I planned a little birthday surprise for Aaron. I set up a dinner with his nieces Emily (who is at Tufts) and Molly (who is at Brown). I told him only that I wanted to make a reservation for dinner on his birthday and that he shouldn’t make any plans. It wasn’t until the day of, when I picked him up after work that I let him know we were having dinner with Emily and Molly, in Providence. We went to a restaurant called Chez Pascal, a french inspired bistro and had a great meal. It was a treat for both of us to have the time to talk and catch up with Molly and Emily. The evening was a great success. We hated to bring them back to their respective schools, but we’ll definitely do dinner again soon.

Here the album of our Christmas photos. We spent the morning at home, opening our gifts from each other. Then in the early afternoon we went over to Amy and Joe’s. My parents and James, Chrissy and Alice were there as well. We spent the rest of the day opening gifts, assembling or playing with toys and eatting of course. Santa gave Justin a light up stegosaurus lawn ornament (photo below) – which took quite a bit of assembly but was very well received and there were of course plenty of Legos to put together as well. We had a happy holiday and especially enjoyed being with the kids.

Hi all. Happy New Year! Hope 2012 finds you all well. I am still wishing for some snow, but otherwise can’t complain. This is just a quick post of some pre-holiday photos. Aaron and I are still coming back to reality after a mostly lazy week of vacation at home. About a month back Aaron and I finally made the jump to new iphones – yay! And the camera is way better, so I find myself taking more photos with my phone. These are just a few random ones taken in the weeks leading up to Christmas, with a couple I have borrowed from my brothers mixed in there too. We had a busy, but great December and enjoyed lots of time with family. I will post our holiday photos soon. The above is a watercolor of a nutcracker, done by Justin in his art class. I think it’s fantastic.

For Thanksgiving we made our usual trip down to Washington DC to spend it with Aaron’s family. Travel was actually remarkably easy and smooth. We had great visit with the whole family, except for Molly who is studying abroad in Israel this semester. Her presence was definitely missed. We continued our tradition of making center pieces out of dough – although this year we just did two large cornucopias, and no animals. Emily and I made one of the cornucopias and Aaron and Lisa made the other one, which was entertaining to watch – they are siblings after all. Rita made the decorations and worked on the fine details of the cornucopias – as pictured above. We had a great time catching up with everyone and of course eating all the delicious food. Here’s a small album of photos from our visit, mostly of the cornucopia project.

In November the whole family traveled down to Connecticut to celebrate Alice’s first birthday. The party was held at Chrissy’s grandmother’s house – who just happens to live in the same town as our grandmother (talk about coincidences) – so we went down a couple of days early to visit with Nonnie and Becki. As you might imagine, it was a casual affair, but Alice was surrounded by lots of family from from both sides all there to wish her a happy first birthday. I’m told Chrissy spent days ahead of the party baking the cake, which as you can see in the photo above was no grocery store sheet cake. I think maybe Amy and Chrissy should open a bakery together specializing in kid’s birthday cakes! Happy Birthday Alice!

We hope everyone had a great Halloween. We thought you might enjoy seeing some of our nieces and nephews in costume. Lia and Ella are still a bit young for trick or treating, but their parents got them into the Halloween spirit by dressing them up as pea pods. Alice dressed up as a duck. According to James, she is close to walking and it’s tough to get her to sit still these days, even for a quick photo. Justin went as a red hot rod. Amy and Joe bought a car kit, but then spent the weeks leading up to Halloween working on Justin’s specified modifications – adding windows, a trunk, a hood and supercharger, etc. And Brian went as a Tyrannosaurus Rex – which seems like a good match given how fast, strong and vocal he is as of late. Hope you all enjoyed the holiday.

In September Brian turned two. Amy and Joe had a small family cookout/party at their house to celebrate. Amy made one of her fantastic and creative birthday desserts – this time it was cookie monster cupcakes, complete with blue coconut fur. They were pretty impressive AND delicious. We spent the afternoon outside on the swing set, drawing on chalk rock, chasing frogs – following Brian’s lead…needless to say, it was a fun day.

At the end of August, with a hurricane en route, Amy and Joe lucked out with an afternoon of good weather and managed to squeeze in an outdoor birthday party for Justin. Complete with a train theme, a huge inflatable bouncy house, a piñata and of course cake and ice cream, Justin along with friends and family celebrated his day. If you can believe it, the bouncy house was rated for adults so Aaron and I gave it a try before the kids showed up. It was a lot of fun and surprisingly a serious aerobic workout as you are moving all the time in an attempt to stay on your feet. The rain started just as the party was winding down. It was pretty spot on timing.

(It’s been a busy week and I haven’t had the time to go through the Oslo photos yet, so we’re taking another break from the vacation pictures)

In early June, our niece Emily graduated from high school. It was a scorcher of a day, but she looked beautiful and Aaron and I watched with love and pride along side the rest of the family as she received her diploma. It’s hard to believe the girl I first got to know when she was three years old is going off to Tufts in the fall (yup that’s our second niece to pick a New England college and that’s just fine with us). The photo above is of Emily and her good friend Caroline on graduation day. We had a nice weekend with the family and it was great to all be together. You’ll see from the album, a simple car ride to dinner can turn into a fun time with this crew. Congrats to Emily. We couldn’t be more proud…