Christmas Eve

Winter break has finally arrived! We managed to finish all of our shopping by the 23rd, while at the same time fitting in a number of fun family events. Last weekend, Everett had his last music class of the year, which we all were able to attend. This was followed by a pair of birthday parties for two of Tony's buddies, on Saturday and Sunday. I gave my last final exam on Monday, and then it was just a matter of grading and shopping.

Most of both were complete by Thursday evening, which we spent with Pappy and Alisa as they awaited the late-night arrival of Alisa's younger daughter and family from Israel. This proved to be the first of several nights of overindulgence: a big meal at The Kettle in Manhattan Beach, followed by dessert at Cold Stone.

On Friday, we rode the trains into downtown, where we introduced the boys to ice skating, outdoors in Pershing Square. While not anyone's definition of a quintessential ice-skating experience--certainly not Rockefeller Center nor some frozen pond up in Saskatchewan--it was still a lot of fun and really a very nice setting. We learned that Everett is a few years away from embracing the ice, but Tony is eager for more. And with the Culver City Ice Arena not too far away, we'll have to dust off the old skates from Wisconsin which are buried somewhere deep in the garage. Both before and after the skating on Friday, we walked a bit around downtown, treating ourselves to food at both Grand Central Market and Little Tokyo and checking out the children's books at the main library.

Then yesterday, Saturday, I finished my shopping in the morning, before we all packed up the family truckster for Diamond Bar. There we enjoyed our first Christmas celebration of the season with Grammo and Woody, Lisa and Jon, and Kelly and Lucas. After some rather excited gift opening, and a little trivia challenge--inspired by one of the gifts--we sat down to yet another delicious meal. This included multiple courses of food, wine, and (especially for Tony) cookies and fudge! Talk about an iron stomach. We all were expecting a "Bailey almond rocha" moment, but Tony just kept packing the sugar-filled treats away. It is perhaps telling, though, that his appetite for the sweet stuff has been unusually subdued today.

For those keeping tabs of Santa's progress, as of 7 PM California time, his sleigh was last sighted by NORAD leaving Peru and turning north for the USA! I hope you all have been good this year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Wait, There's More

No more news to report, but I did get a couple of new items posted. The first is the photograph at right, which is the collection of crochet items that the women of the extended Hoereth family created during the Thanksgiving weekend. Audrey dropped them off today at Stitches From the Heart in Santa Monica, a charity which benefits premature babies nationwide. Nice work, ladies!

The second new item to share today is the dressed-up video clip shown below, which I took back in October when the Chicago Hoereths were in town. It's rather amazing how you can transform a 15-second, sound-free clip taken on a tiny digital camera into something a little more entertaining, thanks to the magic of Apple's iMovie software. Of course, having four awfully cute little boys to work with makes the job of the "director" quite a bit easier. The picture quality isn't all that great, but I think you'll all enjoy. (And if any of you have any tips on how I might improve the picture quality by tweaking the export settings in iMovie, let me know!)

Update, Part II: December

December is only half over, but it sure feels like a whole month has already passed. It certainly got started off on the right foot, with Cal winning its fifth Big Game over Stanford in a row! Knock on wood, but Everett must be some kind of wonderful good-luck charm, for Cal began this winning streak over the Cardinal just eight days after young Rett was born in Santa Monica. Go Bears!

While the end of Tony's soccer season and the Bears' football season has lightened up our weekend schedules just a bit, it's still been busy as we gear up for the Christmas break. Tony's cub-scout pack and school have both had a number of year-end events. Two weekends ago, we met up with Grammo and Woody, plus a few members from Tony's pack, to visit the recently reopened observatory at Griffith Park. Being a Sunday evening, we weren't up for keeping the boys there into the night in order to look through the telescope, but it was a gorgeous clear day that allowed us to enjoy not just the beautifully refurbished and expanded building but also some great city views as the sun set over the Pacific. The following weekend (i.e., last weekend) included both the annual winter faire at Tony's Ocean Charter School, and the birthday party of one of Everett's friends at the Petersen Auto Museum near Hancock Park. That was Saturday. Then on Sunday Tony rode with his cub scouts in the Westchester Holiday Parade.

Add a bunch of El Segundo Blue meetings for Audrey, and the usual end-of-the-semester grading and exam preparation for me--plus my urban-studies field trip to downtown L.A.--and we've been busy indeed. But the schedule is starting to open up with the semester winding down. In addition to Christmas shopping and final exam grading, I should find time to brew at least one more batch of beer--likely a Belgian "tripel"--before 2006 comes to a close. We're also very much looking forward to visiting more with Pappy and Aliza, who are back in the USA for a while. Then, comes another journey out to Diamond Bar, a visit from Santa (we hope!), and our usual year-end trip up to San Jose.

Happy Holidays!!

Update, Part I: November

I was going well there for a while, but the busy fall schedule finally caught up to me, and before I knew it, two whole months went by without an entry. Here's what has been going on with the Morris clan.

The passage of Halloween means the arrival of November, and thus the transition from Tony's birthday month to Everett's. It was another multi-part celebration, beginning with a small party at Grammo's house in Diamond Bar, on the eve of a surprise (to the boys) early-morning trip to a "Day Out with Thomas" the Tank Engine, at the railroad museum in Perris. That's Perris, California, of course, which we had to explain to Tony is not the city where they have that famous tower--although I do think I might have caught a glimpse of a water tower or two while we were out there. Despite the early morning chill, it proved to be a very fun day, with rides on several trains, including historic L.A. trolleys, a special caboose train, and the main attraction: a ride behind Thomas himself. We then finished the day with a scenic drive home via southern Orange County, including a stop for an early dinner at a nice little neighborhood brewpub and pizza place in Ladera Ranch.

Everett's birthday celebration continued the following week with both a family gift celebration on the 15th itself and a small bounce-house party here at the house with his new school friends. It was another really fun weekend, and the party on Sunday helped ease the pain of Cal's depressing loss to USC the day before. Yes, it must be November: time to start dreaming of the Rose Bowl "next year" all over again.

The celebrating continued the following week with Thanksgiving. Rather than traveling this year, we stayed close to home as the extended Hoereth family gathered at Uncle Scott's in Long Beach. We were missing three of the cousins and their families, but otherwise the entire gang was able to make it--not only to the traditional feast on Thursday, but to another big meal on Friday here in Westchester. I tried my new (used) water-smoker for the first time, breaking it in with a basic Carolina-style pulled pork recipe. I woke up early to get the fire started, but it proved to be not quite early enough as the meat wasn't served until well after dark--and even then, it wasn't cooked as completely as it could have been, winding up as more of a chopped pork than a true pulled pork. But it still tasted quite good, and I was able to keep the patient masses tame through generous pre-dinner servings of grilled chicken, Audrey's Italian stuffed onions, a variety of homebrews, and mojitos. We then finished the weekend celebration with another dinner gathering at my grandparents' home in Riverside, which is just up the Interstate from Perris--again, the 909, not the city with the tower.

Part II of the update to come: December.