Saaya, Sae and Yasushi... oh my!

Recently three of my good friends came to spend a wonderful Christmas with me. It was a lot of fun.... Yasushi gets ready to put his feet in the sand...

Sae

Saaya

Yasushi, Sae, and Saaya.... just kidding...

as badly as I wanted this shot to be artistic and beautiful... all i could think of while I was shooting it was the theme from Days of Our Lives... like sand through an hour glass, so are the days of our lives....
oh silly childhood.

Saaya and Joanna

I had to.... it was December 20th and I was comfortably wearing flops...

Saaya

Sae and Joanna

Yasushi

Sae

Dinner together...

We detoured over the AZ for Ryan and Ariel's wedding (i'll post those pictures soon...)

AZ sunrise

The family we stayed with, the Seery's have two of the cutest little girls...

On top of Signal Hill overlooking LA and the surrounding areas....

Signal Hill

Christmas Eve dinner with Mikey's dad... we taught him the card game, Golf.

Christmas Eve crew; Jack, Yasushi, me, Saaya, and Mikey

The girls and I decorated Christmas cookies...

Christmas Day with Mikey's mom (in red) aunt (in black) cousin (white) and our Japanese friends. Thanks Jenny for the dinner; oishiikatta!!!

Mikey's Mom, Mikey and me

Sunset from Joni's apartment

I took the girls to my favorite place thus far, in LA, Santa Monica... I love everything about Santa Monica; the little shops, the street performers, the pier, the ocean, the sunset....
This little girl was completely fixiated on the drummer.

Santa Monica

Lisa and I are confused... who would want to see crime scenes?

Weird.

I call this, the Lake of Shimmering Waters, except it's not a lake... but I think AofGG would understand.

Sae, Lisa, myself and Saaya at the end of their wonderful trip... and our day at Santa Monica.

more pictures to come soon.

I am currently in a bathrobe, sipping on some hot tea, just enjoying a day full of nothing....

This year was my first (that I can recall) where I was on the "hostessing" end of Christmas and not the usual show up and leave after dinner, games, dessert, more games and then more and more dessert, that I am accustomed to. I've never been on this end so intensely. I had three guests come. Well, 3 1/2 (one of them wasn't here at Christmas). But I never realized how much time, energy, and well... yourself goes into serving and hostessing.

I would like to say a hearty thank you to anyone and everyone who has ever hosted me and not felt my gratitude in return. I owe you. And yes, I am thankful, always for you.

Now as I reflect back on Christmas and Christmases past; I realized I have so much to be thankful for. And I am.

I just wanted to send out this blog.... pictures too numerous to count will be on the way.

But until then, my friends and family... know that I love you, think of you often, and miss you.

Immanuel "God with us"

Colorado Thyme

On our way to EDGE summit, I was in awe of the beauty that Arizona and New Mexico beheld. Who knew?

It snowed our second night in CO Springs. It was so wonderful.

Roomies

Colorado is so beautiful.

After time in the Springs for our EDGE conference, I went to Denver for a day/night trip. It was wonderful seeing Waveland, Eddie and my family. I took an embarassing amount of photos. Enjoy....

Time out for a 99% of the time sweet baby. :)

Jordan was prompting her for the photos, "You're happy."

"Now you're mad."

"Now you're happy again."

We went out to eat for Jordan's birthday and Waveland continually made this face when the ice cream dessert was served.... I wonder what she's trying to tell us...

Sweet Eddie boy.

Edwin loved helping his Daddy put up the Christmas tree...

Edwin is so close to walking...

Jeremy and Alaina played with Edwin... It was so cute.

There is no one in Edwin's life like his mama.
He kept crawling around her, I think he was trying to sneak up on her. :)

Driving back...

We got stuck on our way back to California. This is what Lisa would like Santa to bring us... don't worry, we got out after four hours.

And for the finale, my favorite picture!! My brother Jonah, the mustache master.