We had a great time at my sister's house yesterday. Kai and Shen did really well. My sister had a bunch of Brio train stuff and books out that were old toys of my 12-year-old nephew Devon, which kept them busy for quite a while. They played and visited with everyone and behaved beautifully all day. They entertained one another, and had an all around good day. My sister has a big black lab that has taken Kai quite a while to get used to, but he had no problem with her at all yesterday. Shen is also quite wary of the dog (gou), but he held his own with her yesterday too.

This is a Kai hanging out with his cousin Devon, who was very sweet with both the boys yesterday. He's a really great cousin to have...


Here's a picture of Nai-nai (Grandma) helping Shen learn to be brave with dogs...


My sister's centerpiece featured a felt turkey head that I can't remember a Thanksgiving without, though I don't recall it being decked out this well before...


My sister wanted to get a family photo for their Christmas cards while we were there, so Mom and I shot a bunch of pictures of them with all three cameras. I'm not sure how many we took. Oh, the joys of trying to get a nice photo with two teenage boys in it! Still I think this one came out pretty nice. Hopefully she won't mind me putting it up here before she gets a chance to send it out, but I just wanted to share what good looking family I've got. Besides I took it with my camera so technically it's my photo...


Today was a pretty quiet day. I managed not to leave the house. Well, not exactly, I did go for a little walk with the little boys in the afternoon, but other than that I was housebound. Quite nice really. My friend Steve from work came over and helped me with a little trim project that resulted from our recent painting project. His skill level let us finish the project pretty quickly which was really nice. Then we played with some magic stuff. I've hardly touched my magic gear since Kai's been home with us so it was fun to get it out and mess around a bit.

Tina did go to the store to get some groceries today, so it's not like we managed to not spend any money, but she didn't do any "shopping" shopping. The boys were pretty wired, I think because we were having a day of pretty much just "down-time" after a big fun social day yesterday. Tomorrow's big plans are to clean out the garage, we'll see how they do with that - not exactly a kid-centered project.