Mina, James, Rosemary (who just turned five), and Louis (who turned three last October) spent more than a week with us this month celebrating "pre-Christmas," including making gingerbread houses and ornaments, decorating the tree, meeting Santa, and hiking in the snow.
The first night of their trip, Mina and James joined us at Dev's company Christmas party, eating dinner underneath the wings of the space shuttle.
(Not the best picture, but it does give you a sense of the shuttle's scale.)
Then we were up early the next morning to take the kids to a Santa breakfast put on by Burbank's Park and Recreation Department at a local mall food court. The kids loved the event, which featured games, crafts, and photos with Santa, but mostly eating huge amounts of candy at 8am.
Over the following week we went to the zoo and the park, played with new Christmas toys, and even got hair cuts for all four kids. We also did tons of holiday crafts and activities, guided by the advent calendar. We also had a few misadventures, including car trouble, a (very minor) fender bender, and vomiting episodes from both Beatrice and Arthur, but we weathered it all just fine.
Mina, James, Dev, and I had a wonderful time together, but the best part was watching the interactions of the four cousins, especially Rosemary and Beatrice, who got along very well despite being extremely different. Louis and Arthur also got in some bonding time, enjoying toy trucks and tools.
At an all-barbecue-duck restaurant in Koreatown
Gillian and her boyfriend Sam also came down for three days in the middle of the week - Gillian hung out with me and Mina while Sam impressed Louis with photos and stories of his life as a wilderness firefighter (Louis was particularly enamored of Sam's firetruck, which looks like a regular firetruck but with huge off-roading tires).
James spent almost the whole week working on building us an absolutely beautiful chicken coop for Lenore and a second chicken we hope to buy soon. The one thing I wanted for Christmas this year was a nice chicken coop and this one is ten times nicer than what I had envisioned (photos to follow when it's 100% done).
Louis spent hours each day patiently helping James build the coop.
Sadly, Dev and James also killed and ate the turkey - I have mixed feelings about the poor turkey's end, but it was certainly a memorable experience for them both.
Watching "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and eating popcorn:
Making gingerbread houses:
Louis is covering his face to conceal illicit candy-eating.
At the L.A. Zoo:
At the park:
On Mina's last full day in town we took a drive to Mt. Pinos, about 60 miles north of Burbank, to let the the kids play in real snow (and to engineer a Christmas photo opportunity). Rosemary and Louis were brave adventurers; meanwhile, after five minutes both of my kids started crying because they were too cold. But we did get some good photos out of it.
Not handling the cold very well.
Dogs in snow.
Beatrice was heartbroken to see her cousins leave - rather melodramatically she declared, "I want my cousins to stay! I want my cousins back! I will never ever see them again!"
But she doesn't need to worry, we're already planning on visiting them in Texas this spring. Until then, though, we miss them too...
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