Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! We had a wonderful week, and are so grateful for friends and family, both near and far!


Tuesday, we drove up to the Catskills in the mid-afternoon, and spent the week cooking and playing with family. Uncle Gabe, Aunt Karen, and cousins Miya and Siena flew in from San Francisco for the holiday, and it was wonderful to see them and meet Siena for the first time! It was also great to see the many other family members who rotated through as well: Brooke, Gerald and Sebastian; Helen and Rudy Schmidt; Daddy's Uncle Bob and Elli; Peg, Wilma and Chris (who is now a freshman in college at American!); and, of course, Marguerite and Nadir.





Aidan had a blast playing with and being one of the "big kids": Miya and Sebastien are both 7 (Aidan is only 3), but Aidan was thrilled to hang out with them. And - unlike last year - he could really keep up with them this year! They had a ton of fun with all sorts of games: playing "time machine" in the closet in the green room upstairs, throwing balls from the second floor lanai/porch down to Alex on the ground; playing "monkey in the middle"; playing wiffle-ball(it's not a holiday for Daddy without playing wiffle ball or baseball at some point!); doing puzzles, stacking "Bill Ding" clowns; playing "boo!" games to make Siena and Kiana laugh; pretending to "save" each other from drowning in "water" (the wood floor) by dragging each other to the "land" (the stone floor); visiting the chickens, and more. They even had a real tea party! Miya wrote out invitations by hand and wrapped each with a ribbon; Aidan delivered the invitations; Grandpa helped them both cook cookies for the event; and we all (Mommy/Daddy/Gabe/Karen/Miya/Aidan) sipped tea and ate cookies together on Wednesday before dinner - a real, delicious, tea!




Kiana was amazed to be passed around so many adoring family members, but was thrilled to have another baby to star and grab at (yay, Siena!), and spent the time talking and talking and talking and talking up a storm! She is doing all sorts of new "words" right now, and is quite a chatterbox! She also managed to get regular good naps in, despite the hustle and bustle, and was remarkably cheery throughout.



Mommy and Daddy enjoyed hanging out with everyone, and made some significant contributions to the "food marathon", as Grandma described the week. Mama made two of her mom's (Nana's) fantastic apple pies and an experimental pumpkin cake (Frances's pumpkin coconut mochi, but with non-glutinous brown rice flour instead of Mochiko - it tasted like cake, not mochi, but it tasted great!) for Thanksgiving, and Daddy made *six loaves* of sausage bread on Friday, as well as sweet potato french fries on Saturday. Delicious! We also were thrilled to be spoiled by Grandma while we were there: she drove out with us to Kingston to babysit Kiana for 2.5 hours so that we could see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1) in theater. It was SUCH a treat! :)




We drove home on Sunday morning, unpacked, and then got our Christmas tree! I am thrilled - I LOVE Christmas trees! Aidan helped decorate it, and kept saying "It's very exciting! It's very exciting!" all the while! We have two more weeks here, and then we fly to California for the Christmas holiday. It's going to be a whirlwind! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and are enjoying the holiday season!