Christmas

I'm stealing bandwidth from my dad 'cause I'm lazy. Too lazy. So lazy that the pictures are all pixelated, maybe I'll fix it later. Christmas was good, very good. The holidays started off wonderfully with a traditional mexican tamale dinner with my aunt, uncle, and super fun cousins.

Christmas morning started early (6:30) with the boys finding Santa's big gift. Santa should have thought through giving a baby bearded dragon a little bit more. That sucker is a lot of work.

The present opening frenzy continued. I must say, this is the first year we haven't tried to divide Christmas morning into several homes and it was really nice. I wasn't worried about time, or how the other family members felt or when breakfast was going to be served. This Christmas was relaxed and (relatively) stress free.

Thanks Dad for really wonderful Christmas pictures. Really great memories.

Holiday performance at school

The kids school put on a little show for us. It was really fun to see. The sound system sucked.

Halloween

I know, I know, it is November 15th already, stop talking about Halloween. Maybe the last two weeks were a little hairy, you know with my husband taking a long sailing trip with my best friends, or the kids and I leaving the country for a few days. Never mind my computer RAM died and then AT&T had a little troubles with the DSL lines. Sometimes I feel like Pigpen from Peanuts, with just these swirls of problems going around me at all times.

This picture is from the Baja Ha Ha pre race party. Since it was 3 days before Halloween we decided to dress up. Debbie bought these outfits 6 months ago (she is such a planner)! All I can say about the costume is, thank God for tennis skirt that added about 3 inches to that short little thing.

Here are the boys on the porch waiting to start trick or treating. Robert had left his mask at a carnival earlier in the day so we improvised on the makeup. Hollywood here I come. For the first time, Halloween came before we moved our clocks back from Daylight savings time so we starting begging for candy before it was dark. I liked that. Now that the boys are older we went to many more houses. I liked that too. It is fun to chat with my neighbors. I should really do more of that. We were really to go up to the next block for more treats when a neighbor looked in their buckets and said "woah, those are really full". And lordy were they. Completely up to the top. So that ended the evening.

The school had this really dumb idea that the kids couldn't come to school in their costumes on Halloween. They were allowed to dress in Orange and black "spirit day". So I got a little carried away with spirit and colored their hairs too.

Christmas Photo

There are only a few things I really look forward to with the holidays. One is our annual family photo. I really enjoy having a great family photo to send out to friends and family as our Christmas Card and I really like having all of them in chronological order up on my wall so I can look at how we have grown and changed. I do not like choosing a date for said picture and I do not like forcing my kids to dress nice, look at the camera, smile, etc.

I think I might have hit the jackpot this year. As we were waiting for crew to arrive this morning for my friends departure my dad was taking random pictures. I think I've found our Christmas card photo with out all the hassles. Now, it isn't perfect, it will need some photoshop, it will need to fix my blinking eyes. But I have to admit that there has been a little photoshop in the last few years of Christmas cards too.

Oh, what's that you say, you want to see the yearly photos? Well, I guess I can dig deep into my 180 gig drive and find them.

Pre-Halloween

Halloween is going to be a bit different this year. Carson is leaving on the 29th to sail with our friends down to Cabo San Lucas. I will be trick or treating alone. I think we have always had Deb and Rich and kids to walked the neighborhood with, so not only am I losing my husband, I'm losing my friends too on Halloween.

We had several costume parties to go to this weekend. The pictures above are for a party for those racing to Cabo. Debbie bought us matching costumes about 6 months ago. They worked out great, although a tad too short for my liking. And yes, those are long pink eyelashes I'm sportin'.

Our Friends are leaving

Our very best friends over the last 8 years or so are leaving San Diego :( They are taking their sailboat and heading south. They are joining a 120 other boats leaving Monday morning.

Last Friday night, we treated them to some great sushi and champane and sake. Carson and I thought they should have one last fancy meal before they are left to having to catch their own sushi. We went to The Pearl. A brand new restaurant in Del Mar. The service was great, the selection overwhelming and the food was to die for.

They served the sake in frozen green bamboo and the glasses were made of bamboo too.

The Airshow

The family went to the annual air show this weekend. My boys love to go the the airshow so much that it is the perfect dangling carrot for about a week before the event. There were no struggles with homework this week because they were required to have their homework done prior to going.

My husband's favorite part of the air show is actually watching the show. My boys just like climbing in and out of different airplanes, helocopters, and armored tanks. And I like just walking around feeling the energy and the patriotism. So here are a few pictures from the weekend.