Christmas 2013

So I survived my first Christmas away from my parents.  Pretty impressive to go 40 years spending every holiday with them...especially given that for the past 13 of those years Jeff and I have also been spending the holidays together.  Well Mom and Dad, I definitely missed you, but we still had a really nice few days.  We hosted Christmas Eve dinner at our house this year.  Our friends Suellen, John, and Emily joined us.  We ate like kings: Jeff made macadamia encrusted steelhead and mashed potatoes, John and Suellen whipped up some fabulous brussel sprouts, and Emily brought some delicious dips and an amazing coconut lemon cake.  It's a good thing we don't eat like this every day.  

After dinner we went out to the fire pit where Jeff read "Twas the Night Before Christmas" to Quinn.  He loved it!

Quinn must have been a VERY good boy this year, because Santa was very good to him.  After running out to the livingroom to see if Santa had come he rushed back into our bedroom super excited exclaiming, "He came, he came, come and see, come and see what he brought me!!"  As he opened his gifts he kept repeating what a lucky boy he was.  He seemed to love everything, which was a pleasant surprise!  

For Christmas dinner we wandered up north to Wildomar to join the Sheas along with Kelly and Lee and her parents.  We spent a good part of the afternoon playing with the boys and then had a lovely dinner of homemade manicotti, meatballs and sausage.  Somehow I managed to not take many photos while we were there, but managed to get a few shots of the boys enjoying their Christmas gifts.  

Kellan with his new ball

Kyan and Quinn on a scooter ride!

Jeff with Lee, his father-in-law, and John 

Cannot resist taking the opportunity to play with lights and slow shutter speeds!

Hope you all had a very merry Christmas!!

Mom's Birthday in SD

This year we celebrated Mom's 70th birthday here in San Diego at Don and Janet Smith's house in Mission Beach.  Bonnie Williams also joined us.  It was great to have everyone together for a week under one roof.

We got to see lots of amazing sunsets!

Quinn and June got in lots of quality cousin time

I swear I have the cutest niece ever!  

Quinn also enjoyed building elaborate castles with these cool blocks at the beach house!

We did a little bit of exploring while everyone was here.  We watched the Star of India set sail.  The Star of India is the world's oldest active sailing ship.  It only sets sail once a year at most.  I think this was its first voyage in a couple of years.

We of course spent lots of time at the beach.  The boys (Jeff, Andy and Quinn) even did a little bit of swimming in the chilly November waters.

One morning we headed to Torrey Pines State Park.  Andy, Colleen, June and Quinn had a nice hike from the bluffs all the way down to the water.  When I returned a couple of hours later to retrieve them I found my son drenched from head to toe from jumping into the water.  Gotta love it!

Of course on any visit we have to visit Balboa Park.  This year we went to the Mingei International Museum (Museum of folk art).  This photo is of a portion of an impressive blown glass chandelier by Dale Chihuly that is now a part of the Mingei's permanent collection.

On our last day in SD we gathered Nana and the grandkids together for a little photoshoot at the beach. These are a couple of photos from my cell phone.  I'm sure Andy's film photos will turn out much better, but these still make my heart sing.  :)  

Happy Birthday, Mom!  Team Diane is always behind you!  We love you!  Thanks to Bonnie for the awesome T-shirts!  :)

Fall Soccer Begins!

What a busy day!  Somehow we have found ourselves participating in two soccer leagues this fall.  Quinn played for San Diego Crusaders last spring and really enjoyed it.  When that season was over I  found another club through our neighbors that played all spring and summer, so we signed up.  At the time we already knew that we were committed to coming back and doing Crusaders in the fall, because Jeff had volunteered to be the assistant coach.  Both clubs play in the fall, so I figured as long as Q can hack it, we'd try to continue doing both.  Well this was the first week we had 2 practices and then 2 games on Saturday (most Saturdays the games will be at similar times so we'll have to skip Liverpool).  What a fun opening day it was!  Our little guy who barely touched the ball all spring season scored 3 goals during the Liverpool game and 2 goals during his Crusaders game!  Way to go Q-Bert!  :)

A few photos from our morning game:  The Liverpool games are smaller, shorter, and played on a smaller field (all good things).  They play 3v3 and all 3 players play for the whole 20 minutes.  Because there are so few players all of the kids really get the chance to handle the ball a lot.  It was a lot of fun to watch them go.  All of the boys did a great job!

After lunch we changed clothes and had our Crusaders game.  This league plays 5v5 on somewhat larger fields (still small goals with no goalie), and they play two 20-minute halves.  It's a tad more hectic, but just as fun, because they really get the experience of playing on a team and rooting for their teammates.  There sometimes are a handful of older, more experienced kids who really dominate the play, but luckily so far this year it seems that we have a more balanced team, so more of the kids are getting the opportunity to contribute during the games.  Quinn didn't do much during the 1st half, but came alive in the second and scored 2 goals!  Not a bad day.  I'm just glad he's having fun participating!

Dino Obsession

I feel as though Quinn has an unusually strong obsession with dinosaurs (and other prehistoric creatures).  On Friday we went to the library and he picked out 10 dinosaur/sabertooth/mammoth reference books.  Every morning (and any time we have down time at the house) he dives into the books and obsessively compares the anatomy of the various dinos.  He will find the same dinosaur in various books and compare how the different authors portrayed the dinosaur differently.  He is very critical of cartoon dinosaurs that have anatomical errors, such as the wrong number of fingers, arms that are too big, or spikes where spikes do not belong.  I think we may have a little scientist on our hands!  :)  

Morning dino reading

Below we have a couple of videos.  The first is Quinn checking out a new dinosaur book this morning. Before I started filming each page turn was greeted with a loud gasp.  Several hours later and he's still flipping through the book.

Last weekend we visited Don and Janet at their beach house in Mission Beach.  As we were getting ready to leave Quinn decided he was a Smilodon (sabertooth cat) and had a growl-off with Don.  Pretty amusing stuff.  Glad Don was such a good sport.  Mom and Dad tend not to be!  :)  

New Lens - Dinnertime battle

I got a new (found) lens for my old camera a few days ago (thanks Don and Janet!) and have been enjoying playing around with it a bit.  It's a fixed 35mm Nikon f1.8.  I decided to document our nightly dinnertime standoff.  It takes intense negotiation to get Quinn to try new foods.  Tonight it was mashed potatoes.  Who doesn't like mashed potatoes?  Crazy kid.  Anyway, made for some fun expressions.  :) As you can see from the smiles at the end of the series, he succeeded in choking down a few bites, which meant there was an ice cream reward waiting for him.  

Sleepover!

What an adventure!  Quinn had his first sleepover with his buddies Kinley and Bella.  I wasn't quite ready to send him off to do this solo, so I had a little sleepover too.  We had no idea how the kids would do, but they were awesome!  They ran around outside playing in water, had a yummy dinner together, played dress up, took a group bath, did puzzles, watched a movie, and then off to bed with the boys sleeping on the floor.  They whispered and giggled until after 10pm, but eventually went to sleep and we all had a restful night.