the rest of 2005

when we finally came up for air after settling into life with two kids, fall was just around the corner.  marley and maddox were frogs for halloween this year -- marley took hopping and croaking very seriously for several weeks to practice for the big day.  we did the usual trip to the pumpkin patch and carving pumpkins (marley insisted on inserting sticks into his pumpkin so it could have arms).  there was a halloween carnival at school and marley was quite proud to show all his friends that he and his brother had the same costume. trick-or-treating was a blast!  marley remembered it from the year before and was all set to gather candy.  by the time we worked our way home he was exhausted!

the first weekend of november we went down to la to celebrate maddox's 100 days as well as noah's 1st birthday!  it was a fun weekend, we spent some time in santa monica with ian and liz (the farmers market is where marley is riding the pony).  after visiting ian and liz, our next stop was joon's parent's house.  it was nice to see everyone and marley really enjoyed seeing his grandparents.  we were also able to fit in some time with some of joon's friends who also live down south.

my grandfather passed away in mid-november.  his health had been poor for some time and his body was finished fighting.  the kids and i went to illinois to be with my mom who had been caring for him.  although the circumstances for the trip were unfortunate, it was still a nice opportunity to see my family there.  adam also came in for the services and it's always great to see my brother!  the first morning we were there it snowed and marley and i were very happy that we had at least one chance to see snow this winter.

we had a trip to florida for thanksgiving planned for some time and so marley, maddox, and i flew from illinois down to my gramma's house a few days ahead of joon rather than fly back to california for two days before heading right back across the country.  joon, dad, adam, and one of adam's friends showed up on thanksgiving and we had a nice relaxing holiday spent splitting our time between the pool and the beach...tough, huh?  i actually got to read a few books, too!  maddox loves the water as much as marley did and had no problem hanging out with us.  marley (who had not been in the water for awhile) really got into kicking his feet and paddling with his arms to get around the pool with a noodle.  it was lots of fun to watch and really made us realize he needed to be back in swimming lessons as he just digs the water.   it was stone crab season while we were there so we got some crabs for dinner one night and marley had tons of fun helping his grandpa with them.  we also went on a swamp-buggy ride to do the obligitory gator sightseeing which is where the picture of the four of us is from (as well as the grass/water/sky picture).  we always have fun down there and i would love to make this an annual trip but its always a tricky time of year to get a couple of extras days off.

and then along came christmas!  we were lucky enough to see santa TWO times this year -- a feat marley is amazingly impressed with given what a busy man santa is.  we saw him at the oakland zoo and then again on the train of lights.  the train of lights is a pretty cool train ride at night through a canyon and the whole train is a quarter of a mile long and all decked out in lights.  it's a very popular thing, so much so that we bought our tickets back in september! my mom came out to celebrate with us which was a lot of fun.  we spent christmas eve at the oakland zoo (we go there a lot) and that is marley and his grandma riding the tiger coaster.  then we came home and decorated cookies for santa and some for us, too.  as it got closer to bedtime marley's doubts about the whole santa thing increased.  he wasn't so sure santa was going to come at all.  we assured him as best as we could, but he went to bed feeling like it wasn't going to happen.  then in the wee hours of the morning, he comes running in to say that 'santa really DID come.  and he brought me a stegosaurus!'  the rest of the day pretty much went from there.  lots of presents and lots of fun.  marley got a set of kapla blocks that i think joon enjoys more than marley at this point (thats them in the picture below, the tower all the way to the ceiling) and he also got a really cool wooden marble run. this year the holidays were so much fun with both marley and maddox around and we are looking forward to watching them grow and discover life!