Xmas in the OC

As promised my recap of our holiday trip to visit Uncle Bump in Orange County.

Sorry for the long entry, but we took a lot of pictures, and the kids were at their cutest, so it's hard to leave things out.

At this point I should recognize that a number of the readers of this blog have asked to see/hear/read more about the rest of the family. The Uncle Bump's and the Grandpa Gene's in particular.

There's a good reason that we don't see as much of those guys: Jake and Lily are far cuter than they are. Honestly, I can't remember the last time (if ever) somebody saw a picture of Coley and said "Awwww. That's adorable".

And when I tell stories about Gene if they say "Wow. He's at a great age" it's probably referring to quantity not quality.

Uncle Bump's (aka Coley, aka Hermano) kids on the other hand, Riley Logan and Katie Chase, ages 3 and 1 respectively - definitely cuter AND are at greater (quality) ages then their dad and grandpa.

But give the people what they want I say. I'll throw in a few pictures and words of the oldsters.

Uncle Bump and Auntie Amanda hosted us for more than two weeks while we did little day trips and lounged in their ginormous house. Good thing it was big since they were hosting 14 for breakfast lunch and dinner everynight.



We arrived at John Wayne direct from Honolulu (highly recommended) Xmas eve afternoon, so the kids didn't have long to wait till that BEST OF ALL MORNINGS.



Grandpa Gene's early present this year was retiring after fourty bazillion years of listening to people kvetch about their goddamn problems, how their wife/husband/kids/boss/dog doesn't appreciate them and yadayadayada and on and on and on....criminy. SHUT UP ALREADY ! Now he can finally do what he's always wanted.

Birdhouses:



Orange County has great public parks. Period. It's nice that the kids are still at the ages where a trip to the park is (almost) as good a one to a theme park. Fast slides, high swings, zip cords, soft places to fall, plenty of fun physical activity things to move/push/pull/climb and all.

Of course, maximum capacity still means something.


The kids got their first taste (literally natch) of snow:


Also their first trip to a themepark - Legoland:


Our second trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific, where ironically we probably had the most fun in the lorikeet aviary:


Jake, Coley, Riley and I wen tup to Chino to the Planes of Fame Aviation Museum.

Awesome. It was P-40 day and we got to see them start up a genuine Sharkmouth and then taxi and take off. Way cool. Jake wants to be there for P-38 day, and I want a returm visit when a Spitfire flies.

I threw in a picture of a P-38 that I made for Uncle Jim as a Christmas present. Compared with the real thing I did a pretty good job IMHO.

Another return visit for us was a little petting zoo just down the road from Uncle Bump's in San Juan Capistrano. And afterwards, just like two three years ago, we went to the Ruby's and had MASSIVE burgers in a cool train themed restaurant.




Speaking of food, Kim and I managed to sneak in two trips to In-and-Out Burger. Heaven.

And Lily and Jake got to have their best New Year's Eve evar when we took them out to the movies. Saw "Enchanted" which really was great. Good, clean, silly, wholesome fun (I'll rave later about "No Country for Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood" - also quite good, though not as wholesome).

Couple more fun/cute pics to round it out:

Just a great vacation. U. Bump, A. Bandit, Riley Logan and Katie Chase were great hosts and forgave us (I hope) for all the chaotic craziness that upset and challenged their family's balance/sleep schedules/eating habits/sharing abilities and other things I'm too obtuse not to apologize for.

In front of a Legoland version of my birthplace

quilt inspirations

For christmas I got Amy Butler's Midwest Modern book. After Kaffe Fasset, she is my inspiration for quilting. Her fabric designs simply make me smile and gets me excited to make more baby blankets. And it's a good thing too because I have a list of friends and family members who are pleasantly expecting in 2008. Most of the time I do simple 4 block patterns which is why I depend so heavily on the beauty of the fabric designs to carry the gift. To Amy and Kaffe whom I've never met, thank you and your team for providing me with great material.

Oh and of course the photos of her design studio just makes me drool. I can't wait to get my act together and actually go to town with my sewing space in the basement. My dream life would be to have an inspiring sewing space with great light and music and I could wake up and put on jeans and make blankets with Lily and Jacob for hours. And of course go to the beach to teach them how to surf and go to hula and pick flowers and make lei. Ah...I love it when a good book gets the juices flowing.

****By Kim of course

Catching up

Wow it's been a while. A busy couple of months. I took a new position at the Museum and spent most of November freaking out about it before the job began the first week of December. One of our exhibit designers left to join an exhibit design company in Vancouver and the head of the department asked if I was interested.....just means more:

• meetings


• schedules


• management


• stress


• budgeting


• emails

What it does NOT mean is (this being the Bishop Museum) more money. Sigh. Good thing I like working there.

So now instead of just helping on on pieces of exhibits like DVD's or computer interactives, I'll be in charge of planning the whole shebang. Carpet, painting, electrical, carpentry....kinda daunting but there's a very supportive and committed team down there.


Right around Thanksgiving we took our traditional surfing photo for the seasons greetings cards. Took plenny pictures of the kids playing about in the surf and it was hard to pick which one would be the winner. Here's a couple of the rejects. If you didn't get a seasons greetings card, it's probably because we don't have a real street address for you. If your refrigerator needs something to stick to it next winter, email us with your snail mail address and we'll add it to the Master List. We won't sell your information to anybody. We'll give it for free. Not really.

Lily's kept on doing keiki hula, and while Kim occasionally has to drag her to practice, when she performs she has a great time. I'll be getting a dose of that myself soon.

Next month Jake begins soccer with Keola, Alika, and Calvin. So there goes my Saturday mornings for the next fourteen years or so.



The kids came by the museum one time last month and got to help Uncle Dano prep the pili grass that will be used to reconstruct the hale that was disassembled last year during the Hawaiian Hall renovations. Some of the posts that came out may have been in use in houses on Kaua‘i since the late 1700's. The materials were moved to Honolulu in 1905 or so (IIRC) and the house stood until we took it down (Lily and Jake helped in that too). Took it down very carefully I should say. Anyway, in the next few months Dano will be leading the team that will reassbmle the hale using as much of the materials as possible, and gathering new materials as needed.

My proud accomplishment in early December was to rebuild our embarrassingly ugly/lame/rotten front gate. When we moved in 6 years ago now (YIKES) it was held together by paint and baling wire and had only degraded since then. So I finally got up the nerve to plan, paint, cut, construct, and all that good stuff. And best of all it actually works! I might get over my phobia of home improvement - I always have a sinking feeling that I've gonna do something stoopid and screw up more than fix things, but the gate's still working so I'm considering new projects. Hmmm.....new roof?



I'm especially proud of the Batman latch pull.

Next update I'll recap our great trip to Uncle Bump's house in the OC. Still working on compiling the list of things we did...long list....great pics and fun trip. Stay tuned.