Cocktail Hour

The more you praise and celebrate your life,

the more there is in life to celebrate.

Oprah Winfrey

Cheers!

Sweet Rolls

Oh, how sweet these rolls were...

baked with love by Jon

and Lisa

Yummy!

The Morning After

The best of all gifts around any Christmas tree:

the presence of a happy family

all wrapped up in each other.
Burton Hillis

An intimate look of our family at breakfast time. (Starting with my Inay Cely visiting all the way from our homeland.) I really enjoyed taking these pictures. It's us in natural light-- with disarray hair and all-- Every Filipino family enjoys a good topsilog.

'Twas the night before Christmas

My loving little cousins gave me the most wonderful surprise, leaving me drawings and a note the night before I left. I love all of them, they are the sweetest and talented kids. Where else can you find a group of children sitting quietly on a table exercising their creativity? Here... they stayed up past two in the morning.
Not only did their drawings surprise me, but the captions they wrote were memorable!

Kyla: My family. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year.

Ariana: Life. Family. Friends. Anime.

Camille: Caring is sharing... But sometimes sharing is fun... But I take pleasure in sharing...

Carlo: Making people's dreams come true is the best joy of life.

Nathan: Have fun with video games and drawing. Video games and online games are fun. Pass the time.

Victor: No turning back now, it's here. Dreams. Keep moving forward. Dreams. Make it possible.

I'm one lucky cousin. I will treasure what they made for me. Thank you Vic-Vic, Nathan, Carlo, Camay, Ariana, and Kyla. I love you all and miss you already. I'm dedicating this post to your parents so they know how amazing all of you are.

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night."

Catch 22

It was fate. I was not meant to take off for home Sunday night. The flight began with an hour late wait at the Gate. What happened next was quite the sequence of events that makes one just go with their instincts...

After waiting, the plane arrived at the Gate. We were instructed to quickly board to avoid missing our connection flights, we did as instructed and promptly. Then the following occurred:

"We're sorry but the previous passengers luggage are still on board and we'll have to wait until their unloaded."

"We've been cleared for take off. (down the runaway we went) Sorry for the wait folks, but there's been a change of wind direction and we have to turn around and use the other runaway."

"Sorry for the wait again folks, but the breaks are frozen and we'll have to wait a little bit longer."

"Folks, luck is not with us tonight. We'll have to turn back to the Gate as mechanics are getting ready to fix the problem."

Forget the connection flights. What now? Four hours have passed. I got up once to ask what my option was? An announcement was made that they do not know how long it will take for the problem to get fixed. They said all the flights out of town were booked until after Christmas. There was no other option but to stay and wait and wait some more.

"For those who want to leave, your luggage cannot go with you and must stay with this flight."

Thank God for cell phones and an husband who looked for available flights out. There were two, with each flight having only one seat left at the cost of $1,300 one-way! Insanity! (It made sense to announce there was no available flights out. It made sense not to have a full flight of people get up in chaos searching for other flights.) So I got up and decided to leave and take my chances. On my way up the front of the plane a passenger stopped to me to say, "Are you really leaving?" "Yes. If you'd like to chance it I know of a couple of flights that may get you home too as oppose to waiting here." She didn't know what to do. She said if she left and there was no other way home, she couldn't possibly wait until after Christmas. If she stayed not knowing how long the wait would be, that would be painful. More so, what if something was truly wrong with the plane. I said, I know... "It's Catch 22".

She looked down at her lap and to both our surprise, realized she was reading "Catch 22"! How spooky is that!? I bid her well and kept walking out hoping that the plane will be fine, hoping that I can get that one seat left, hoping that I will not have to pay a penalty, hoping that my luggage will find its way home, hoping I will get home and get home safely. I did the following day, so did the plane the night before, so did my luggage, and it only cost me a sleepless night.

Hello Family!

Hello family!  Welcomed by my husband, fresh powdered snow and children sledding, I'm now home safe and sound.

More to come...

Ruby Red Shoes

There's no place like home. 

There's no place like home.

The Wizard of Oz

This is for Kate and my other girlfriends who love a pretty pair of shoes.  I saw these many days ago and hoped and hoped some more that my shoe size would magically appear, and it did today.  A little red for the holidays.  I love my ruby red shoes.  

In the wee hours...

Lately I've been wishing that there were more hours in the day to accomplish all the things on my "to do" list this winter, especially this holiday season. I don't think that will come true any time soon. So for now I am left to enjoy the magic of this season one hour at at time.

Late at night in the company of my husband, I've been baking cookie ornaments. "A Charlie Brown Christmas" soundtrack playing in the background, sweet smell of cookies fill the air, the Christmas tree lit--- the tree is ready for its trimmings.

Hmm, I take it back. I guess my wish did come true after all in the wee hours of the morning.
















Featured here are pre-made reindeer cookies (this was hubby's cookie ornament : ), cookie cutters from Williams-Sonoma (Those perfectly decorated cookie ornaments are from their catalog, I'm not that good!), and wooden cookie embosser as featured in Martha Stewart Living magazine. I discovered this at a local kitchen shop who hosted the lady who made this embosser. Apparently, she had a back-log of 800 orders for these after the magazine hit the newsstand. I was on their first waiting list. Lucky me.

Hula Kahiko

I'm back from a long week of work, more work, and hula practices.  My work week ended last night with a hula performance at my kumu (hula teacher) Angie's church's holiday party.  I enjoyed last night's performance with Angie and classmates Beth, Kathy, and Susanna.  More so, I enjoyed getting to know them more and establishing new friendships.

You're probably wondering why I didn't post any pictures?  Well, Patrick either got a little excited or distracted and took video clips instead of pictures.  (The video clips are too large of a file to post.  I tried and tried some more.)

 

Among a few group dances, I danced "Aia la 'O Pele I Hawai'i" accompanied by Angie who performed the mele (chant) and the ipu (single gourd drum).  She was awesome! Hula kahiko as many of you know is my favorite style of hula dancing.  I was ecstatic to have found hula here in the Midwest.  

Hula Kahiko

Kim Taylor Reece Photography

Flatsnoots Christmas Tree

Last night seemed to be the perfect night to venture out in search of the vintage trailer.  Although it was oh so cold, there was no snow in the forecast.  What's with the vintage trailer? Are those Charlie Brown Christmas lights? Who are these guys?  The Flatsnoots?  Gotta love that catchy name. 

Quite frankly, we know very little of this fantastic trailer or the Flatsnoots for that matter.  We were drawn to its aura, the nostalgia of it all... What we can tell you is that for the past ten years at this time of the year they have supplied us with our Christmas tree.  We usually drive around town scoping out the parking lot where this trailer will make its home for the holiday season.  These guys are great.  They travel from up north bringing with them glorious array of fresh affordable pines.  Once our tree has been chosen Patrick joins them for a shot of drink inside the trailer, it never fails every year.  

So here's the tree with the yellow bow, a Coast Douglas-fir--- the tree that found its home with us.  Onward with our other Christmas tradition, making cookie ornaments and cranberry garland!

Because we try to live GREEN here's a link for those of you interested in The Great Debate: Real vs. Artificial Christmas Trees.  (Thanks to Kimberly Crandell)  Our tree will be recycled in the New Year.

Tagged

Mahalo Angie!  Here ya go...

3 Joys

baked goods

cuddling with the Mr.

travel

3 Fears

not being able to enjoy coffee

failure at work

worms

3 Current Obsessions or Collections

photography

blogging

work

3 Surprising Facts

I listen to the sound of the ocean at bedtime

I scream when watching horror movies

I drive like a "Cullen"

I tagg: Betty, Lucia, Jean, and Ting.

December Magic

Sometimes you look out the window 

and witness pure magic.

December is here.  Welcome snowfall.