2012 Holiday Recap Pt2

The last post was getting too long. Here's Part 2, starting off with our very own Rudolph:

Izzy & Ethan enjoying the fire:


Glamping at El Capitan Canyon near Santa Barbara:

Doing puzzles:

Juggling:


Izzy's note with cheese & crackers for Santa:

and Santa's response:

Iz got the American Girl doll (Rebecca) she'd been dreaming of:

And Ethan got his soft elephant:

New Year's Eve, going through the Memory Jar from 2012:

Ethan's bored of writing Thank You notes already...

2012 Holiday Recap

Feels weird posting anything about the holidays now -- January feels like it didn't even happen, it went by so quickly -- but I don't want to let these special moments with family go undocumented. So here's a slew of photos ranging from the holiday program at St Paul's, to our annual Christmas baking fest, to glamping in Santa Barbara with Momo, Jiji, and Koko (I'll leave the stomach bug that plagued almost all of us out of the story), to Christmas day and then New Year's Eve when we went through our Memory Jar from 2012 and read all of our notes and stories aloud. Ethan's scribbles were probably the most interesting as he interpreted them for us through funny sounds, stories, sometimes dances.


Izzy was one of the top 8 fundraisers in her whole school for the Jogathon (THANK YOU, friends and family!!), so she won a limo ride with the other top fundraisers and Ms Ashton-Gray (the Principal), to In-n-Out. We were so proud of her!


Lemon Madeleines just like the ones from Cafe Calabria:

Winner Winner, Georgia Pork & Peanut Chili Dinner!

This weekend was the SoNo Park Holiday fest and Chilipalooza, which started 16 years ago as a small community chili cookoff but has grown into a large event that now has a restaurant chili cookoff in addition to the community contest. More than half of the proceeds go to McKinley Elementary School, which is Izzy's school. It's a great local event that showcases local artists and restaurants, craft beers, etc. Mama submitted her Pork & Peanut Chili and ended up winning Most Unique and Best Overall chili out of more than 35 entries! We had a great time trying all the different chilis -- both amateur and professional, playing games, talking to neighbors, tasting local beer, etc.

Scraping out the chili pulp:

Community Chili Cook-off:


The rest of the holiday festival - restaurant chili tasting and other fun:


Chili's all gone!