Merry Christmas!

Christmas 2012 will go down in history as one of the most memorable holidays yet.  It was to be my first Christmas away from my family since I was born 3 days after the date in 1972.  Pretty remarkable really that I've managed to go 40 years and never miss a Christmas with the fam...not even the year I spent in Germany kept me away.  So here I was feeling like I've finally grown up.  I was a little bit sad about not spending the day with my family, but at the same time I'm excited to start having our own Christmas traditions to share with Quinn.  On Christmas Eve I went to the beach to visit a friend who was in town and we saw this cute little Charlie Brown set up (there is a little skimpy tree in front of them, but it's hidden in the shadow).

The plan was to have dinner with Jeff's mom, Phyllis/Grammy.  At around 5:30 we were all ready with the table set.  Phyllis was due to come by at 6.  She arrived around 6:15, apologizing for being late.  She had received a long distance phone call that delayed her in leaving the house. 

About 3 minutes after she arrived there was a knock at the door.  Annoyed that someone was interrupting our holiday dinner I sent Jeff to answer the door.  He claimed that there were some "elves" at the door.  I thought some neighbor must be delivering treats and went to see who it was.  I was BEYOND shocked to find my lovely parents dressed in santa hats!

Needless to say we had to rearrange the table to accommodate two more guests!  :)  

Jeff prepared an amazing meal.  Grouper, smashed butternut squash with ginger, asparagus and homemade rolls.  We had pumpkin cranberry bread pudding for dessert.  

Santa came!

The aftermath of Christmas morning 2012!

We had planned to have the neighbors over on Christmas morning for Milk Punch (a tradition observed in Savannah by my parents friends Ron and Jim), but Quinn had been battling a nasty virus for almost a week and still had a fever on Christmas day, so we had to call all of our friends/neighbors with little kids to tell them to avoid us to keep their kids healthy.  Finally he managed to get a couple of good nights of sleep and kicked the fever after 6 days!  I went in to check on him one evening after he'd fallen asleep and this is what I found.  :)

It's been great having my family here for our first Christmas in San Diego.  And also great to share our first Christmas with Jeff's mom and sister, Jaime and her family.  We had a nice dinner at Phyllis's house with Jaime, John and the boys and Kelly and Lee.  Of course Quinn and Kyan had a ball together as always.  Mom and Dad leave today to spend New Years with friends in Atlanta.  I hope we manage to do this again sometime!  It was fabulous.  Thanks to all for the wonderful surprise and the fun holiday!  :)

40 Years Young!

Wow.  I had the best birthday ever yesterday!  Could not have imagined anything better.  First of all my parents were here to share it with me.  They surprised me on Christmas Eve by showing up at our door right around dinner time.  It was an amazing surprise!  Yesterday my day began with Jeff sharing with me videos that several of our friends sent to him wishing me a happy birthday.  My favorite of the bunch is this little gem from my brother, Andy, and Colleen.

Yesterday's evening plan (as far as I knew) was for us to drop Quinn of with our friends, Jeremy and Lisa, and then to head out to dinner around 8pm.  Then Jeff received a phone call from his sister, Jaime, that she was down in San Diego and wanted to wait out traffic and wondered whether we would like to meet Phyllis and her for a quick pre-dinner drink at KnB (our favorite local wine bistro).  When we arrived we found Jaime near the front of the restaurant, but Phyllis was not with her.  Jaime ran off to "look for her mom".  After a few seconds we walked back towards the back of the restaurant and into a large party room to find all of our favorite people waiting.  I was greeted with an enthusiastic "Surprise!"  It was amazing!  I could not have dreamed up a more perfect evening!  Thanks to everyone who was in on this....and there were a lot of you!

Light Filter Experiment

 Emily just taught me the coolest trick.  Put construction paper over your camera lens, cut a small hole in the center in some interesting shape, point the camera at some lights, and blur the focus.  Below are the results.  Pretty cool stuff!  

Had to try to make a Q for the Q.  

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

This is my first Christmas away from my family.  And that's saying something, because I'm almost 40 and have been married for 5.5 years now.  I'm going to really miss being with them this year, but have also been enjoying having Christmas at our home for the first time ever.  Jeff has done an amazing job decorating.  Here is a sample...

We cut our own tree (a Monterey Pine) at a local tree farm.  

Jeff collected and decorated this dead Mission Manzanita twig today.  Ain't it festive?  :)

Jeff's mom made the ceramic snowmen back in the day.  Pretty dang cute!

More greenery collected today

The tree is the advent tree from my childhood.  We light a candle each night and sing a song.

Our wreath made out of native vegetation.  

Greenery Gathering

Today we had a brief break in the multitude of illnesses that Quinn has been bringing home from school that allowed us to get outside to collect some greenery with which to decorate the house.  We headed east up into the hills to Sycamore Canyon.  A lovely and secluded spot!  And it's a good thing we went when we did, because not 2 hours after these photos the fever returned!  

There were many rocks to be thrown!

Santa Jeff even gathered some dead twigs

A true Quinny masterpiece.  "It's a man!"  Can you see the eyes?

Glad we managed to get out for a little while this morning!

Belated Thanksgiving Post

We had a great time in Cincinnati for Thanksgiving.  We got to see the family, including Biggy and Don, meet baby June, catch up with some friends from high school, see some great museums, and eat some yummy food.  Then we got sick.  Below are just a few photos from our trip.  We have finally all recovered.  :)

Family Pic in Eden Park

Sweetest niece ever!

Biggy teaching Q some Chopin

Riverfront rock toss

Baby and Beer

Enjoying some bluegrass

Union Terminal

And the best part about October 31 this year....June!

Welcome to our new niece, June Houston, who was born the morning of Halloween in Cincinnati!  We are so excited for Colleen and Andy and can't wait to meet sweet baby June in a few weeks!  Ain't she the cutest??!!!

Week of Halloween

Halloween is no longer just a day...I swear it lasts for weeks and weeks leading up to October 31.  For us it started with a trip to the pumpkin patch a few weeks ago where we stocked up on overpriced, but lovely pumpkins.  

Last weekend was the annual Boo parade in our neighborhood.  We wandered down and parked ourselves on the corner with all of our neighbors and cheered for the marching monsters.  Pretty sure the highlight of the parade was when our neighbor, Jeremy, surprised us all by suddenly appearing in the parade in a leisure suit with an afro on a kids vespa.  :)

Other events included the fall festival at Grant Elementary school with cousin Kyan...

Many days of dress up....

Superfriends...

A halloween parade at school...(someone decided to wear his costume from last year)...

And finally, the actual day arrives.  

Jeff LOVES Halloween and always does an amazing job preparing our house for the holiday.  This year we had a gallows in our front yard, tiki torches, multiple skeletons, hanging heads, smoke machines, and lots of Jack-o-lanters.  Unfortunately we didn't have very many trick-or-treaters, but we did at least have neighbors and friends over for some drinks to enjoy the festivities.

And Emily made these AMAZING bloody glass cupcakes!