Vrinda agreed to watch the boys so Stuart and I could attend the Medicine holiday party last Saturday.  The boys were so excited with the plan and they asked if we could pick them up late.  We dropped them off at 5:30pm, and shortly after we headed over to Hayes Mansion.  It was drizzling a bit and we forgot to bring umbrella, but fortunately we managed to walk in without getting too wet.  Theresa and Martin arrived just right after us.  This was a big party with close to 300 people.  Everybody at the party dressed up nicely and I almost did not recognize some people from my medicine department.  After some appetizers and wine, we were let into the dining hall.  Theresa, Martin and us sat with the three other pharmacists and their spouses to fill up the table.  Throughout the evening, we enjoyed the buffet and drinks while watching the game the hosts were playing with the crowd.  By 9pm, the dancing began.  We did not join the dance as we were getting ready to leave.  Before we did, our group gathered to take some pictures at the Christmas tree first.  The evening was nice and it was definitely fun to get dressed up.

      When we arrived at the Gopals, Rohan, Logan and Connor had so much fun that they were not ready to go.  So we sat down with Nanda and Vrinda to chat for awhile before we finally headed home for a very late night.  

     Wednesday was the final holiday dinner for work, and this was with my own medicine department.  The dinner was late at Black Angus at 6:45pm, so I had time to come home to get dinner for the family first.  After I arrived at the restaurant, our Chief wanted everyone to mingle and he randomly arranged us to sit in the booths.  I moved over to sit with a couple of the doctors who were chatty and who I know the most, so our booth had a good time chatting away.  During the evening, our entire group played a game; everyone wrote a couple clues of ourselves and the group tried to guess the person.  In between we also did our Secret Santa exchange and later took a big group picture.  We enjoyed the dinner meal with some nice wine as well.  I ended up staying until I was one of the last to leave.  This fun evening concluded all the holiday dinners with my new workplace.

    Logan wrote a letter to Santa a week ago, but we were waiting on Connor to write his.  Connor kept saying that he did not know what to write, but yesterday he quickly put together a nice letter with illustration.  Now the letters are ready and they will be mailed out very soon.

     I have been going out without the family several times lately.  It was my pharmacy holiday party last Wednesday, and it was at the Maggiano’s.  We had one of the private room, and there were > 60 of us there.  It was nice to chatting with some of them, and I think I did not even get to talk with more than half of the people there.  We had a photo booth and we did a White Elephant gift exchange.  This was the biggest White Elephant I ever tried and it was definitely challenging to keep track of the opened gifts.  Everyone had a fun and enjoyable evening.  I managed to be home to say goodnight to the boys.

    Last Sunday, Kathy, Robyn, Julie, Theresa, Thuy and I all gathered to celebrate Michelle’s upcoming birthday at a restaurant in Pruneyard.  I picked up Kathy first and we met up at the restaurant.  It had been a long time since I had seen many of them, so it was great catching up with everyone.  During the evening we enjoyed some cocktails, wine and trying many tasty dishes.  It was good time seeing them and the hours went by quickly.  By the time I came home, the boys had gone to bed.

    I joined the nephrology group for their holiday party at an Italian restaurant in Los Gatos last night.  Nephrology had decided not to join in with the Kaiser Subspecialty party and instead to have their own, therefore, it was an intimate small group at the restaurant, only 13 of us.  I really did not know the doctors or medical assistants well, but the other pharmacist, Lan, and I felt that we should attend.  Many of us enjoyed some cocktails, and all had a nice full meal.  Some of docs were quite wild and interesting, and the conversation was quite funny at times.  The evening turned from initially uncomfortable to a pleasant evening.  It was good to get to know many of them better too.  The doctors split the bills to treat all of us.  By the time I came home it was late, but I was instructed to go into the kids rooms to give the boys a kiss while they slept.

     The boys always pick to have pizza, and sometimes Stuart might throw in a movie night when I am out, so the boys look forward to me going out.  There will be one more night next week with my own medicine moduler on Wednesday.  I think the boys might get tired of pizza soon, Stuart is.

     I had taken Friday off to lead Connor’s art lesson in the morning and Logan’s art lesson in the afternoon.  I have a partner mom in each class, and so I had decided on the portions I would lead prior to Friday.  Logan unfortunately came down with a cold on Thursday, having a sore throat, headache, nausea and a fever.  Because of the fever, Logan was out of school on both Thursday and Friday as well.  I was disappointed that Logan would not be in the art lesson, but the plan had been made so the lesson would proceed.  On Friday morning, it was a bit hectic as I had decided to take Connor directly to school and skip CDC while Logan was being at home.  Then I received a message from my partner mom telling me that she had car trouble and might not make it to Logan’s lesson. 

   Connor and I rushed to school finally and made it on time.  After saying goodbye to Connor, the mom and I went to the cafeteria to set up.  We did not really discuss how the project would go yet, so we quickly made plan and set up.  Then the teacher led the class to the cafeteria and our lesson began.  This was probably the least preparation I had put in for any lessons in the past, but it went fine.  We talked to the kids about colors as another element of art; we reviewed primary vs secondary colors, and learned new terms complementary and analogous colors, and warm vs cool colors.  Next I demonstrated to them the hands on project using “wet on wet” technique on a coffee filters.  We had few kids coming up to the paint table at a time.  They used droppers to add primary colors onto the wet filters to see how the colors diffused together.  Interestingly some kids never used a dropper and some had harder time controlling the size of the droplets.  The kids always loved playing with colors and enjoyed seeing the artwork they made. 

     After the lesson and after cleaning up, I went to see Logan’s teacher to consider postponing the afternoon lesson as my partner would not be there.  The teacher totally agreed with that and the lesson was now moved to January.  I ended up having a few free hours, and Logan and I hung together.  We knitted for sometimes and played some games.  After lunch, I was tired and wanted a nap; Logan was feeling well enough that he did not care to nap so he read a comic instead.  It was a relaxing afternoon for me, then I went to pick up Connor directly after school which was something I had not done since I returned to working full time.

     Gloria, Dora and I were excited to watch the revival season (4 episodes) that was premiered the day after Thanksgiving.  We watched the first one as soon as we finished breakfast on Friday and it was as good as we anticipated.  Within two days, we could not help but finished all the episodes.  The boys joined us part way through the third one and they looked forward to watch the last one with us after dinner.  For this special last episode, all five of us bundled up in the coach to enjoy while Stuart was more than happy to stay in his office.  Now the whole season was over, we wish there were more to watch.

      Friday morning after the big Thanksgiving feast and before the rain storm, we went hiking at the nearby mountain.  It was a beautiful day and we climbed up to the mining building as our turning point.  We brought the walkie talkies with us and we had fun using them to play games as well as for communicating.  The boys did well walking and all of us were happy with the steps we earned from this hike.