Christmas 2009

Hey all! We had a fine Christmas, and we hope you all did too!

Okay, this first pic is a few days before Christmas. Me and Noa in a tree:

For dinner, Chi made this potato salad and broccoli Christmas tree. Little Santas sit at the bottom:

Reina and Noa make cookies for Santa:

Reina wrote a note to Santa. Here are the cookies and milk and some carrots for the reindeer:

Santa came!!!

Noa's favorite present: a guitar and mic:

It's starting to feel a lot like Christmas...

Well, it is! It's getting cooler (for Hawaii) and it gets dark early (at 6:00). The kids have colds and the streets and malls are jammed with people. And we sent out our Christmas cards. Here are a couple of ones we didn't use from our so-called photo shoots (you can click for larger images):

Sometimes, it was hard to get everyone on the same page:

Chiharu made these stockings in anticipation of Santa's visit:

I hope you all have a happy holiday. Peace on Earth!

Dancing Elves

See us as dancing holiday elves.

Click here to watch the video!

North Shore Surf

Chiharu and Noa went up to the North Shore to see the waves. The forecast was for big waves. Here are some photos she took. Click to view larger image, then use the browser back button to return to the post.

Garden Party and Christmas Tree

We had a busy weekend. On Saturday we attended the Manoa Community Garden holiday party. I was vice president of the board this year, although I didn't do much. As vice president I was much more of a Joe Biden than a Dick Cheney, only filling in when the president could not for various reasons. I did get the organization out of the stone age by setting up all the docs on Google Docs, setting up emailing lists, setting up downloadable document site, and setting up and maintaining the blog. I also gave up my garden plot, as I have been too busy to work it and will be for the foreseeable future.

Here's Reina and Noa with garden member Na'oe. She really adored the children, gave us lots of veggies, and sometimes weeded our garden when I didn't get up there. We'll miss her and lots of other people too. It was a potluck, and there was lots of good food as well.

Also, we bought a Christmas tree.

Reina and Noa on their way down to get the tree. Noa's comment: "My reindeer horns have a Santa hat and Reina's don't."

Here Reina cuts the tree from the roof.

And here's our tree!

Thanksgiving 2009

Okay, first blog post. I'll try to keep this updated regularly. We had a nice lazy day at home on Thanksgiving. We napped, played games, cooked, and ate.

Here's Reina, squeezing orange juice into the cranberry sauce. She really helped a lot, and almost every dish had her hand in it.

Here's the full spread. We had garlic mashed potatoes, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed sweet potatoes, and ravioli.

Here's Noa, enjoying his Thanksgiving dinner!