Can’t believe another eventful month has passed us and that we’re now embarking on yet another new year. Here are the highlights for December 2008:
- We visit Pearl Harbor exhibit at local airport
- We celebrated my mom’s birthday
- I took Cathy out to see the musical Wicked for her birthday
- Lilah’s recital
- Christmas train show
- Kids get together to open gifts
- We visit Griffith Park
Pearl Harbor Memorial Exhibit
We began this month with a visit to the Pearl Harbor exhibit at our local airport. The kids enjoyed the experience as they got a chance to see vintage aircraft up close and even board one of the planes. In addition to that there were all kinds of artifacts like soldier’s helmets, guns of all shapes and sizes, medals of honor, and plenty of pictures documenting this moment in history. We also learned about a special program at the airport where kids and adults get a chance to work as “mechanics” on the different planes that are being restored. Basically, there are different projects going on at all time within the airport hangars and if you’re signed up you can participate in placing panels on planes, screwing in nuts and bolts, and a variety of other assignments. Lilah and Luke expressed an interested, but we’ll see if that interest is still there in another half dozen years or so as you have to be 12 or 13 to sign up.
Lilah Recital
Lilah performed three songs at her recital: “Oh Christmas Tree,” “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,” and “Silent Night.” She did well but stumbled on a few parts which got her a little upset. We found the reason for her displeasure later as she let us know that the music stand was too far away from the keyboard making the notes on the sheet music very difficult to read — thus she was forced to pause at certain moments to discern the notes. In any case, any disappointment she may have felt soon melted away when she received her first trophy. She was very happy and we were happy for her. Luke, always the competitive one, reminded me that he has three trophies and Lilah only had one. I thanked him for the information and told him to keep that one under wraps for now ;-).
Christmas Train Show
In December, Metrolink sponsors a decorated Christmas Train that stops at our train station a few weekends out of the month and performs a live Christmas show with Santa, elves, reindeer, etc.. This was the first year we got a chance to see the show and for the most part we enjoyed it. The local fire men also get involved as they collected gift donations from parents and also allowed our kids to climb all over their trucks and take pictures, something Luke is very fond of doing.
Christmas
On Christmas Eve we got together to open gifts at my sister’s house. There weren’t really any big gifts the kids absolutely wanted this year. Well, kind of. Lilah did say she wanted a Yorkie dog after she had one fall asleep in her arms at the pet store. Also in Lilah’s Christmas list was a wish for Joya’s left eye to get better so that she doesn’t have to get it removed. That was a nice hear-warming item to see on her list. Lilah also surprised me later when she presented me with a plate of goodies for Santa to eat when he visited our house. Not only did she have a cookie on there for Santa, but also about a dozen baby carrots as well. When I asked her if the carrots were for Santa too, she said the carrots weren’t for Santa but for the reindeer so that they could have the energy they needed for their trip.
Luke pretty much fixated on one thing for Christmas: Pokemon cards (which Lilah also wanted). In addition to that, Luke expressed interest in a Hot Wheels racetrack and very late in the game he mentioned that a Nintendo DS would also be cool to have but luckily he didn’t really press for that one so we skipped that gift this year.
In the end, we didn’t give the kids every single little thing they wanted, but Lilah and Luke were still very happy with what they received which included:
- Plenty of Pokemon cards
- An old-style duck shooting game
- Perfection – another retro game you all might remember
- Webkinz dolls which the kids are still very fascinated by — Luke got a bat which he called Fangs and Lilah got a Kitty which she named Kaylee
- One of those manequin doll heads that you can apply make up to or practice your hair braiding techniques on
Well, that’s it for this month. Hope all of you had a Merry Christmas yourself and that this New Year brings you what you need as well as some wonderful unexpected surprises along the way!
P.S. Here’s a link to the annual recap letter Cathy sends out every year just in case you missed it.