Archive for » December, 2013 «

Christmas had come and gone. I hope you enjoyed the holiday as much as we did.

As I look forward to the big New Year’s celebration, it didn’t seemed right to not write a blog to pay tribute to my favorite time of the year.

So, here is a picture blog of our Christmas merry making…

On Christmas Eve, we feverishly ate, ate, and ate…

Cheese Tray

Home made Veg Tray

Kids tray

Surf & Turf Christmas Eve dinner

After dinner, the kids got busy with making cookies for Santa just before we left to go to church for the Christmas Eve service.

Home made cookies for Santa!

Christmas Eve service at our church


We got home well past midnight, and got cookies and milk for Santa.

Cookies are baked!


Then promptly went to bed, so Santa could tip toe into our home.

Slient night

The next day, the kids tore open their many, many gifts, and spent hours test driving their new toys.

New rolling toys to ride on


Then we got right back into the business of feasting.

Fondue and Tri-tip


Oh, did I say that Christmas had come and GONE?! Silly me. That would be incorrect. Because there are twelve days of Christmas!!

On the second day of Christmas, we visited Christmas in the Park, in downtown San Jose. This is a family tradition of ours. We liked going there to watch professional Christmas decorations and eat the best Churros from our favorite event vendor there.

Annual Christmas in the Park tradition


On the fifth day of Christmas, we went to the beach.

Monterey Bay


I know much of the rest of the country made front page news with their subzero temperatures and unforgiving winter storms that knocked out power for its residents during Christmas, but here in California, we are enjoying beautiful sunny weather. The temperature in Monterey Bay were in the 70’s.

Beautiful sunny day on Dec 29th by the sea

Monterey Coastline


We unleashed our kids and let them skate away on their new skate boards all along the glorious Monterey Bay Coastline. Lots of people had the same idea.

Skating along a coastal path

Sea bird dining on fresh sashimi (he caught a whole fish!)

Kids on top of sea cliff

Monterey Bay was popular with tourists and locals that day. We found this sandy beach packed with people, some were braving the cold water without wetsuits, swimming and boogie boarding.

Beach day in December!


Enjoy the rest of your Christmas, and Happy 2014 to all of you.

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17
Dec

Last Saturday was my children’s music school’s Christmas recital, which is their biggest recital of the year.

The kids had spent several months practicing their recital pieces to perfection. I even purchased beautiful dresses for them for the occasion.

As soon as we sat down, I saw from the program guide that my two kids happened to be the last two piano performers.

I have a confession to make here…I was a terrible audience.

As the other young musicians (who undoubtedly worked very hard on them) performed their pieces, I was obsessively fussing over my camera.

I busied away with my camera settings, changing the aperture, iso setting, zoomed in and out, and I used the other performers as models to frame my shots and snapped test shots.

My head grew excited with the prospect of gorgeous pictures of my children playing on a grand piano up on a beautifully decorated stage.

Finally!! My kids’ turn.

I snapped,

Recital photo


and snapped,

No face!!


and snapped,

still no face...


Arrgh….!!!

NO....


This is where I failed to evolve smarter than an orangutan. All that hair, I got no face!! But I kept snapping, and snapping, and snapping….. I WAS MAD.

Cousin Itt playing piano

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I have been crazy busy these past few days. So, when I saw my 13-year-old coming down the stairs with a small load of laundry, I made a rare request.

“Hey, do you think you can do my laundry too? With your load?” me.

“Sure.” 13-year-old, and promptly walked back upstairs to gather my laundry basket.

I started to have my 13-year-old do her own laundry just about a year ago, and that has worked out splendidly well. This is the first time I sought her help with mine.

Late Sunday night, I finally walked back upstairs for some well-deserved rest, and saw this theatrical display of our clothes in front of my bedroom.

The laundry


When I provided laundry service to the family, the clean clothes were always nicely hung in their closets or neatly put away in their drawers.

What’s up with teenage brains?! And she only chose to wash 5 shirts out of our basket!! I actually had a good laugh out of this.

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