everyone gets dressed up for christmas.  even the oakland zoo.  tonight, we went to go check it out with matthew, jeffrey, claire, and bella.

the whole place was lit up with colorful lights.  it was pretty, but we weren’t all that into them.  there was a choreographed light show that we stopped to watch, but it only held our attention for about 2 minutes.  we didn’t get to see any animals because they were all sleeping.  we did enjoy running through the zoo in the pitch blackness of night, though.  it was amazing that none of us got separated from the group or tripped on a branch (or on our own feet) and splatted flat on our faces.

claire and bella had been to zoo lights before, and they said that the thing to do is the train ride.  it does sound like a cool way to see the whole zoo all dressed up in lights.  but by the time we made our way over to the train depot, the line was so long that we decided to skip it.  so off to dinner we went.

we had fun hanging out with our friends, but we weren’t wowed by the zoo lights.  good thing we had a groupon for discounted admission!  next time, we will beat the crowd and head straight to the train ride as soon as we arrive. 🙂

there are always a lot of parties around this time of year.  for us, three of them were today.  luckily, they were all at different times, so we didn’t have to miss out — we went to all three of them, back to back to back.

BLOCK PARTY

first thing this morning, we went to the annual holiday block party in cousin zoey’s cul de sac.  we kicked off the festivities with a kids-only secret santa gift exchange. everyone gathered around, we took turns sitting in the chair, opening our gifts from our secret santa, then calling up the person that we got a gift for.  sienna i had never heard of secret santa before today, but now we know that it means that you get awesome presents from people you don’t know.  we are totally down with that.

there was also a jumpy house, a potluck lunch, a cookie contest, and a white elephant gift exchange for the grown ups (but mommy and daddy opted out of that because we had to leave early).  sienna and i spent most of the day in the jumpy house.  we were playing dodgeball in there.  actually, i was the only one playing, so i ended up just throwing the ball at people.  we were having so much fun bouncing around that we barely ate anything for lunch.  after the cookie contest, it was time to head out to our next party.  but guess what.  i could only find one of my shoes!  we searched the entire area, including inside, around, and under the jumpy house, but my shoe was nowhere to be found.  i had to ride my bike home wearing one shoe.  you know it’s a good party when you leave with only one shoe!  (my shoe was later found in someone’s garage.)

MARTIAL ARTS AWARDS CEREMONY

when we got home, i changed into my gi, and we headed out to the awards ceremony for my martial arts studio.  apparently, this is an annual event.  i thought it was going to boring, but it was a full on party with a photo booth and food and everything.  sienna and i were pretty hungry because we didn’t eat much at the block party potluck, so we ate more than our share of the fruit, cheese, and sandwiches at the awards party.  i even had a cup of hot cocoa. 🙂

for the first part of the program, each class performed a demo.  (cbeck out the video of the junior cubs demo — that’s my class.)  after that, there was an awards ceremony and a slideshow.  i didn’t win any awards, and i wasn’t in the slideshow.  i was sad that i didn’t get a perfect attendance award.  i haven’t missed a single class, but i didn’t qualify for the award because i didn’t start martial arts until mid-january.  the award was only given to students who had perfect attendance for the entire calendar year.  oh well.  next year.

LUMINARIES

as soon as the award ceremony was over, we headed over to uncle ritchie and auntie margaret’s house.  they host an annual holiday party on the night of the vista san ramon luminaries light show.  that’s when their neighborhood gets decked out with holiday lights and thousands of people come from miles around to see them.  even santa comes to visit.

there is always a humongous spread of delicious food at this party, but we had been eating all day long.  literally, all day.  but that didn’t stop us from eating more.  the food was so good that we couldn’t help ourselves.  after everyone stuffed themselves silly, it was time to walk around the neighborhood and see the christmas lights.  for most of our friends, that’s the highlight of the night.  but not for us.  for sienna, it’s the craft table.  and for me, it’s definitely the gift exchange.  (sienna did go see the lights, though.  thanks for taking her out auntie mimi.  mommy, daddy, and i were too wimpy to brave the cold!)

throughout the evening, i kept asking when it was going to be time to pick our gift.  finally, the time came.  we had actually forgotten to buy a gift for the exchange this year, so i brought the gift that i got from my secret santa earlier in the day.  when it was my turn to pick, i made sure to pick the gift that i brought.  luckily, it didn’t get stolen.  whew!  nobody understands how that could have been fun for me, but it totally was.  i was so excited to bring home the same gift that i brought. 😛  sienna felt a little left out because she didn’t get to pick a present.  i think she’s going to want to participate in the gift exchange next year.

hopefully, these three events won’t all fall on the same day next year.  we had a really great day, but we are exhausted.  it’s not easy being this popular. 😉

during thanksgiving weekend, before we even recovered from food coma, we starting talking about getting our christmas tree.  we went to a tree farm and cut down our own tree last year, but the trees weren’t as big as we had hoped for.  we figured it was because we waited too long.  this year, we wanted to get there right when they opened (thanksgiving weekend) before all the big trees were gone.  it was supposed to become a family tradition for us, just like mommy and daddy had with their families when they were kids.  but last year, sienna and i weren’t all that into cutting down our tree.  i mean, it was alright, but we wouldn’t have been sad not to go again this year.  so daddy vetoed our trip to the tree farm.  so that meant we were getting a christmas tree from a tree lot this year?  or would we just get a really nice fake tree?  and there was the start of the debate.

mommy loves real christmas trees.  (actually, she just really hates fake trees.)  growing up, her family had a real tree every year.  and there’s something so satisfying about finding the perfect tree that’s not too big, not too small, has just the right amount of fullness, and has great symmetry.  and they smell like christmas.

pulling an artificial tree out of a box just seems so… unauthentic.  but choosing faux over fir would save so much time.  it would save so much money.  it would be so much neater.  mommy didn’t care about those things.  but the argument that won her over was that we wouldn’t be hurting a tree.

so daddy ordered a really fancy artificial tree online.  it arrived the other day, and sienna and i helped him set it up.  mommy could not bear to participate in the unboxing and assembly of our fake tree, but when we were done she helped me and sienna decorate it.  we think it looks beautiful, especially with our lighted sharks ornaments that were delivered today.  (thanks auntie barbara!)

so there it is.  faux won out over fir.  mommy’s heart still hurts at the thought of us growing up in a house with a fake christmas tree, but she’ll get over it soon.  she’s gonna have to, because as expensive as this tree was, daddy going to make sure we use it for a long time!

remember auntie helen?  she’s not really our auntie, but she treats us like family.  she’s actually uncle henry’s real aunt and auntie serene’s real great aunt.  and what a coincidence because we know uncle henry and auntie serene completely separately from each other.

anyway, when we went to auntie helen’s 90th birthday party, i was only 2 months old.  i was one of just a few other babies there.  today was her 95th birthday party, and look how many kids there are now!  these are her great grand nieces and nephews.  how cool, huh? 🙂

we only stayed at auntie’s birthday dinner for about an hour because mommy and daddy already had other dinner plans.  so we drove home from oakland, cousin caitlyn came over to hang out with us, and then mommy and daddy headed right back out.  to oakland.  they were headed to meet auntie mimi for a fancy dinner to celebrate mommy’s 15 year work anniversary.  i don’t know how that’s possible because she is only 32 years old.  (she keeps telling my that she’s 42 but i know she’s just kidding.)

dinner was at commis.  mommy, daddy, and auntie mimi enjoyed all 13 courses and were especially charmed by the sommelier.  of the 12 one-starred restaurants that mommy has been to on michelin’s current (2015) list, commis is one of mommy’s favorites.  daddy also enjoyed his dinner and was pleasantly surprised not to leave the restaurant feeling hungry.  but maybe that had something to do with the fact that it was his second dinner.

sienna has always had a unique sense of style.  remember this mismatched outfit?  or when she wore these stripes and stripes and stripes?  or when she accessorized her outfit with my safety goggles?  there are plenty of others just as “unique” as those that did not get documented.

well, how ’bout this one?  the flower lei shrug.  sienna actually called it a “flower backpack”.  she wore it all day, including during nap time.

i dunno if this fashion trend will catch on, but if it does, i hope they make them in green.  that’s my favorite color these days.

don’t look at the text exchange over on the right until i tell you, okay?  no cheating.

i passed the orange pufferfish level today!  i rang the bell, got a new card, and now, i’m a red catfish!  it has taken me 3-4 months to get through these past few levels, but i hear that the red level is going to be tough for me; my teacher said that i am at a disadvantage because i am so small.  one of the passing skills is to be able to swim an entire lap (with one change of direction) doing the freestyle stroke with side breathing.  i can swim, but i can’t make it all the way across the pool.  i need to build up my endurance!

did i mention that today is mommy’s birthday?  it was totally low key.  we didn’t do anything special to celebrate — no cake, no candles.  daddy did make oyako for dinner, though, and i guess that’s special because that’s one of mommy’s favorites.  also, uncle randy had two boxes of chocolate covered fruit delivered to our house.  those were really special and deeelicious!  (we ate most of them for our afternoon snack and polished off the rest after dinner.)

when mommy puts me to bed at night, we often have really deep conversations.  we talk about things like gender identification, homelessness, or whatever happens to be on my mind that day.  tonight, we got on the topic of cousins.  mommy told me about all of her cousins, and it got me to thinking.  why do i only have ONE cousin? 🙁  mommy explained that i will get more cousins when auntie barbara and uncle randy have kids.  so we texted auntie barbara.

okay, now you can read the text exchange we had with her over on the right.

i wonder why auntie barbara threw up.  i hope she feels better soon.

one of the things about thanksgiving that we are most thankful for is the 4-day weekend.  the time away from school and work gives us a chance to recover from food coma and also spend time with friends and family.

sierra and sofia usually come up from socal to visit family in the bay area, so holiday weekends are a great chance to catch up with them.  they came over to visit today, and so did logan and mason.  us big kids mostly played wii.  creating miis for everyone was just as much (if not more) fun than actually playing games.  sienna and sofia did girly things (i dunno what — i wasn’t paying attention), and mason mostly did his own thing.  mason often does his own thing — like, he didn’t join us for the photo because he didn’t feel like it. 😛

we had a great time hanging out.  it was especially nice for sienna to have girls to play with instead of just tagging along with me and my buddies like she usually does.  she misses sofia already!  sierra and sofia aren’t going to be around for christmas this year, so it’s gonna be awhile until our next TWT (tanaka/wolbert/tai) post-holiday get together.

starting transitional kindergarten was an adjustment for me: new school, new schedule, new friends, new rules, etc.  but i’m handling it well.  luckily for me, i have mommy to help me remember my healthy snack and tote bag every day, homework folder and poetry binder on mondays, share item on tuesdays, red school shirt on wednesdays, and library book on fridays.  whew.

one of the changes that came along with TK was mandatory homework.  i was worried about it at first.  i asked mommy if it was going to be too hard for me.  mommy told me that i was going to love it, because i love to learn.  and she was right.  my regular homework is actually really fun.  each day, in addition to reading for 15 minutes, i have one activity to complete.  here are some examples from this month’s homework sheet:

• tell what you think it would have been like to travel on the mayflower.
• write a friend’s phone number.
• guess how long it will take for an ice cube to melt.  time it to check your guess.
• make up and tell a story about five little pilgrims and a turkey.
• make popcorn.  glue the kernels onto paper to write the letters in your name.

fun stuff, right?  so when i heard that i was going to have homework to do in hawaii (since i was skipping 6 days of school), i wasn’t worried at all.  well lemme tell you… it SUCKED.  i wrote about it in my oahu vacation recap, but it’s worth repeating.  this is what i had to do for homework while we were in hawaii.

• write upper and lower case letters and numbers every day
• draw and caption a detailed picture of what i did each day
• draw pictures of 16 items that start with the letters A, B, C, D
• create simple patterns using objects that i saw each day
• identify items in groups of 1-12
• find things that start with each of the letters of my name
• read for 15 minutes and and re-tell the stories
• do jumping jacks and sprints

and that was on top of my regular homework sheet.  it was awful.  my penmanship is terrible to begin with, and i was rushing to finish so i could go play, so my letters and numbers just got messier and messier.  mommy kept making me erase them and write them over again.  it took FOREVER.  homework brought me to tears every day, and mommy was so frustrated that she almost cried, too.  mommy said that if this is what it is going to be like, one of us if not going to survive the next 14 years of homework.

mommy already told me that finishing high school is non-negotiable.  you know what that means?  that means that college is optional.  i have already decided that i am definitely not going to college.  who the heck would sign up to do more homework when they don’t have to?

at school, sienna and i both did projects showing what we are thankful for this thanksgiving.  i am thankful for yummy food like salad and ranch (dressing).  sienna is thankful for mommy and daddy a nd me and gung-gung, and koda.  after i saw what sienna is thankful for, i burst into tears.  i felt terrible for not saying that i was thankful for my family — i had picked food that i was thankful for because that’s why all my friends at school were doing.  don’t worry, i made sure to tell mommy that i was thankful for her.

anyway, since we had been recovering from our trip all week, we weren’t thinking about thanksgiving.  apparently, nobody else was, either.  grandma and grandma were planning to have a small dinner with uncle randy.  uncle jamie and auntie alyssa joked about going out for hot pot.  it seemed that we were on our own for thanksgiving.  but the thing is, daddy won a turkey in that golf tournament that he played in last week.  and daddy loves turkey with all the fixin’s, so he asked mommy to make a traditional thanksgiving dinner.  for him.  so, since mommy was going to be making dinner anyway, we made everyone come over to help us eat all the food.  plus, mommy thought it was pretty lame that everyone was going to spend the holiday separately.

it was all very last-minute, but our thanksgiving dinner came together nicely — especially when it came to dessert.  we had six pies!  mommy made two, uncle randy brought two, and grandpa brought two.  apparently, nobody talks to each other.  or maybe everyone just really likes pie.

we had a wonderful thanksgiving.  daddy got his delicious turkey with gravy, stuffing, and green bean casserole.  sienna and i got to play with cousin zoey.  and the most important thing is that we all got to spend the holiday together with our family.  happy thanksgiving!

you know how people say they need vacations from their vacations?  we do.  but we didn’t get one.  today was our first day back from vaca and our calendar was fully booked.

first, daddy left the house early in the morning to play in a golf tournament with grandpa and uncle randy.  sienna had a make-up hula class this morning but we missed it because we overslept.  (we are still on hawaii time.)  then, i had karate class.  kai-kai met us there, so all went out to eat afterwards, then they came over to hang out all afternoon.  and then, sienna and i went to movie night at the dojo while mommy went out for a girls’ night with auntie judy.  whew!

movie night was awesome.  we played games, ate pizza, and watched the lego movie.  we definitely did not waste any time getting back into our regular busy routine.  we are exhausted!