Christmas 2006

Another busy weekend for us. But for good reason. Christmas with kids simply makes things so much more different. Joshua has really begun to understand more what's going on. He's got a ways to go, but it's fun to watch him get excited. We taught him that Christmas means "Happy Birthday Baby Jesus" and so anywhere we go, we have Joshua tell people what Christmas means. And he is just so cute when he says it because he's still learning how to talk. Abigail definitely has no clue what's going on except that she can now play with more toys regardless of whether they are Joshua's or hers.

A week before, we tried to get Christmas pictures with Santa at the Disneyland hotels. Unfortunately, Santa wasn't going to be there during the times we had planned. So, we still went and tried to get some cute pictures of them. That didn't work as well as we'd hoped mostly because the kids weren't really cooperating. Abigail had a runny nose (which comes out on most pictures). Joshua would rather ride the elevators and run around exploring. But we got a few good ones out of it.

Last Friday before Christmas, we went to the Santa Ana Zoo which had a Holiday Lights event in the evening. We have really enjoyed our memberships to the zoo this year. They've done a lot of cool stuff that all of us have enjoyed. We look forward to seeing how Abigail will begin enjoying the zoo as well. Anyway, they also had a Santa there to take pictures with which made us happy given what happened last week.

Saturday, my brother Brian and his wife Sharon and son Jefferson came over in the late afternoon for dinner and gift exchange. That was a good time, especially for Joshua to play with his cousin.

Sunday, Christmas Eve, in the morning, we went to see Danielle's brother Troy and his wife Carmen. Several of Carmen's relatives were here from Mexico City as well which was nice because we hadn't seen most of them since we were down in Mexico years ago. It was fun watching Troy interact with Joshua and Abigail. They seem to really like Troy a lot. After naps, we went to the Christmas Eve service at our church (at 5pm). It was a really good service and it made it even better that there was childcare :-).

That evening, we finished wrapping all the gifts, prepared breakfast for the next morning and finally got to bed by 11:30 or midnight. There's a phenomenon that occurs once in a while where you get the feeling - "I've become my parents!" Sometimes it happens when you react to something in such a way that is exactly the way your Mom or Dad might react in the same situation. Or you find yourself saying something that your Mom or Dad always said to you when you were young. Well...I never thought I'd be up late the night before Christmas preparing a meal, wrapping gifts and stuffing stockings. Actually, I guess Danielle really prepared the meal and stuffed stockings. But I was up with her finishing the wrapping as well. Nonetheless, the point is...growing up, my Mom was always up late wrapping gifts and stuffing the stockings. And I can owe it all to having kids.

Christmas morning, we brought the kids into our bedroom to snuggle for a bit while we woke up. I also went down earlier to start baking the meals that were prepared the night before. After coming down, it was fun to see Joshua's reaction to seeing all the gifts stacked up in the corner. Danielle's parents came over to have breakfast and exchange gifts. I think Abigail enjoyed Joshua's gifts more than her own. But both of them got a lot of really cool gifts. One of Joshua's favorite gifts came from a next door neighbor who got him a set of The Incredibles figurines. It's been fun trying to pretend with him using these figures, such as re-enacting a scene in the movie or something. Joshua also got a fire engine, a dump truck and a big wheel. But I will often see Abigail walking with the big wheel (since she can't walk on her own yet), pushing the fire engine or playing with the remote for the dump truck. She also likes to come over to wherever Joshua is and see what he's doing and/or play with him. Unfortunately, Joshua doesn't always want her there. But he's learning. We then brought out the "birthday cake" we got to celebrate Jesus' birthday. It was sort of a precursor to when Abigail has her 1 year birthday party and she gets to eat cake there. It was a lot of fun.

There are several pictures posted at our photo site, so check them out when you have the time.

All in all, it was a good weekend. But despite all that we try to do, let us not forget the true meaning of Christmas and that is to celebrate the day when our savior came to Earth to live what we live and see what we see. Merry Christmas.

The Witness

The other day, I witnessed an accident. I've witnessed accidents before, but often times it's far removed from where I'm at. For example, Danielle and I were driving home from San Clemente one night and it was raining really hard. As we're going along the freeway, you can glance to the other side and see the sea of white headlights reflecting against the rain. Almost mesmerizing really...which is why you glance and not stare. Anyway, all of a sudden, I saw a couple of red lights among the headlights and wondered why that might be. Then I thought how if that was a car, that would not be a good thing being the only way I'd see red is if it was facing the wrong way. Then I realized the red lights were moving and...WHAM! I saw the car sliding and turning until it slammed into the concrete wall. Oh...bad day for them! I guess the bright side was that it appeared to only be a solo crash and not one that involved several cars.

But that's not the accident I was originally going to share about. The other day, I took the kids to the car dealership to get work done on the minivan and on the way, I was stopped at a signal ready to make a left turn. On the cross street, there are two left turn lanes with a car in each of them about to make the left turn onto the street I was on...you know, if I could just map it out here, it'd be so much easier. Anyway, as they were turning, each of the cars was turning into their respective lanes, which by the way, are right next to where I was sitting. The problem was, the guy in the far lane was pulling a car trailer and didn't swing wide enough to compensate. So, as he was turning left, his trailer didn't turn as wide as it should have and started essentially creeping onto the other car turning left in the near lane. This car honked her horn, but the guy in the truck just kept going and it swiped her car good...or...bad. It also punctured her tire and ripped off her front bumper which seemed to hit my car as well. So, I got out and made sure the lady in the car was okay. The guy in the truck parked and walked over and said something about turning left into the correct lane as though he didn't believe it was his fault. The lady almost didn't know what to say and so I jumped in and said no and explained to him what I saw and that the issue was simply that he didn't swing wide enough to compensate for his trailer. He went back to get his paperwork and I chatted with the lady - actually it was a mom and her grown daughter. I found that there were no marks or damage on the minivan so I gave her my name and phone numbers and told her I'd be happy to be a witness for her. Then I went on my way.

A couple days later, I got a call on my cell phone from an insurance adjuster. He said he was given my info by the women in the accident who said I was a witness. So, I gave him my story as best as I could explain it and as detailed as I could to show I really was there and am not making anything up. He ended by essentially saying that it's apparent who was at fault and he thanked me for my time. Later that afternoon, I got another call on my cell phone from the lady who was in the accident. I couldn't answer it at the time and so she left a voicemail. It was really a nice voicemail thanking me for being willing to be a witness for a complete stranger and how my involvement had really helped. I called her back later and found that the guy in the truck was giving his insurance company a completely different story putting the lady at fault. So, the lady gave the insurance company my information which resulted in the call I had with them earlier in the day. Apparently, the insurance company called her back later and said that after speaking with me, they were going to take full responsibility for the accident. So, she called me because she was so thankful for my involvement. I told her that I was very happy to help because I really hate it when people don't take responsibility for their actions and I'm very grateful to know that I was able to prevent this guy from trying to scam her for something that was clearly his fault.

Who knows? Maybe this guy will convince himself so fully that he wasn't at fault that he'll take her to court and I'll be a court witness. I doubt it. But I'll be ready if he does.

Another week has gone by...

...and another week without a post *sigh*. This blogging thing really can be difficult to keep up on. But I shall press on...

So, let me start with a little fun. You're likely familiar with the motivational posters that have some cool photo with a word like "Teamwork" beneath it and a short catch phrase. There's a site out there that parodies this with De-motivational posters. The website is: http://www.despair.com. For instance, one of their posters is labeled "Apathy" with the phrase "If we don't take care of the customer, maybe they'll stop bugging us" and has a picture of a telephone with cobwebs all over it. They've just set up a way where you can create your own using your own pictures. So, I created a couple. One is a co-worker's new son who happened to be flipping off the camera when the picture was taken. The look on his face is priceless too. The other is of Joshua and Abigail in the wagon. Go to http://diy.despair.com/motivator.php to create your own.

Monday night, Danielle invited a bunch of women (neighbors, family members, etc.) to a Women's Christmas Dessert at our church. Sounds like it was a great night with a really good speaker. And the desserts weren't bad either. Danielle brought the rest of the cake home for me to eat (even though I think she was hoping for another piece). Here's a picture of her in front of her table. Isn't she beautiful?!?

Abigail is getting closer and closer to being able to walk. She is cruising so well now. I watch her going along and see how she navigates from one thing to another, such as from the coffee table to the couch and so on that you can see how she's gaining more and more confidence. I think she's really proud of it too. She's looking more and more like a little girl...and a beautiful one at that!


The big news of the week has been Joshua beginning what it seems to be potty training. Danielle and I are not sure we're ready to go through this, but it'll come eventually. We had gotten him an insert to use in the regular toilet because he had started showing interest several months ago. It seemed he was intrigued by Mom and Dad sitting on the toilet and wanted to do that too. But that was all it was. In the past week, though, he really started showing more interest again and this time, he actually started peeing while sitting on the toilet. We were quite impressed and praised him for it. He's also getting 2 M&M's for each time he pees in the big boy toilet. We told him he'd get 4 M&M's if he went poop in the toilet. Today, after naps, he went to sit on the toilet and nothing was coming. Danielle was about to just be done when she heard a couple "plops" and sure enough, he went poop. Kind of weird to think how excited one gets after someone takes a dump, but I guess these are the sorts of things parents get excited about.

Where'd the time go?!

Wow! I can't believe it's already Thursday and I haven't blogged since Sunday. Purely unintentional. And it's not even that it's been that busy this week.

The week did start out a little odd. Sunday night, after the last post, I woke up in the middle of the night with severe indigestion. I could hardly sleep. Most of Monday I would often feel like throwing up. I can only guess that it was the blue cheese burger I ate at the Clippers game. But who knows...I haven't heard any news reports of a mass stomach flu breakout in Los Angeles. Of course, it wasn't like there were THAT many people at a Clippers game...let alone ate the burger. So that made Monday and Tuesday a little different.

Sometime this week, Danielle said I should blog about Goldie since I haven't really mentioned much about her for awhile...at least since "the incident" last June. She'll be turning 6 years old at the end of this month. Weird to think we've had her for over 5 years now. She's still adjusting fairly well to Abigail being around. We're, of course, being a little more cautious than normal when there's food around. I think she's enjoying my new "grass" (actually, I think there's a neighbor cat who's also enjoying my new "grass" - but that's beside the point). She still thinks she's the princess of the house no matter what anyone tells her. One of the attached pictures is her favorite seasonal pillow. The other picture is her greeting whatever cat might be outside - or at least any cat we tell her is outside.

Then of course, there's the picture of her on top of the couch which she'll do usually to see who's coming. She still jumps up on our bed in the middle of the night (or sooner!) and plop down right between us if there's room. Oftentimes I don't even realize it till I'm awake and I try to move. Danielle and I both comment often on what a bed-hog she is! But the nice thing is that it's been so chilly, she helps keep us warm, so we don't always mind.

All in all...she's as cute as ever. But then again...I would expect nothing less.

That was a weekend...

This was one of those weekends that you only do once in a great while. I suppose on the surface, it wasn't as much as I'm making it out to be. But when you add two little ones in the mix, it sort of increases the...oh, how would you say it...the exhaustion factor...exponentially. In other words, add one child...it doesn't just add one degree of exhaustion, it adds twice the degree. Add a second child...it doesn't just add two degrees of exhaustion, it adds four times the degree. See what I mean?

Friday night, Abigail decided to wake up in the middle of the night and have a problem going back to sleep. That was between 2-5am...or 3-6am...but who's counting? It was 3 hours of little or no sleep. She was gracious enough, as was Joshua, to let us sleep in till after 8. But we were still pretty tired. That morning, we packed up the kids and went to Lakewood to celebrate a surprise birthday party for Danielle's aunt. It was a cowboy western theme. So, we did our best to dress the part. Abigail was probably the best dressed in an outfit we got at one of the baby showers. It was one of those outfits that when we got it, we thought "that's a cute outfit...not sure I'd dress her in it...unless Danielle's aunt has a surprise birthday party with a western theme". Okay...not the last part. But personally, though the outfit was really cute, I really didn't think I'd dress her in it. But since pulling it out last month, we've probably put her in it 4-5 times including the surprise birthday party yesterday.

The party was a lot of fun. Her aunt was REALLY surprised. Got really emotional which almost got me tearing up. It was really special. The kids did great. They did some line dancing too. Threw me back to my line dancing days. Yes...truth be told...there was a time in my "younger days" when a group of us from the church college group (or was it the singles group) would head down to the Neon Cactus...at the Disneyland Hotel. It's not there any more...this was before Downtown Disney and all that. But they did line dancing and it was a lot of fun learning all the different types of dances. So, it was kind of cool to do some of these dances at the party and feel like I already knew how to do some of them. It was also fun holding Joshua or Abigail while doing them.

Left the party about 1:30 which is already getting past their naptime. Abigail fell asleep pretty quick while Joshua took a little longer even after we got home. Then after naps, we packed up the kids one more time - mostly getting food prepared for Abigail - and drove to Canyon Lake to a house warming party for some friends who just got married and moved out there. Canyon Lake is by Lake Elsinore, so it took a good hour or so to get there - with traffic. Had a good time seeing the house and visiting with friends. Got home from that about 9:45pm. Abigail had fallen asleep, but Joshua still needed some help. Nonetheless, that made for a long day.

Today, the big event was that our neighbors invited us to go to a Clippers game in the evening. So, we still had to prepare everything for those who would be watching our kids. But first we went to church in the morning. That's always a good time to get grounded, to worship and connect with friends. Afterwards, we did lunch and prepared for the evening. Immediately after naps, I took Abigail over to a friend of the family who was going to keep her overnight. We figured since we'd be home late, there was no sense in trying to transport Abigail home like that. Instead, we'll pick her up first thing in the morning. We had a neighbor girl who's in 8th grade watch Joshua for the evening. We met up with our neighbors around 5pm to start heading towards the Staples Center for the game which started around 6:30.

The cool thing about this opportunity is that we got to sit in the VIP section. It's not quite court level...one level up I guess, but you have a different entrance which isn't quite as crowded - in fact, it wasn't crowded at all - and you can order food to be served to you. You still have to pay...and the prices are as outrageous as you might expect. But at least you can have it served to you in your seat. Pretty cool thing really. Apparently, our neighbor has 2 Lakers season tickets. And there's some system where you can trade tickets with others...sounds similar to how you do exchanges with timeshares. But since Lakers tickets are such a hot commodity...and especially depending on the team they're playing, he can trade his 2 Lakers tickets (for a particular game) for 4 Clippers tickets...in the VIP section no less. So, that's how he got us there without paying extra. That's a good deal...especially since the Clippers aren't that bad of a team. They played the Orlando Magic tonight and whipped them by over 20 points.

We got home just after 10 and fortunately, Joshua was already asleep. Which was a good thing because we were wiped. So, it was a good weekend. But I'm glad it's over. I'm going to bed now!

Christmas Lights

Today is the first day of the last month of the year. In other words, 2006 is almost over! Weird...not only that, but Abigail will be 1 in a month and a few days. We haven't even started thinking about her birthday party...but I digress...

Today was a great accomplishment. I finally got the Christmas lights up. Of course, before I could do that, I had to clean the patio from all the stuff the wind blew in this week. And since I was putting up lights on the rafters, I had to clean out all the spider webs and such from there. And since the lights were going around the windows, I had to clean the windows. It was just one chore after another. But I sure am glad to have that done.

Afterwards, we went out to dinner and then drove to a neighborhood in Brea where a majority of them go all out with the Xmas lights and decorations outside, enough so that later in the month, there are lines of cars going through that neighborhood. Fortunately, there was hardly anyone tonight and some of the homes didn't appear to have gotten all their decorations up. Every time we'd see a manger scene, we'd say to Joshua, "Happy Birthday Baby Jesus" and he would repeat it. It was really cute. He is really enjoying trains (he calls them "choo choo twains"). So, he kept looking for them in the decorations and getting excited when he'd see one. Maybe we'll go looking for more of them another time.

Wind, Hair and 7-Up

Not much to report today. It's been really windy in Southern California the past couple of days. At least enough to give local news stations something to report about. That always kills me...we get a hint of rain and immediately...Storm Track 2006! Certainly, rain storms are few and far between. But it's always humorous how local news will grab onto something regardless of how useless "team coverage" is for a little rain. Of course, today it was "team coverage" on the wind *sigh*. Then again, here I am reporting on the wind on my blog. Like I said, not much to report today.

I did get my hair cut...and colored...today. Yes, I color my hair. At 37, I'm not too interested in having snow white hair. I wasn't too keen on the idea of "coloring my hair" a few years back. But that was probably because I didn't have as much gray hair and so it still gave a more "sophisticated" look. Now I just look old. Of course, with my receding hairline, there will come a day when my hair will hardly be long enough to worry whether it's white or gray...another big *sigh*.

Before signing off for today and before this gets posted to the picture site, here's a picture Danielle took of the kids "drinking" 7-up. This was NOT a set-up. Abigail went over and pulled down the box of 7-up cans and pulled one out. Joshua, always interested in what his sister is doing, went over and imitated her. Danielle simply got the camera and snapped a picture. I love my kids!