Christmas 2011

We went through what has definitely a family tradition..

A sleepover at the cousins place and the kids opening gifts from under the tree after breakfast.

The hungry lions in front of their prey knowing that in a matter of seconds they get to jump on it!

The carnage of wrapping paper after the cubs are done unwrapping the stuff..

What happened in between..

and this year (as most years) one of the dads gets two of the same gift. When your life is an open book, guess everyone knows what to get you for Christmas?!

The little one wrote stories for the parents. One was Snow White written in her own words with Daddy substituted for a bad guy!

and the other was a cute frog family story.

We hope all of you had a very merry Christmas and are enjoying the holiday season.

We are slowly checking things off our to do list...

For starters we knocked off
- last minute gift buying for the kids and
- watched Mission Impossible 4 on Christmas Eve!

The theaters were relatively empty and the movie was a blast!

We had a good time with the kids showing their happy smiling faces throughout the day!

Our local adventures and checking off lists goes on over the next few days. Just shudder at the thought that our next break will have to wait till Memorial day! That thought can take a backseat for now as we try to live in the present..

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The school holidays begin..

The kids are on break now. This year they did not even ask me if I was going to make it to their end of year class party. They knew daddy would not come.

They asked their mom and were disappointed to hear a "sorry" from her as well!

They had fun anyways...

Jr. made a gingerbread house and brought it home. It was great!

The little one made me a car ornament and that was great as well!

The best part was an email from the little one that was waiting in my inbox Friday evening!

A section of which is..

hi appa i am so glad that for two weeks there is no school and it is so fun
so i can play with you of the whole week i hope you have no work to so i
can play with you.a

Well, will disappoint her again, but the good news is she is getting used to it!

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Excitement in the backyard

We have had one busy week with the parents both being super busy at work to the point where we think it is going to be a 12 day week.

In the midst of all this god always finds a way to throw some excitement our way to amuse us and the kids even if we are cooped up in our living room.

A wild cat of some kind decided to visit our backyard today. San of course assumed it was a raccoon perched on the fence. We (the kids and me) were pretty sure raccoons are not that big and do not look that muscular!

So we mounted the 70-200 and the extender to make it a 140-400mm and decided to observe the cat.

It was very pretty (and dangerous I am sure). Could not hold the heavy lens with my hand steady as there was a 30 degree temperature difference between the living room and the backyard and was also worried about the thing having rabies or making a dash for me.

Here are some pictures and a video. The kids are now scared of going in the backyard alone. That will pass. The wild cat gracefully made an exit into the forest like area behind our house.

We were happy for the temporary amusement..

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