Well, what can I say? The holidays were a bit crazy. We had our first guests arrive on Decmber 19th, and it was pretty much nonstop until January 2. I'm grounded — no airline flights — until the baby is born, so I can stay healthy and avoid antibiotics. Therefore, all family had to come to us this year. It was our first time playing host for the holidays — another adult landmark!
I have SO many photos from this time that I'm going to divide them into different posts. I'm starting with family holiday photos, and I'll follow up with the belly update and a new ultrasound of Bean! Sometime after that, you'll get a post with artistic photos from the holidays.
With family visiting, Kevin and I realized that we should decorate, so we invested in some lights and we bought a tiny tree ... that is, a rosemary bush in a pine-tree shape ... and decorated it with mini glass balls, silvery icicles, and Star Wars ornaments:
Here I am putting the final touch on the tree: a petite disco ball:
Our first guests to arrive were my dad and his wife, Hannah. We visited the UCLA sculpture garden, the Getty villa, and the Huntington Library and Gardens during their stay. Sadly, I constantly forgot the camera until the last activity!
Here's Dad in the conservatory:
And Hannah at the Japanese garden:
Kevin took a quick trip up north to the Bay Area to see his mom, her partner Sue, and his sister and brother-in-law during this time. He got to take the Prius for that trip, but I got to keep the camera!
Dad and Hannah made it a priority to take advantage of L.A.'s culinary diversity and indulge in cuisine that is difficult to find in Canada. That meant TWO kinds of Mexican — Oaxacan at Guelaguetza and more mainstream Mexican at Lares. Hannah was happy to have a real margarita.
We had a couple of presents to open:
All in all, a lovely visit. Dad and Hannah were also thrilled to be able to soak up some SoCal winter sunshine!
Our second wave of family arrived during Dad and Hannah's visit: the Simpsons clan. My grandparents came from South San Francisco, and my uncle and cousins flew in from the D.C. area. First of all, we had to gather at King's Hawaiian bakery and restaurant and reconnect with our Hawaii roots by eating sai min, fried rice, and linguisa. You should have seen the contentment radiating off my grandmother as she ate her sai min!
On Christmas morning, we gathered at Mom's to open presents:
We then headed down to Santa Monica to take a pre-feast walk. I think this photo clearly demonstrates how far L.A. is from a white Christmas. Also, I think my cousins look like the epitome of cool, detached teenagers here:
We returned to Mom's for Christmas dinner. Mom and Mark did the heavy lifting of cooking, serving, and cleaning up:
Everyone overate, as is required of these events. Everything was delicious, and the fabulous dinner was capped off by Mom's very special German chocolate cake. Grandpa regaled us with stories about experimenting with alcohol during his days in the Navy. HILARIOUS. Here we are, too stuffed to move. Check out Mom and Mark's beautiful table:
Here's their gorgeous tree (a bit more elegant and elaborate than ours). Mark does the honors every year. I guess it takes a nice Jewish boy to do a Christmas tree up right!
I should mention our Christmas eve drama. Our bathroom faucet was dripping, which according to Dad, meant we needed to change the washers — two rings of rubber an inch in diameter. It was a repair that should take five minutes. To perform it, however, requires turning off the water. Usually, one simply turns off the valve below the sink, but in our case the previous owners had broken off the hot water knob. This meant that Dad had to go down and turn off the main valve to the hot water in both bathrooms to our unit and the one below us.
Dad turned the knob and ... the stem snapped with the hot water on enough to make the repair impossible, but off enough to rule out hot showers. So we needed to find a plumber ... on Christmas eve.
Our HOA president found a couple of guys to come out for the repair. They, of course, had to shut off the water to the whole building. Moreover, it ended up taking about seven hours instead of three. In the middle of this, the wind kicked up ... and blew out the power for a few blocks. So we found ourselves on Christmas eve with no power and no water. It was just like being back in Senegal!
Kevin and I eventually fled to Mom's house for warmth, light, and working showers. Our poor plumbers finally got the job done, even though they had to finish by flashlight. Mind you, the washers we had bought were the wrong type and size, so we didn't even manage to do the original repair that night! I'm happy to announce, however, that two weeks later our bathroom faucet no longer leaks.
To resume....
On the 27th, we hosted our friends from Tucson for a night: Denise, her husband Marcel, and their son Rene Tingaara. Tingaara is now walking, which made us realize just how much childproofing we will have to do for our child. We suggested that Denise hire him out as a consultant!
Look at that devastatingly cute smile!
Can you spot the TWO babies in this photo?
Tinga was really into our lamp, for some reason. This is the photo we call "baby poledancer":
Tinga and his entourage left, Kevin and I did a whirlwind laundry load, and the Millers arrived! Kevin's dad, Scott, and his girlfriend, Sujata, stayed at a hotel, while Kevin's sister, Erica, and her husband, Kraig, moved into L'Auberge Wyoming Ave.
The stockings were ... um, arranged ... by the (gas) fire[place] with care:
Kevin took everyone on a tour of UCLA. Here are Scott and Sujata with the elegant Royce Hall in the background:
And here are Erica and Kraig, looking both romantic and scholarly in this amazing photo by Kevin:
Then it was back to the Huntington Library and Garden. Here we are at the Japanese Garden, always a Miller family favorite:
Kevin with the Dr. Seuss trees at the Children's Garden:
Et moi, also in the Children's Garden. We can't wait to take Bean here. I mean, okay, Bean has already been, but s/he wasn't able to take full advantage. For friends with kids, we highly recommend the Children's Garden, which is full of all kinds of hands-on, sensory experiences.
We held the meeting of the in-laws at Tanino in Westwood for a fantastic dinner. So much good eating!
Erica had the brilliant idea of putting the mirrored ceiling to artistic use:
The next day we headed out along the PCH to Malibu and the beautiful South Indian-style Hindu temple there:
Kraig was particularly interested in going to the Griffith Park Observatory. Westside traffic-phobes that we are, neither Kevin nor I had ever been.
We had to take the cheesy L.A.-couple photo in front of the Hollywood sign:
We discovered that the park and observatory are very much worth the drive, however! Griffith Park is a rare treasure in L.A.: a park that is large enough to seem like wilderness, accessible to the full cross-section of the city's diverse population. I wish we had more places like this.
L.A. was empty during the holidays. Kevin and I couldn't believe how quickly we could traverse the city along the eerily uncongested freeways. It seemed, though, that all the Angelenos who stayed home decided to converge on Griffith Park!
We took in the planetarium show and checked out the exhibits, including a dramatic Tesla coil (I'll include that shot with the artistic photos). Sadly, it was too cloudy to take advantage of the helioscope. (Pretty unexpected in L.A.)
We did benefit from excellent visibility:
The Millers left on January 2nd. It took us a while to adjust to an empty house again. It was a bit exhausting to host everyone, but we thoroughly enjoyed the visits, and by taking on this new role as holiday hosts, we felt in a way that we had made another step towards assuming our responsibilities as parents.
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1 comment:
Your parents look wonderful!
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