Karinas birthday
After many months of Karina's constant chatter about her birthday, finally the big day arrived! She was so happy being four years old and she was ecstatic at the proospect of all her friends coming to her house. Of course, from 7AM she was asking "is the party ready yet"? Sheesh - we had to go through that till 3PM! ;)
We organised rather a large party for her and her friends - 2 tables full of food and drink (one for the kids, one for the parents!), champagne, a cooler full of beer, huge cake, games, prizes, even a bouncy castle in the garden. OTT methinks!!! Still, she's worth it... everyone had a great day even though we were dying tired when everyone left and we tidied up! In the morning when I took her to gymnastics and to buy some "party shoes" it was dull, grey, foggy, raining. By mid day the sky cleared and we had a warm, sunny November day - really perfect, so everyone spent the afternoon in the garden.
Of course she got more presents than she could believe and insisted on tearing into them all as soon as they arrived. When everyone had gone home and she was getting ready for bed she was on a bit of a downer, saying how sad she was it was all finished... almost a little tearful the poor thing :(
Glass pumpkin festival
I know this is a little out of order - apologies for that. I'm as confused as you lot, trust me ;)
Sophies birthday
Remember what I said about a trend starting to appear? Sophie is one of Karinas best friends from day care, and I know her Dad pretty well too - a TD over at ILM - so we were invited to the party 2 weekends ago. They live down in Mill Valley (a posh part of the area!) and unfortunately Nat was working so it was just the three of us... they held a "brunch" party - 11am - 1pm and we all had a great time. The weather was pretty bad - rainy and grey (in fact the whole of our county has a series of micro climates due to the topology of the area so it can be sunny in our town and 10 miles down the road it can be rainy and foggy) - so we spent most of the time indoors but it was still great fun and I met a whole bunch of other ILM guys, which can only be a good thing - its called 'networking' I believe! Their house is up in the hillside pretty much enclosed in the woods, a very tranquil place despite the rain!
Some miscellaneous pictures
Just a few random cool piccies ;)
Yum. Banana makes such a great mess... funny, right Mammy?
Karina decided to make a "wasp" costume for the day care parade!
Kyle in a box. AKA Moving is "fun"
Harvest festival
The day care had a really nice party for the kids in a "harvest festival" vein... though nothing like the ones I remember in the UK as a kid. Anyway it was great fun for them - lots of activities, crafts, games, face painting, songs... and a good excuse for the Dads to leave work early too... woohoo! Of course, I was a little late much to the derision of Karina. When she saw me she literally alerted every single person in the school yard to my prescence... and every head turned and said in unison "Hi Karina's Daddy!". Parents I hadn't yet met who came to Karinas birthday party even told me they already knew who I was due to that little incident. Yes. Not embarassing at all. Honest.
Deenas birthday
Another good friend, another birthday. I'm spotting a trend starting here! Her parents had the good foresight to hold this in the local park - no mess! Very sensible decision on their part. They had a beautiful day for it too...
Spur of the moment drinks
And soon after Halloween we decided that seeing as how our new place is very close to the mall, and the only "bar" in the area (yeah I know - how the hell do I survive this nightmare?!!!) I'd take a walk along to watch the football... stupidly thinking they would have decent satellite feed rather than the bog standard local games we had access to. Nope - I was wrong. Well, its only Applebees. Fortunately the beer is decent so it would have been rude not to hang around for a few ;) The family joined me after the game and we had a nice cocktail or 3 and a relaxing evening out in the autumn sun. Karina was on top posing form!
All Hallows Eve...
...or Halloween as its more commonly known! Halloween couldnt possibly live up to last years celebration, mostly due to the whole Boston / Salem witchcraft trials jobbie. Anyway it was still pretty good. Unfortunately Karina was extremely ill with a horrible flu/chest and ear infection so wasn't on top form at all but still insisted on going out. We went to the local mall where every store was giving away candy. In fact it was "OK" there - it was packed beyond all reasonable safety levels (amazing what a free mini mars bar will do in California) and the stores were pretty stingy - most often a single sweet per child. Which is good for their teeth but I guess we were spoilt last year when people were literally tipping whole bowls into our buckets! (Probably I'm just being selfish as I got lots of goodies last year... when Karina wasnt looking!). So we did the mall then a few houses... most of which I carried Karina around as she really wasn't up to it. We also seemed to be the most generous house in the street juding by the sugar-fueled glee we heard from the kids at getting "a whole bag of candy!!!". Too nice, thats our problem ;-) Oh yeah, while this was going on we were also moving into the new house. Yes, at the same time. We like a challenge.
Can you guess who Karina was this year?
Ilonas birthday
Oh yeah, on top of the below mentioned events we also had several friends birthday parties - 3 to be precise - all within the last 3 weeks too. Talk about expense!!!! First up was Ilonas birthday which had a distinctly Halloween theme as it was very close to "the night". Since we moved house we're actually right down the street from these guys which is great for Karina to be able to go for play dates with only a few minutes walk.
Time for an update at last
PHEW! Thats been a mad mad couple of months. We've been so busy I cant begin to explain it all... a combination of mental work hours in the rush up until our first major milestone which leads towards the completion of our game (which we are about to submit this week - a couple weeks late!), our anniversary, Karinas birthday, Halloween, Kyles birthday this coming Thursday (same day as Thanksgiving), moving house, and some rather more distressing news on the home front. More on these events later... anwyay here we are, just about alive, and looking forward to a good drunken Christmas back in the UK. And we didnt start to think about Christmas presents! Sheesh - roll on '08!
After many months of Karina's constant chatter about her birthday, finally the big day arrived! She was so happy being four years old and she was ecstatic at the proospect of all her friends coming to her house. Of course, from 7AM she was asking "is the party ready yet"? Sheesh - we had to go through that till 3PM! ;)
We organised rather a large party for her and her friends - 2 tables full of food and drink (one for the kids, one for the parents!), champagne, a cooler full of beer, huge cake, games, prizes, even a bouncy castle in the garden. OTT methinks!!! Still, she's worth it... everyone had a great day even though we were dying tired when everyone left and we tidied up! In the morning when I took her to gymnastics and to buy some "party shoes" it was dull, grey, foggy, raining. By mid day the sky cleared and we had a warm, sunny November day - really perfect, so everyone spent the afternoon in the garden.
Of course she got more presents than she could believe and insisted on tearing into them all as soon as they arrived. When everyone had gone home and she was getting ready for bed she was on a bit of a downer, saying how sad she was it was all finished... almost a little tearful the poor thing :(
