Ok, so I need to drop the 5lbs from the holidays, on top of the 10lbs I gained this past year. I'm beating myself about gaining weight again since when I first lost 50 lbs a couple years ago. It was quite a dramatic lose. Now I'm finding myself trying things on and very disappointed in myself. So I'll be hitting up WW soon to get that 15+lbs off before we hit HI in April.

In addition to the usual sweets we had amazing homemade tamales and enchiladas for Christmas, courtesy of the Rodriguez familia in Lakewood. Two rounds of dim sum with the Chan clan and my immediate family. It didn't help that we found a "Beard Papa's" shop in Monterey Park, we had to get a dozen to share with the M/S families. Ohh was it so good with a cup of fresh ground coffee courtesy of the Ellen Degeneres Show(K and her mom were on the show for 12 days of Christmas, lucky for them they got a Melitta coffeemaker with weather). To top off the M family visit, we got some chorizo omlette burritos. Yummy!!!

Had a great time with the G Clan in San Diego(horror movie, great food, bonding time, gift xchange) and even had some great quality time with cousins and friends transitioning into new phases of their lives.

Unfortunately J didn't get as much time writing as he was hoping while we were in SoCA. Today he is writing like crazy. He's got about one week for Upenn and two weeks for Stanford. Please pray that I don't go crazy over the next couple of weeks. At least one of us has to stay sane!

As for the tv that died in the bathroom, well for Christmas J got a tv tuner/cable card for our media machine. Our media machine has become our pure entertainment machine from music, pictures, videos(more of me from Mt Fuji at 6 months old), dvds, games, and now tv! Woah too extreme, can't handle it.

Gifts were quite interesting this year since we spent many gatherings where children were the main focus. The scariest so far is the Dora Explorer that moved around even if you weren't playing with it. The noisiest has to go to the Toy Story Star Command Blaster gun with no volume control. With a 3 year old blasting away I had no choice but to hide her "favorite toy." Oh no, I think her mom will have to figure out how to disarm her after she finds the toy again. Thanks J for putting packing tape over the speaker of the blaster to soften the blasting. My favorite part of this holiday was playing Santa by preparing all tlhe toys that had to be "delivered" to the little ones where we were staying. It was quite fun and gave me some insights on what little kids like for Christmas. Just the cuteness factor alone in their reaction on Christmas morning was something to be treasured.

Returning to SoCA? Well we looked at some model homes near J&J's house, you really do get ALOT more for your money compared to the value of our house. While the space was nice, we feel somehow that we're more urbanites and living in MP is just temporary. Yes we miss living in HK and now we're wondering where we'll be next. Oh and it didn't help that when we left SJC it was around 55 and arriving in SD it was 75.

Our own gift exchange was very simple, I knitted a scarf for J and we both agreed to sponsor a child in Sri Lanka as a perpetual Christmas gift. She lives in Colombo, a region that was hit by the Boxing Day Tsunami. She's 4 years old and her birthday is in October. Hopefully someday we'll get a chance to meet her. Right now we're trying to figure out what pictures to send her and what to write in our first letter to her.

Pictures to follow shortly!