Every morning when I come to work I park across the street from the hospital I work at, Kaiser Permanente South Bay Medical Center. The regional park is right across the street from it. I arrive pretty early in the morning and sometimes the ground fog and crisp, cool air really make it quite a stunning and serene place. I tried to capture it one morning with my camera. I think I was unsuccessful, but I was able to get a few OK shots.
One of our ongoing family outings throughout the year is our runs to Disneyland or California Adventure. When I mean a run I mean it in the fullest sense of the word. It only takes 15 minutes to get to the Magical Kingdom using the carpool lane from our house! Out excursion is only about a four hour event. We do this in part because we get only 3 hours of free parking at Downtown Disney. The other reason is that we do not like all-day trips to Disneyland! A bit overwhelming and exhausting. (Maybe when the kids are older.)
More frequently, when we have headed across the large plaza at the entrance of both parks, we tend to go to California Adventure than to Disneyland. It think the little kids rides are better there than at Disneyland. . .maybe. Sam and Abbie’s favorite rides right now are in the Bug’s Life section of the park. The pictures below are at night when we were riding the converted-cartons-into-a-spinning-swing ride. We also like riding the spinning Ladybug head ride.
Personally, I have always found going to theme parks a bit too much work both when single, and then when married, and now with kids. They are not really my cup of tea. However, these short excursions have fostered some really fun times together as a family, and some consistent and remaining memories. I am coming to look forward to these outings. May our children come to love play and enjoyment in our family context, and may these times also be put into perspective by other times of service and love to others as well.
Esther and Ian invited our family to spend the afternoon at the aquarium in Long Beach. They got us free tickets so it was even more enticing. Esther and Ian just had their first child, Ruthie, on Dec. 19th and it fun to see her as well. We ran into Rob and Rowen (they have annual passes, and Rob takes Rowen there weekly after work. Sounds like great father/son bonding.) Anyways, Sam was very excited to go because he really loves animals, no, he really loves animals. He has an assortment of probably 50 small animal figurines and he knows all their names. He especially likes sharks and sting rays. So when he was able to see all them up close he was very excited and would just stare entranced by them. We spent the most time at the string ray petting pool, the seal area and the shark tank (sounds menacing doesn’t it). The place Sam liked least was the Lorikeet area. It was an enclosed large netted area where you could walk through and feed these large, obnoxious, and playful birds. They were to much for Sam.
We would like to go back again soon. Sam loved that place and I know Abbie will too. Both Mary and I liked it too. LB Aquarium is a pretty cool place!
Our family Christmas with my (Mike’s) parents and siblings was on the 28th of December. For dinner, Mary continues in the tradition of cooking turkey cranberry enchiladas (very delicious!). We opened presents and were in for a surprise because we had agreed earlier in the year that we were not going to do presents for Christmas. But my mom (and my dad) could not resist and bought us each novelty food items. But the real surprise was the craftsmanship that my mom and dad gave to the grandchildren. Rowen got a wooden rocking horse (the same as Sam’s only black saddled). Sam received a wood train engine. Abigail received a wooden rocking cradle, with bedding and a doll sized pillow made from a goose down pillow that my great-grandmother made from a goose she actually hand plucked!! Also she received a doll with clothes that matched a set of clothes for Abigail made by my mom. Quite the craftsmanship and time. Each grandkid loved their gift and we were impressed by the sheer quality of the gifts.
The shots below are all of Abbie.
Christmas was moved around for our family this year. This was mostly because Mary and I work every other weekend for work. Our work weekend fell on Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day. Mary also had to work the day after Christmas as well. We had Christmas on Friday the 23rd. We told the kids the 23rd was Christmas and it really worked out well for us and felt like Christmas. So much so that when Christmas came on Sunday, it felt like Christmas was already over.
Abbie and Sam are in the perfect place to open presents. The process of opening stockings and presents are still so new. Abbie especially loved her doll, doll stroller, purse and play jewelry. She is quite the little girl. They were not too focused on the presents, but on the experience of opening and of surprise. I know this has the potential to fade, but hopefully the wonder of Christmas will stay with them for some time.
In the afternoon we went to the Pirate Park and played tag, and hide-in-seek. It was a good sort of Christmas Day.
We realized we had some great shots of Abbie for our Christmas card, but we had very few to chose from for Sam. So this year we tried get shots just for the card. What is funny is we still ended up with some great shots of Abbie, but still only a select few for Sam. I will for sure keep trying to capture Sam well through each of his life stages.
So we had another couple of days after Thanksgiving that were pretty warm. Only in Southern California. Well Sam asked if they could play in the pool and sprinkler. Well our pool was already put away so a storage bin worked just fine. They had a blast!
So it has been quite awhile since our family has been up to San Luis Obispo for Thanksgiving. Everyone from the family was able come: Rob & Heather, my grandmother, Uncle Bob & Aunt Amy, and Ben and his recently-proposed to fiancee, Rebecca. Our time was rich with both fellowship with family and also food (As you can see in the pictures. It was quite a feast.)
Some highlights: playing a pick-up soccer game with another family (they invited us to play with them), taking out our restored 1973 Volkswagen Fastback to drive out and take a hike in a coastal forest of 800+ year old oaks, biking to downtown SLO to sip on coffee and play games with Mary (without kids!), watching my siblings play with our children, and sharing what we were thankful for around the dinner table.
Like I said it was very good and rich time with family. We have much to be thankful for!!
As you can see by the title this was our Halloween costume theme. Mary was very creative in making the costumes. We prepared Sam all week for wearing his bear cap. He only wore it for about 20 minutes. We still got a picture of it. Abbie on the other hand kept her wig on the whole time and turned many heads. I think people were not sure if her was real hair or not. We had it pulled up into to two ribbons when we headed off for our churches carnival. Our favorite picture is the middle one. It just captures what it is like to try to get pictures of our family on a timed camera and captures our kids temperaments well. Every time we see it makes us laugh.
We had a simply wonderful time with our friends Derek, Megan, Liana, and Kate. Our time was full of play. We went hiking, played games, went to a park, sipped on lots of good coffee, colored, read books, and had a dance party. It was way too short of time with them, and definitely long for the next time we will see them. Sam and Abbie really enjoy the girls and I think the feeling was mutual.
