The day before my birthday, we all went out to shop me a present; I always love walking around the mall with the family.  I was lucky to share the date with Martin Luther King this year, so all of us had a day off to hang with me.  I initially wanted to eat at Fogo, but I made a mistake not making a reservation, so we had to move to plan B, Korean food, instead.  Since the rain actually stopped on that day, we could take a short walk around Santana Row first.  We had not had Korean food for awhile, we all enjoyed the meal, stuffed ourselves with the yummy meats and side dishes.  In the evening, we had a chocolate cake to wrap up a nice long weekend for me.

    We love a 3 day weekend.  We started it with a lunch date with Theresa and Martin; they wanted to take me out for my birthday.  Theresa chose a Burmese place for us to try and the food was yummy.  The four of us had a good time catching up; I really enjoyed this gathering.

    Michelle invited us over to have a hotpot dinner on Saturday night; it was perfect for a rainy stormy night.  It had been a few months since the kids saw each other, so it took them a little time before warming and start playing with each other again.  The four adults could sit and chat among us for hours; it was a great night.  The only one got left out was Buddy as we had to leave him at home due to the rain; he really missed the wonderful backyard of the Kaos.

    Logan had quite a bit of homework, so he tried to spread them out throughout the 3 days and balance out with some game time.  So for Sunday, we took it easy at home.  Lately Stuart and I have started playing a golf game on the Switch; this was our way to play golf without going out there.  It is a fun game.

     The day after we returned from our trip, the boys had their eye appointments.  Connor had his eye exam recently, and he just needed a pair of eyeglasses made in case when he sits in the back of a big classroom.  Logan had a visit with his regular eye doctor and fortunately his vision is stable, thus no change to his prescription and he did not need a new pair of glasses after all.

     For the evening, Lisa and John invited us over for a dinner.  The four of us had a good time catching up with each other while the boys had fun playing with Cole.  We also could spend some time with their dog and 2 of their cats, and we could watch part of the Warriors game and watched them winning this great game.

    On New Year eve, we spent a whole day indoor due to the weather.  We played one of my favorite board games Everdell with the boys and we played some video games together too.  The boys also spent some time with their friends online playing games later in the evening.  In the past we often struggled to stay awake to midnight, but we had no such issue in the recent years.  The four of us finally gathered together to watch a movie at 10pm, Top Gun Maverick.  We stopped for the count down to cheer for the new year.  The movie was great, so we returned back to it shortly after.  We did not go to sleep until past 1am.  Happy New Year to all!

     We made a point to leave early on 12/26 for our drive this year, so we arrived at the grandparent’s house early in the afternoon and enjoyed opening presents on Boxing Day with them.  For the next couple of days, we spent some quality time with the grandparents, catching up, playing chess and domino.

    The Liangs were traveling to southern California, and we managed to meet up with them on their last day.  We made a plan to see each other at a dim sum restaurant.  We had not seen Yvonne, Allen, Katie and Kevin for a long time, so it was great catching up with them and letting the cousins bonding with each other for a bit.  We took some group pictures before we said goodbye and headed back home to grandparents and Buddy. 

    For this trip, we rented a house which was quite roomy, and we had a comfortable stay there.  We invited the grandparents over for an afternoon.  Stuart brought his new toy Ocular on this trip, so he could do a show and tell to share the experience with them.  We think the grandparents had a good time.  We then headed over to Venice Beach for a stroll and enjoyed some ice cream.  In the evening, the grandparents took us out for a wonderful dinner to wrap up our short trip.

   This was a very smooth and lovely trip and we loved seeing everyone again.

     It was a busy December for Logan this year especially during the last week of school for finals.  So all of us were very happy as soon as school was out on 12/23.  We went to Santana Row on Friday to enjoy the beautiful weather and have a good lunch.  We continued our annual tradition to watch Christmas movies in the evenings leading to Christmas. On 12/24, I had a zoom gathering with my sisters.  Connor made gingerbread cookies for us, and the boys also built a gingerbread house for fun. 

     The biggest excitement was still Christmas morning.  The boys and Buddy too enjoyed the process of gift opening.  We started with the stockings and then moved over to our tree.  We were all lucky to receive many nice things.  Buddy was not thrilled with the rainy Christmas day but he did enjoy the new elk bone that he received. Then for hours after, the boys played some video games, Stuart played with his new toy while I watched some holiday TV shows and prepping for dinner too.  I made a prime rib roast, mashed potatoes and chocolate cream pie this year.  After dinner we then packed and went to bed earlier for our upcoming short trip.  Here is a video and photo album that I put together from this year’s festivities.