Thanksgiving 2013

We had some special visitors this Thanksgiving.  Mama's friend Rumi (a Japanese friend from her year of teaching English in Japan in 1996-97) and her youngest son, Souri, came all the way from Iyo-shi, Japan to spend a few days with us.  It was fun teaching them about Thanksgiving, then cooking and eating a wonderful feast with them. It was also nice taking them to Balboa Park and to Coronado to enjoy the beach in December. Ah, Winter in San Diego!

 

 

Obsessed with football

Not exactly sure where the obsession comes from, but E-man has been completely taken with football this Fall.  He wears his Ohio State helmet and brings his football when he comes with me to Track practice on Wednesday nights (video to come later), so that he can get some playing time on the real football field.  And on November 24th, Ethan went to his first "for real life" football game, the SDSU Aztecs against the Boise State Broncos.  Needless to say, he was thrilled:

Eating cotton candy:

Iz was lucky enough to attend her first real-life football game on December 8th when she and Daddy got last minute tickets to see the Chargers - Giants.  And the Chargers actually won!

It's the little things...

We got a new aerobed recently for our upcoming guests from Japan, and Iz and E wanted to test it out tonight. So we set it up in their room and they went to bed giggling and telling stories. I went in to check on them a little while later, and they'd fallen asleep holding hands. (I turned the light on to take this picture because I just couldn't bear the cuteness.)

Jungle Book Bake Sale

Izzy and her friend Evie are both in the Jungle Choir for McKinley Elementary's production of the Jungle Book this year. Since they put it on free of charge for the public, they need help fundraising for things like costumes and set design, so we baked some yummy goodies, made some lemonade and hot cocoa and set up shop outside Evie's house. The girls were amazing sales people and raised $163 after a couple of hours! 

Halloween 2013

Since football has been the kids' obsession for the past few months, we went with that theme for Halloween.  Iz and E both wanted to be football players (Buckeyes, they requested), so Mama decided to be a Ref (throwing penalty flags is fun!) and Daddy decided to be Coach Tressel (the sweater vest uniform made that one pretty easy :)).   Go Bucks!

Stone Farms

We spent a nice Sunday afternoon with good friends at Stone Farms , where they grow much of the produce used in the Stone restaurants.  There is also a tap room with various Stone beers available, so we took a picnic dinner and enjoyed good beer, good company (including the farm animals), and a really good swing!

McKinley Jog-A-Thon 2013

Izzy has her annual school fundraiser/jog-a-thon on Oct 24th, and she wrote this letter asking for your support. It is put on by the McKinley Parent Teacher Club, and last year they raised over $20k with this event alone. Izzy was one of the top 6 fundraisers in the whole school last year and as her prize she got to go on a limousine ride with the other 5 top student fundraisers and the principal to In-n-Out.

First graders run for 20 minutes, and last year Izzy ran 11 laps in that amount of time so we expect that she'll run at least that many (and hopefully one or two more!). You can either make a flat donation or pledge per lap, and any donation would be much appreciated.

For more information or to make an online donation, please go here: http://mckinley-ptc-jog-a-thon.weebly.com (Be sure to enter Isobel Villanueva and let us know you donated so that she can thank you!) Thank you so much!