. Well, then: we release you to God's care, Korina (as if it was ever any other way!) and we trust that He'll be your guide, your provider, and your protector. Savor the next 6th months, kid. :^)

Shaug! Poopoo!