Christmas Vacation Part 2

The best part of our vacation for me was to see Claire and Noel playing with their cousins. They all get along pretty well despite slight differences in age. I think by the end the older girls were a little tired of having the little ones around, but they did so well being patient with them. Claire and her cousin Adria played together especially well. They palled around the house looking for rooms to play in and things to get into together. It was great.


We made lots of treats in California - which is why I have since started my first real diet ever. Here the cousins and Uncle Dan and I frost Christmas cupcakes. We also made Christmas cookies, had pumpkin and razzleberry pies, persimmon pudding, and cakes with lots of whipped cream, not to mention all the chocolate bars.

Noel loved Mirai and Kylie's dog, Misha. We had a hard time getting Noel to not feed him leftovers.

Another picture of some of the cousins. Here, Adria and Kylie show off their pretty hair that Aunt Hiromi did for them.



We went on a hike Christmas morning. Aaron, his dad, and his brothers, also went on a hike later in the trip. Claire stayed with Hiromi and Noel loved being with us in this backpack that Aaron is carrying.

We took many trips to the park. Noel has mastered slides now.

Mirai and Kylie are dancers and have a nice supply of dance outfits. One day Claire came down and surprised us with this beauty and Kylie brought tap dance shoes to top it all off.

Here are the two peas in a pod - on the trampoline.

I think it was Christmas Eve or the day before, Grant and Rebekah suggested that we go to Naples, CA to see the Christmas lights. It's a nice town of canals where all the houses decorate for the season. It was pretty amazing, and I'm really glad that we got to go. The lights were very well done. People really went all out. There were bands playing Christmas music and people selling hot chocolate along the canals.

Poor Kylie ended up with the stomack flu and had to be taken back to Corona with Hiromi and Aaron. They had kind of a miserable night - not only was Kylie sick, but traffic was bad and Aaron was driving our van which didn't have a speed pass - so they had to stay in the slow lanes all the way back - more than an hours drive.

When Claire and Noel had had enough, they let us know :) Then we went to In N Out for some cheeseburgers and fries on our way home and the smiles were back on. We had a late night, but it was worth it - maybe not so worth it for Aaron and his crew - but I'm glad that we got to go.