More Cousins...

2007 before opening presents.
2003 before opening presents. Not much has changed!
Outside playing ball before we left for church. They were having a grand time even though it was only in the 40's this year. Not too warm.

Cousins

Except for the fact that I waited until after all 3 kids had eaten spaghetti... I love these pictures! The boys love each other and enjoy spending time together. How great it is to have cousins!

Christmas Part 1 ..Sunday

We celebrated Christmas a few days early with Jonathan's family. His parents and Marisa, Scott and Iain were able to come. We had a great time visiting and playing with Iain's new toy. The boys liked it as much as he did -so there was lot's of fun with it. Grandpa Jim brought the boys ukelele's from Hawaii. The kids love them. There isn't a day when I don't hear the ping, ping, ping of the strings.. in fact this morning I thought someone was playing the piano -the music was very soothing. We will have to find a book on how to play them so the boys can play actual songs..



Here is Steven with his...

Iain's toy... ball popper.. so much fun!











Marisa's family.... such fun to hang out with, we feel so blessed that they live near by now.

Jack's Karate Promotion to yellow belt!

Here is a short video of Jack's promotion ceremony tonight. He is excited to have earned his yellow belt. He is at the middle of the row (the tall kid).

I have pictures too - but will have to post them tomorrow.

Also at Coney Island ... NATHAN's Hot Dogs!

S

So the reason we ended up at Coney Island .. Nathan's hot dogs! These are Steven's hands down, favorite food. He LOVES them! So when he found out it wasn't far from Aunt Peg's ... he wanted to go. So then Jack googled and found the Aquarium and we were set. Now my dad was 2 steps ahead of me .. he found buy one get one free coupons on the internet! I can't believe it didn't occur to me to look for them. So we had lunch there after the aquarium. I will admit -it was good. The kids all seemed to like it...

Ok ... back in time.... our trip to New Jersey...

I have had several people remind me that I posted that I would post about our trip, but I haven't. So here goes..... We got there late (7 p.m. or so ) Tuesday night. Wednesday - we headed out to the New York Aquarium (located at Coney Island). It was a quick 45 minute or so trip across more bridges than I can remember. Mimi navigated her way there without a problem and there we were. Here are the boys waiting for the ticket people to figure out how to sell us tickets using our coupon... took them about 20 minutes, no joke.

The kids were enthralled with the exhibits and how many different fish there were. This aquarium had a plaque by each window with a picture and description of the different types and we spent time trying to find them all!

The outside tanks were cool too! There was a baby walrus -totally neat to watch! But boys will be boys, so some climbing was part of the fun too!









Another group shot -by an inside wetlands exhibit. It was fun -as you can see by their shiny, smiling faces!

Scenic pictures of our day...

Alcatraz....

The Golden Gate....

The Bay Bridge into the City.

A day off....

Well the boys had Friday off from school for a teacher work day, so we took advantage of that and headed to San Francisco. It was Steven, Jackson, my mom and me. We left here around 10 a.m. and didn't get back to our house until almost 11 p.m. but it was worth it --we had a wonderful day!

First stop was drive thru Starbucks... once everyone had their drink (me: venti iced nonfat caramel macchiato, mom: grande soy white mocha, steven: tall vanilla bean frappaccino, jackson: tall hot chocolate, no whip!) we were on our way....


Once in SF we parked, and headed to the terminal for our Alcatraz tour. We had already bought the tickets online, but had to pick them up. I realized we were about 1/2 hour early for our boat, so I inquired if we could get on the earlier one, leaving in a few minutes. We were able to! So off we went. The boat ride is short -about 15 minutes and then we were there. We listened to the ranger at the dock, then took in a movie of Alcatraz history and saw some exhibits of the past and then we headed up the hill to the cellhouse. A quick stop by the boys (waiting for us, no doubt) at the morgue -they were fascinated. Then up, up, up the hill we went.

We started the audio tour (along with 100 other people it seemed) and after about 20 minutes, Jackson decided he was done with that -so he & I went outside while Steven & Grandma finished the tour. We looked at the gift shop and he read a book about "Prisoners of Age" and then he took a bunch of pictures -which I haven't downloaded yet.

Steven & Grandma finished out the tour... Steven LOVED it! He said he learned alot and it was really interesting. At this point it was a bit chilly and already 4 p.m. so we jumped on a boat back to the mainland.

Once off the boat we ditched our coats and things at the car and went to Pier 39. The boys hadn't been there before and our plan was to grab something to eat and then go to the Aquarium of the Bay... So the boys wanted to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe .. it was yummy and not too crowded. After that we headed to the Aquarium only to find out they were closing early for a special event. So no aquarium for us that day. The kids & my mom got souvenir pennies in the gift shop and then we walked around the pier.

We hit the HUGE sports store, the Christmas decor store, the Carousel, the puppet shop, the Ireland store, the sports memoribilia store and then decided we should have dessert.

So we headed back to the car and went to Ghiradelli Square for a hot fudge sundae! The ice creams were huge and we all enjoyed them. Then we headed to Union Square to see the Christmas tree and lights ... Jack was tired by this time it was already after 8 p.m. so we just drove thru the square a few times and then headed home.

It was a busy and packed day full of adventure --I can't wait to go back!