First Half of December Catch-Up

Yay! We have made it to December.

So, as mentioned previously we picked out and paid for our Christmas Tree back during the weekend before Thanksgiving. Well we finally got it cut down and into our lounge room on the 2nd. So we strung some lights on it and then proceeded to teach Callum a valuable lesson about the chore that is decorating a tree. Is it just me or does it seem like a great idea, a wonderful Christmas traditional full of warmth and joy, and then when you actually go to do it, you start trying to remember the last time you went to the dentist, and whether you should duck out for a quick check up? Being perfectly honest though, watching Callum do the decorating this year and trying to explain to him what he needed to do, did make it a little more entertaining this year.


On the 4th I went to the Strong Ale Festival down in Carlsbad (about an hour south towards San Diego). All of the beers on the menu were 8% alcohol or above, with the highest being around 15% (my memory is a little fuzzy). Here is an 'artistic' photo from late in the evening that will give you an idea of the thought processes I had going on at the time.


The next night was my company's Christmas party. Over the previous weekend (Thanksgiving) I picked up a little flu bug of some kind and I was still a little under the weather and combine that with the Strong Ale Festival the night before and you can understand I was not in my finest form for the party. Luckily we had booked a room in the hotel where the party was being held and so I was able to bail out around 10:30pm and go upstairs and go to bed. Jen stayed at the party and danced/drank etc. with my work friends for a couple more hours.

The weather in southern California deteriorated dramatically on the Sunday and Monday following the Christmas party and it rained nearly all day Monday. And rain down by the ocean where we live means snow up in the mountains nearby. On Tuesday the weather had cleared and we could see the mountains again. This photo is from my office window. The photo doesn't really do it justice, the snow was actually quite visible and obvious and there was a lot of it.


Fast forward to the next weekend and it rained all day again on the Saturday. Basically two big storms back to back, which is really the first winter weather we have had so far this season. BTW, as I write this on the 21st, all the snow on the mountains is gone again. Anyway, since Callum was stuck inside all day Saturday I took him down to the park on Sunday morning to let him work out some of his 2 year old energy.



Later on the Sunday we attended Jen's company's Christmas party. The company was founded and is still owned by a Chinese family and so the party was at a very traditional Chinese seafood restaurant. The dinner was 10 courses and I think between Jen and I we did try every course, but there were definitely some we didn't try much of. Each time a new plate was put in the center of the table, there was this unspoken look between all the non-asian folks of the table that said "you first!". Santa did make an appearance though which was very exciting for Callum as this is the first year he knows who Santa is and what he is all about (ie. he is the present giving guy). Each of the kids at the party got to sit on Santa's lap and received a present.



The following Friday (the 18th) my department at work had our annual Festivus celebration. For those who don't know what Festivus is (and care), you can read about it here on Wikipedia. Basically it is a made up holiday celebration made famous on an episode of Seinfeld many years ago. Anyway we have casually adopted it in my department as our annual holiday celebration. Below is a photo of our Festivus Pole (the Festivus equivalent of a Christmas Tree) with all of the presents below.

Basically you get a choice, you can either unwrap a random present from the pile, or you can steal a present from somebody that has already unwrapped it, and then that person has to unwrap another one, or steal one from someone else. It takes about 2 hours for everyone to end up with a present and the stealing to stop. I walked away with a bottle of Chivas Regal and some scotch glasses, so I did pretty well this year. Also as part of the party we do a bring-a-plate lunch, this year I brought Maple Bacon Chocolate Fudge.


The weather this last weekend was much better than the previous 2, it was bright and sunny and warm, 80°F(27°C) on the Saturday afternoon when we were at the park.


So that gets the blog up to date, as today is the 21st. So the next post will probably cover the Christmas week.

Callum's 2nd Birthday - Bonus Post

The day he was born ...


Six months old ...


1 year old ...


18 months old ...


2 years old ...

Callum's 2nd Birthday

Callum's actual birthday (the 26th) fell right on Thanksgiving Day this year, which it is apt to do every 7 years or so for the rest of his life I suppose. I suspect he will be arguing strongly for us to move to Australia when he is old enough to figure this out so he doesn't risk his birthday ever getting overshadowed.

The flood of gifts started the day before on the 25th when we let him open a present from his day care lady. She had bought him a few small toys to keep him entertained on the plane ride to Sacramento later that night. She also threw a few sweets in the bag as well, and here is Callum's face when he realizes this and pulls out a lollipop.


As mentioned, later that night we traveled up to Jen's parent's house in Lincoln (40 minutes northeast of Sacramento) to spend the Thanksgiving weekend and Callum's birthday with them. This is the pile of presents we had to pack to take with us that included presents from us and folks in Australia that we brought back with us in October.


So on the 26th we celebrated both Thanksgiving and Callum's birthday. The present opening started early and was done in a few shifts during the day because there were so many for him to open.


In the middle of the day we sat down and had a traditional Thanksgiving meal of roast turkey with all the trimmings thanks to Jen's Mum and Dad and Jen's sister Vonda. We also get to thank Jen's dad for these turkey hats.


For dessert we picked up a small single serve cake for Callum (since we knew there was a full cake coming on Saturday).


Which of course, he quite happily ate and even used a spoon to good affect for most of it.



Here he is opening more presents later in the day. This one is a bag full of giant bugs and other creepy-crawlies courtesy of my Mum.


So that was on the Thursday. On the Friday we did some errands to prepare for the party and Jen and I were able to go out on a date courtesy of free babysitting by Grandma and Grandpa.

On the Saturday, Jen's parents had organized a proper birthday party for Callum and invited family and friends from around the Sacramento area. The theme of the party was Thomas The Tank Engine, so Jen's cousin Josh put together an excellent cake to match.


We played a few kids games including Pass The Parcel which is a staple at Australian kids parties, but I discovered is not known to American kids (or their parents).

This is Jen supervising the present opening.


And here is Callum enjoying the Thomas cake.


On the Sunday of the weekend we came home without too much incident, which is always a concern when traveling on Thanksgiving weekend. When we got home, Jen and I built Callum's present from his Grandma and Grandpa, which Callum took too very quickly.

November Catch-Up

As you can appreciate after our hectic October, our November was a much more laid-back affair, minus of course the Thanksgiving/Callum's 2nd Birthday weekend which I will put in a separate entry. Really just a few photos to share.

A nice one of Callum enjoying some cow juice on the 8th.


We have managed to find some kid's music that is not totally nauseating, including a whole kid's album by the Barenaked Ladies. On it is a song called Popcorn that Callum is crazy about. So we decided to film it and show you the uncontrollable head movements that this song brings on.


On the 14th I was in San Diego for the last day of San Diego Beer Week. There were lots of great beers available, including this flight of sour beers (yes, beers that are purposely made to be sour).

For those who care, from left to right the beers were Gueze Fond Tradition, Echt Kriek, Rodenbach Grand Cru, Ballast Point Hout Cherry and New Belgium La Folie.

What Callum does when he is bored at a restaurant ...


On the 21st we went to the Christmas Tree Farm to find a tree because we knew we were going to be out of town over the Thanksgiving weekend (the following weekend) so we wanted to make sure the crop wasn't too picked over. This is Jen and Callum in front of the one we picked, which turned out to be much larger when we did get it in the lounge room.

At the farm they had pony rides and a petting zoo, so we indulged Callum in his first ever ride on a real horse after we picked our tree.

Callum then went into the petting zoo where there were chickens, sheep, rabbits and 1 Llama. The Llama must have been at least 5 feet tall, so it towered over Callum, and yet Callum proceeded to try and tickle the Llama's belly. Jen and I have no explanation as to where he got the idea from, but we were in hysterics watching it happen. The most surprising part is we didn't get a photo of it. Gasp!

October Catch Up, Part 4

Certainly feels like there was more than 31 days in October this year ...

Fortunately the rest of October was mercifully quiet without a whole lot going on.

We did have tickets for the baseball playoffs for the Thursday night of the week we returned home however. For those that don't follow the American baseball too closely, all of the playoff match-ups are decided by either a best-of-5 or a best-of-7 scenario. Which means the last couple of games in that scenario may or may not be played if one of the teams sweeps the other for example. As it turns out, the baseball gods smiled on us and the Angels and the Yankees won the right number of games each to force a Game 5, which is the one we had tickets for. The upside was that it was a pretty good game, probably the game that the Angels played their best in, and the Angels did win in the end. However, they then went back to New York and lost the series and were knocked out of the playoffs.

Here's a random photo of Callum from the 25th. I only include it because the box he is playing in is a beer carton, Lagunitas Maximus to be precise, and it is a very good beer! :)

And here is the sunset from our house from the 27th which had some great colors.


For Halloween this year, we took Callum to Main Street in Huntington Beach where they were having a family friendly festival so the younger kids could do the trick-or-treat thing without hitting stranger's houses etc. Callum was too young last year to tackle trick-or-treating and we didn't really prep him for it this year, we just kind of set him loose and waited for him to figure it out. As you could probably have predicted, after we visited the first couple of stores and people dropped candy in his bag, he was already holding his bag up in the air in expectation by the 3rd or 4th store, but he did mostly maintain his manners and said Thankyou for each piece he received. We had to empty his bag a couple of times as it got too full, which we will attribute to the insane cuteness of his costume.



One of the displays at the festival was by the Huntington Beach Police Department, so Callum got to sit in the back of one of their cruisers. Hopefully this is the last time we see him in the back of a police car!


And that, thankfully, is October all wrapped up!

October Catch Up, Part 3

OK, the last 4 days in Australia ...

On the 15th Jen, Callum, Shari and I went on a bus tour of Brisbane. Callum was very excited to ride on the big bus and we (not surprisingly) got a lot of great photos. I think Jen and I might be finally getting a feel for Brisbane.







After the bus tour, we had lunch at Mt Coot-tha which has a nice view over the city, although it was quite hot at the top.



When we got home, we played water fights in the back yard to cool off.




On the 17th we went to the kids water park at South Bank near the city. This was a great spot to spend a hot day with plenty of interesting water things for the kids to play with and best of all, it was totally free!







On the 18th (our last day in Australia) in the morning Shari and Leon took the kids to the mall for a little shopping and Callum and Alison had a ride on the kids ride.




In the afternoon of the 18th we all went to the Roma Street Parklands to hit the playground and let the kids run around. As a coincidence there was a huge multi-cultural festival being held that day, so parking was a bit of a problem, but there was lots more to see and do than we were originally expecting. Plus there was a great selection of interesting food from all over the world to choose from, including some hand made ice-cream that nobody was able to resist, especially the kids.






That night we had a very nice lamb roast made by Shari.

The next morning we were up and away to the airport bright and early. This time the flight departed basically on time and we even had a spare seat so Callum could sit on his own and have his own TV. He made the most of the endless cartoons since he never gets to watch that much TV normally. His eyes were so red by the end of the flight! But, he was quiet! :)

Once we got back to LA we landed and got through immigration and customs without incident, and that (finally) concluded our trip. Now all we had to deal with was a not-quite 2 year old with wicked jet lag. The first night he had a lot of trouble settling down and going to sleep at his regular time. In the end he came into our bed and we got him off to sleep, but as you can see in the photo below he was sprawled over half the bed - my half to be precise. So I ended up sleeping the guest room the first nigh, because neither of us was brave enough to try and move him back to his crib!



I will catch up the last part of October in the next post, including Halloween.