Another year and another round of holidays. As much as I love the holiday season it really is a gauntlet of gift giving, cooking and celebrating starting with Thanksgiving followed by Taizo's birthday, Mayu's birthday, Christmas and finishing with the New Year. Needless to say, I'm always ready to get back to work in January.
All that being said, it was nice to have some stability during this year's festivities. Two years ago we moved from Monterey and last year Taizo was born so at least the family is moving in a positive direction.
This year we spent a few vacation days at my parents time-share in Williamsburg. As you can imagine, Taku was more interested in the pool than the history of Colonial Williamsburg. The photos speak for themselves. On Christmas Eve, Mayu and I brought the boys back down to Virginia Beach to prepare for Christmas. My parents drove in from their timeshare the next day. At this point Mayu and I exchanged our only real gift to each other...a Nikon D60 DSLR camera.
This Christmas was the year of trains. Gifts included lots of Thomas the Train items to include a, train whistle, Nerf-like train for Taizo, train puzzle, wooden Thomas trains and the Ride-On Thomas the Train featured in the below video and pictures.
After thirty plus minutes of gift opening chaos the family enjoyed a big meal of blueberry pancakes, had fun watching the boys playing with their toys and prepared our Christmas dinner of dry rubbed rotisserie turkey on the grill, stuffing, focaccia, sweet potatoes and cranberry relish. Unfortunately I have not entirely outgrown my inability to follow directions and I mistakenly combined the sweet potatoes with the cranberry side. The good news is that it was a serendipitous mistake worth repeating next year.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Pre-Xmas Picture and Video Post
I really just want to push out the pictures and video I've taken of Taku's Holiday Program. There's nothing like listening to three year-olds belting out Holiday tunes.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Deck the Halls (and the Neighbors!)
Just a quickie to spread the holiday joy that our neighbors have been "kind" enough to share with Casa di Cesari!
Sunday, December 7, 2008
The Cesari's 2008 Holiday Season
It has been a long (and messy) holiday season. Everybody has been incredibly flexible considering the massive home renovations to the three bathrooms, kitchen and the den. Hopefully by the end of the holiday vacation all of the construction will be complete.
Regardless we have found time for fun. Over Thanksgiving we had Ryan and Christian Brewer over for the weekend. All the boys got along really well. It also provided Mayu and me with some insight into how much effort goes into having a child to parent ratio above 1. Yoinks! More importantly we enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at Andy and Kelly Fortmann's house.
As guests at the Fortmann house we were lucky enough to run into my Naval Academy friend Pat who flew into the Virginia Beach area on a Navy C-130. Why he had to fly on Thanksgiving is a longer story. The next morning we all went to the airport to sit in the cockpit and check out the cargo area. Needless to say, the boys went crazy. After visiting the plane Steve, Kathy, Bruce, the Brewer Boys and Taku all went to the waterfront trails (aka "Pirate Island") at Botanical Gardens. The rest of the weekend was filled with meals, naps, trains and bedtimes. Good times.
Apparently Mayu didn't believe that Halloween, Thanksgiving, her birthday, Christmas and New Years were enough celebrations in two months so she decided to birth Taizo in early December just to spice things up. This last weekend we celebrated his first year in Casa di Cesari. He enjoyed the pumpkin apple cake and kept himself busy with his five birthday balloons.
Regardless we have found time for fun. Over Thanksgiving we had Ryan and Christian Brewer over for the weekend. All the boys got along really well. It also provided Mayu and me with some insight into how much effort goes into having a child to parent ratio above 1. Yoinks! More importantly we enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at Andy and Kelly Fortmann's house.
As guests at the Fortmann house we were lucky enough to run into my Naval Academy friend Pat who flew into the Virginia Beach area on a Navy C-130. Why he had to fly on Thanksgiving is a longer story. The next morning we all went to the airport to sit in the cockpit and check out the cargo area. Needless to say, the boys went crazy. After visiting the plane Steve, Kathy, Bruce, the Brewer Boys and Taku all went to the waterfront trails (aka "Pirate Island") at Botanical Gardens. The rest of the weekend was filled with meals, naps, trains and bedtimes. Good times.
Apparently Mayu didn't believe that Halloween, Thanksgiving, her birthday, Christmas and New Years were enough celebrations in two months so she decided to birth Taizo in early December just to spice things up. This last weekend we celebrated his first year in Casa di Cesari. He enjoyed the pumpkin apple cake and kept himself busy with his five birthday balloons.
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