Ho! Ho! Ho!

As promised, here's the video of Siena's dance recital!

I spent last week doing exactly what I wanted to do - Christmas stuff with the family. On Monday, Luis and I took the kids to the downtown Macy's (formerly Meier & Frank) to see Santa. Luis and I both have memories of going to the downtown Meier & Frank to see Santa as kids. It was the best place to go to see Santa as they had the big decorations, the best Santa, and the train. The train has been dismantled but the decor and Santa are still good.
Meeting the reindeer is exciting of course.

There was a bit of a line since the kids of Portland had to get in at the last minute to get their Christmas wishes logged with the big man. The kids found a nice spot on the floor though.

No blog pictures of the kids with Mr. Claus but we sprung for the $15 5x7 and the fancy light up frame. They had the better angle anyway. Y'all will just have to come by if you want to see it.

The train may be dismantled but a portion of it is still on display. The kids loved it!

Tuesday I spent shopping with Yaya. The mall of course was a zoo but we had a good time. Wednesday the kids and I constructed this work of gingerbread art:

Thursday night we took the kids to see the light display at PIR to get them revved up for Christmas, as if they need it.

On the afternoon of Christmas eve, we went to my aunt Mary Lou to celebrate the holidays with the family. Since all of us cousins aren't often in the same place at the same time (especially now that Shelley lives in NC), we took a picture to memorialize the moment. From top left: Jay B, Travis, me, Chelsey (with new baby Calvin), Heidi. From bottom left: Shelley and Amanda.

The 3 siblings: Mary Lou, dad (Ron), and Joanne. No, dad isn't wearing some weird musical note hat. It only looks that way.

Our family with the Grandparents. I think it made the grandparents happy that Mason and Siena so happily and willingly crawled up on their laps. We thought it was sweet too.

At one point, Heidi took to the piano to play Jingle Bells and the kids got their boogie on.

Little Berren with baby Calvin.

After the big family gathering, we went to Yaya and Papa Ron's house for dinner and presents. Mason LOVED his Lego airport. He spent most of Christmas day putting it together - at least 5 hours and he did it himself!

Uh oh. Dad and I forgot to talk about who was going to get mom her Kinkade calendar this year.

Mason playing with some new toys!

Siena feeding her new Baby Alive. Yup, Baby Alive eats and poops.

Luis doing his "Baby Alive" dance...

The proud mama...

Singing Hark the Herald Angels Sing Peanuts style out in the front yard.

Christmas morning - early Christmas morning. Excitement is in the air. Coffee is in the mugs, not that Siena needed any. Mason got a Star Wars space ship! He watched Star Wars for the first time this week and is becoming a big fan.

Siena got an awesome new blanket from Lucinda and Deb.

After presents, I had some baking to do so we'd have plenty of time for Luis' Tur-Duck-Hen to bake in the oven. Mason was a big helper with the cookies.

The finished product. See, I cook.

Siena is having fun with her new karaoke microphone. She's ready for American Idol.

The Cruz family (sans Jose and Gloria who are in Puerto Rico) came over for Christmas dinner along with my folks. Tristyn also had fun with Siena's microphone. Siena's got some competition!

A group of adults + Tur-Duck-Hen + a Wii = Rock Time! At least until Luis broke the foot pedal on his drums. Doh!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas as well. This one was defintely one of my favorites!

Potpourri

Happy Christmas week. I for one have the next 2 weeks off from work and after the crazy week I had last week, it is more than welcome.

Last Sunday was Siena's winter dance recital. She did wonderfully! It's amazing the change and improvement over just 6 months. She knew all of the steps by heart and has good coordination and balance now. She is so unlike her mother...

Luis took a video of the dance but he's at work at the moment and I'm not sure where he uploaded it so video is pending.

Here's Siena's fan club!
The dancing snow princess!
Immediately after Siena's recital, I hopped a plane to San Francisco for 2 days of CPE. That isn't much time to see and appreciate a city so I can't say as I did much. The Ritz Carlton minibar prices still never cease to amaze me. I don't know that I could ever bring myself to pay $5 for a Snickers bar...

I find this sign that I knew a certain someone would like. When I showed him, his response was "I'm a street!"

Yesterday I drove up to Bellevue, WA to attend my grade school friend Jill's memorial service. Sad occasion, yes, but that doesn't mean I don't notice the occasional quirky things around me.

This is my view while sipping a coffee in a Starbucks.

Yes, that is another Starbucks in the same strip mall. Only in the Seattle area.

There were a few of my childhood friends and their families at the service yesterday. It was a little strange - bittersweet I suppose. It was good to see them but not exactly a reunion-like occasion. I am glad I went though. My friends from back then make up a lot of who I am today and I very much appreciate them and the fun we had back then. It also made me realize how much I appreciate the friends and family I have today. Yup, I had a lot of driving time to ponder.

You Take the Good, You Take the Bad...

Thanks to getting the 10Q filed last week, I was able to take Friday off from work. Course, the main reason I needed to take Friday off from work was that I hit our time off limit so it was a take it or lose it situation. I wasn't about to squander the opportunity though. Mason had school and Siena had her day with Yaya so Luis and I went to see the new Harry Potter movie. It was great. Course, now we have to wait 6 months for the second installment.

Yesterday my dad and I went down to Corvallis to watch Travis and the Timberwolves in the 6A state championship football game. It was a very rainy day but the rain held off pretty well during the game. Here's a shot of the stadium from the upper seats out of the rain where we watched the first half of the game.

Here come the Wolves!
Unfortunately the game didn't go as we all had hoped. 4 Tualatin turnovers in the first half pretty much did them in. Here's some concerned spectators - dad, Joanne, and Amanda.

Doug is trying to hold out some hope. It's pretty tough after an undefeated season to see them struggle, especially when we all knew they were a better team than they were playing.

Here's Travis warming up after halftime. They scored 2 TD's in the third quarter to bring the score within 11. That got the Tualatin crowd excited. Unfortunately Aloha tightened up on defense and pulled away for the win.

Here's the Tualatin team after the loss. It was sad to see them lose but amazing that they were able to get that far. It was still an amazingly successful season and as bummed as I know they are today, they should still feel very proud.

Gloria and Jose and going to Puerto Rico next week for the Holidays. As such, they gave the kids their presents a few days ago and they are now sitting under the tree. This is brutal for poor Siena who wants to bad to open that gift. It's as though it's taunting her. Every day she asks "now can I open my present" to which I have to respond, "no, it's not Christmas yet".

I've recently discovered my new favorite thing. Glee. I LOVE everything about this show from the story, the songs, and the crazy cheerleader coach. Here's the cast performing "Don't Stop Believing"...I could watch this over and over. Yup, I am a Gleek.

As good as that is, I also came across this disaster last week. Tonya Harding, Katarina Witt, George Wendt, Pam Anderson, are you kidding me? This is like the B list of 90's celebrities. And they're singing! Apparently it was some sort of Norwegian commercial. All I can say is Uff Duh.

Siena has her dance recital tonight after which I have to hop on a plane to San Francisco for CPE early next week. Of course we'll have an update on the recital but I wasn't sure when I'd be able to update the blog being out of town so consider this blog to be continued...

Most Amazing Football Weekend EVER!

It was a rare weekend in the land of Kris' fandom. Generally the teams I follow and root for, well, don't win. Case in point, Seahawks and Mariners. If there was a picture in the dictionary for perennial mediocrity, these 2 franchises would be it. The Blazers, I don't even want to talk about them today with their 6 game losing streak. Therefore, it was with nervousness and trepedation that I turned on the Oregonlive play by play as my alma mater, Tualatin High School, took the field Friday night against Jesuit. Jesuit is the local high school I despise most but lets not get into that.

I graduated Tualatin High more than a few moons ago as part of the school's first graduating class. We attended Tigard High our sophomore year of HS at which time our class was divided in half with half staying at Tigard and the other half attending the new Tualatin High School. There were no seniors during our junior year and, as such, we didn't win much of anything. By senior year, we had our feet under us but since it was a new school, we lacked some of the tradition and excitement of an establised school. Regardless, that's my school and I've always rooted for them. This is especially the case this year with my youngest cousin Travis being a part of the team. I was a senior in high school was a senior in high school when Travis was born but I digress.

So there I was with the computer pulled up periodically pausing my rented Season 1 of Glee to check in on the status of the game. Luis was working and the kids were in bed so it was just me and the cat. There were mere minutes to go as I saw that Tualatin scored a big TD to get the lead. Then they got a big sack on Jesuit's QB, causing a fumble which Tualatin recovered. They knelt the ball and scored a ticket to the State Championship game next Saturday in Corvallis. We'll be there!

Here's some pictures of Travis throughout this season, courtesy of some nice soul on Facebook. The fan club will be there in force next weekend!

Need I also mention that the Oregon Ducks are playing for their first National Championship? Are you kidding me?!? The same Ducks I've been watching and cheering for over the last 20+ years?!? Yippeeeee!!!

When we weren't watching or thinking about football, we mostly hung out at home. It was a nice weather weekend so the kids and I went for a walk yesterday though the neighborhood. Today we went to a roller skating birthday party. It's the first time Mason and Siena had ever skated. Siena picked it up pretty quick, helped I think by the dance lessions she's taken teaching her some balance and coordiation. Mason improved as he continued but it was challenging. Fun party though. With the close nit community of parents and kids and Mason's school, we are invited to a number of b-day parties and events and feel very fortunate to have been able to make some good friends and have these opportunities.

Happy 10Q filing week to all and to all a good night.

Thanks.

Seasons greetings all. It was a quiet but nice Thanksgiving for the Cruz clan. After baking a couple of apple pies, we headed up to Yaya and Papa Ron's to celebrate Thanksgiving with them and Annette and Walt. Here's an action shot of Yaya making gravy.
Oh yeah!

The official turkey cutter in action. Note the sleeves rolled up for the job.

The kids are ready!

After dinner Papa Ron, Mason, and I went out to the shop to look at cars and listen to the juke box. Mason has a number of favorite songs on Papa Ron's juke box - Who Put the Bomp, Runaround Sue, Rock Around the Clock...the kid likes his oldies!

Turns out Mason also likes to open up the hood of the tractor.

And smell the gasoline.

He also demonstrated skills in filling the go-cart tires up with air.

Papa Ron has made some good progress in filling out the family tree on my mom's side of the family, going back to the 1300's on both of her parent's sides of the family. I was excited to see that we were relatives of the Griswold's!

On Friday the kids and I went to see Tangled, which turned out to be a good movie for all of us! We ate popcorn and candy.

Saturday night I had dinner with my good friends Sarah and Laura (aka Bacon and Lettuce). The sandwich is growing with kids getting added to the mix over the years. It's always good to see them.

In a bit of sad news this week, my friend Jill from grade school passed away after battling cancer for the last 7 years. I had known Jill since kindergarten. Her mom was one of our Brownie leaders. We were part of the same group of friends all through grade school where we had countless slumber parties and played at each other's houses.

Jill and I got to be especially close in 6th grade after she had been "dumped" by the so proclaimed popular kids. I suppose I was the next tier down from that group (I never worried much about such things) and she turned to me a bit at that time for friendship. She was so funny and so much fun to be around that I was more than happy to hang around with her more and we became close friends during that year.

During junior high and high school we drifted apart a bit and went in some different circles of friends. I will always consider her a friend and grateful to have known her.