The Moments In Between

Well, there it went. 2011 has come and gone. What a year. New jobs, schools, challenges and adventures. It was a rough one, but we saw that coming when we rang in 2011. We are very optimistic about 2012.

Our blogging, unfortunately, slacked a bit this year. There were a few moments we were going to post about and never did. So to wrap up 2011, here are some moments from the year that, for various reasons, never made it up. Enjoy.


Visiting the La Jolla emergency room for an earache and spending 5 hours in a hospital waiting room rather than hanging out on a beach.


Ed and Owen running the bases at M's spring training with Jason and Jackson.


Celebrating Owen's 3rd birthday.


Looking for, and finding, Easter eggs...again and again and again....


Learning how to drive a boat.


Running in mud and drinking beers at Warrior Dash.


Talking to a parrot at the Santa Monica Pier.


Being a family.

Vanilla Cake

Today is my father's birthday and being the loyal blog follower that he is, I wanted to send birthday wishes via the blog. It's always hard when I can't be there to celebrate my family's birthdays, sometimes more so than holidays. Maybe it's because birthday celebrations are more personal than holiday celebrations. Large groups come together for holidays but only a select group come together, year after year, to celebrate the day you were born. Whatever the reason, I wish we were there to celebrate.



Happy Birthday dad. Vanilla cake with chocolate frosting is my favorite too.

Merry Christmas 2011

Living away from family is felt most around the holidays, but having a small family of our own helps. As does having a loving family who is willing to exchange holiday wishes (and presents) from afar. Speaking to everyone on Christmas was great and here are some photos of our big day. We hope everyone had a lovely holiday season and is ready to have a fabulous 2012.


Not a creature was stirring, not even a slot-car.


This Christmas was by far the longest Owen ever had to delay gratification. I'm hoping it helped build a little character. Not that we need him to be more of a character or anything.


Ever the considerate soul, Owen made and decorated cookies for Santa and left the perfectly logical number of five carrots for Santa's eight reindeer. Notice the Brato cameo - his farewell appearance for the year.

All told, we had a wonderfully relaxed Christmas weekend and we hope everybody got what they wanted this year.

A Very Brato Christmas

For about 25 days we've had a visitor in our house. Brato (Owen named him) is an elf who gets into mischief but who has a job to do also. His job is to see if Owen has been a good boy or naughty. He then flies up to the North Pole every night and reports to Santa. This is why we can't touch Brato, because, like butterflies, if you touch him, he can't fly (unless, of course, that's a line my parents told me about butterflies, in which case... ha ha [being a science teacher, I should probably figure that out]).

The whole endeavor seemed a little Orwellian at first, but being on the other side of all that monitoring sure gives insight into why monitoring on that level is so appealing. Any time Owen does something wrong he says, "Brato tell Santa about that?" As loving parents, we have tried to very much limit how hard we use this leverage over him, but it's tough because it's so effective.

Moving beyond the morality of the whole situation, we have had fun with Brato in the evenings. He appears in a different spot every morning for Owen to discover. Staging him in 25 different ways has proven a slightly challenging, yet eminently rewarding midnight task. Owen has really enjoyed our guest and since tonight he will be returning home to the North Pole, we thought we'd share some of our favorite 2011 Brato moments.







Bonus: Holiday Owenisms

Why does Santa eat so many cookies? He needs to be careful. He's going to get a tummy ache!

Daddy. I need help. I can't wait till Christmas time.

On Christmas night, Santa will come and I'm going to sleep with one eye open so I can see him.

I'm dirty with Christmas! (Said after playing with artificial snow.)

Momma! We ate all the cookies! We need to make more cookies for Santa.

Surprise Visit

Santa Claus (aka my dad) stopped by my parents house last Saturday night to say hello to Bella and Owen since they have been such good kids this year.


Owen asked for a race car track from Santa. He was a little confused and upset when Santa didn't immediately produce a race car track. It took a bit of explaining that Santa brings it on Christmas and doesn't pull it out of his red, toy sack when you meet him.


Bella very sweetly asked for a guitar. Then she got the heck away.


Santa and his family. Quite a jolly bunch.

At the party, Santa handed out candy canes to the adults though he missed me. I mentioned to Owen that Santa forgot to give me a candy cane and Owen said, "Santa didn't give you a candy cane because you are mean to people." I, quite shocked asked, "who am I mean to?" Owen says, "You're mean to Owen. You put Owen in the time out chair. Santa doesn't like it when you put Owen in the time out chair so you don't get any presents this year."

Clever little punk.

One Little Monkey Jumping on the Bed

He looks like a little angel when he sleeps...


... and then he wakes up.

Notice the bruising on the middle of his head in the 2nd photo? He ran full speed into a pole at school. Owen told us his friend Blake was chasing him and when pole jumped out in front on him. Owen had a pretty good bump and was sent home from school to rest.

And so it begins...being the parents of a boy. I feel like I should have the doctor's number on speed dial.