And the kids are giddy with excitement!The day after Thanksgiving my lovely wife left to go shopping in the wee hours of the morning. By 9 a.m., Cari had already completed 3/4ths of all our Christmas shopping! When she got home, we made all the kids go to their rooms as we unloaded the car and moved all the gifts into our bedroom.It takes a few hours, but after we've sorted it all out and wrapped oodles of presents, we called the kids upstairs. It's their job to carry the gifts down to the tree. This is probably their most favorite chore of the whole year...
A whole caravan makes their way down the stairs, with Nalani and Malia trying to lift one together...
In Kekoa's case, one of his presents is almost as big as he is...
Then David takes it upon himself to organize them under the tree...
That all happened a few days ago. Tonight was stocking night.
Every Christmas, we all decorate our own stockings with glitter glue. Here is everyone moments before the madness begins...
Then we all got down to work...
It's an old Wisconsin German tradition for Saint Nick to fill your stockings on December 6th. Cari's from Green Bay, Wisconsin, of course, so this this was the norm for her and everyone she knew. I grew up in Hawaii, but my mother is from Manitowoc, Wisconsin and she brought this practice with her to Hawaii.Of course, we were the only people in Hawaii that I ever knew to open our stockings on December 6th. But hey, what's wrong with being unique?Our house is now all set for December 6th...
We've adapted the tradition (and the story) a bit. In our home, Santa comes during the night of December 5th to pick up the kids' Christmas lists - leaves a few treats in the stockings - then return on Christmas eve to fulfill some of those wishes.Hey, it works for us!
Okay, maybe not on fire, but the rocks are awfully red!
The Valley of Fire is a state park about 50 miles outside of Las Vegas. It gets its name because of the incredibly vibrant red sandstone formations. We took a drive out that way over Thanksgiving weekend with Cari's parents who are visiting from Wisconsin...
It's hard to get a sense of the magnitude of the valley or the redness of the stone, so here's the same pose taken from afar...
These sandstone formations are 150 million years old and have been weathered by water and wind over the centuries. This makes for the most unusual cracks, crevices and hollowed out tunnels. The kids had an absolute blast climbing in and out of them...
There even was a great cavern that you entered by crawling through a small hole in the sandstone from below...
Needless to say, I didn't quite fit through the hole!And backing up the camera a bit, you can see what a crawl it really is...
The kids and their Grandpa climbed all over the place...
With David demonstrating his climbing ability...
Of course, our littlest one, Malia, is too fearless to be left behind by her brother David...
And if Malia was brave enough, her older sister Nalani was going to join her...
The red sandstone formations are really quite incredible...
Of course, sandstone is just sand that was compressed into stone over millions of years. With enough wind and rain, that stone can easily turn back into sand...
It was like a beach out there! Everyone came home with their shoes filled with sand.There are also some terrific white sandstone formations, some of which create deep crevices and valleys of their own...
If you look closely at the middle of the picture above, you'll see Cari, her Dad and five of our six kids halfway down the trail to the bottom of this little valley.Here they are zoomed in...
It may not look like a climb from the pictures, but it really is a bit of a trek. Here we are at the bottom...
While the trail is quite steep, thankfully it's very easy and steps have been carved in to much of the sandstone. And of course Malia just had to climb it herself...
Well, at least halfway up. Guess who had to pick her up and carry her the rest of the way up this very steep trail? My back is still sore!
Nalani is the fifth of our six children. She has three tough older brothers who love playing with lightsabers and jumping on top of each other.She has an older sister who last wore a dress during the Clinton administration.And yet somehow, some way, Nalani has become the girliest girl you'll ever meet.When everyone in her class dressed up for Halloween, most kids dressed as witches, superheroes or other kinds of scary creatures.Well, as you can see in the picture below, almost everyone...
You can always count on Nalani to dress up as a princess or an angel.What a wonderfully girly girl!Of course, Halloween means Happy Birthday to Malia...
Our littlest girl is another year older and had a grand old time opening her presents...
But when we looked closely at the pictures we took from that day, we noticed an unusual commonality to Malia's expressions...
Look a bit more closely...
Yes, for some strange reason, Malia thinks she's Michael Jordan...
She just kept sticking her tongue out!
There's probably some deeply rooted psychological reason why, but after six kids we've stopped trying to figure those things out.Our five younger children had a great time walking through the neighborhood collecting candy...
But the sweetest treat of all for David was a Red Sox championship...
Neither Cari nor I are particularly big fans of baseball, but David became fascinated when he was sitting in the waiting area of a barbershop a few years ago. The Red Sox were on the TV and he was hooked - he quickly became a loyal citizen of Red Sox nation.I went to college in the Boston area and lived through the Bill "You-Mean-We're-Supposed-To-Pick-Up-Ground-Balls?" Buckner affair. I saw first hand the birthright of every Red Sox fan to approach the brink of greatness only to be disappointed time and again.The strange thing is that David only knows the Red Sox as champions. First 2004, then 2007. In the four years he's been old enough to understand the game and be a fan, his team has two World Series victories. I can almost hear David now. Curse? What curse? And what's a Bambino?
...and it's wearing us out.
As parents of six kids, we rarely venture out for an evening on the town, and it's even more infrequent that we head down to the famous Las Vegas Strip.
Normally when you live in Las Vegas, you really never venture near the Strip except for one of three reasons: (a) friends or family members are visiting and have a strong desire to pay our taxes for us (aka losing money at the tables), (b) because someone has given you tickets to a show (although my wife prefers that we only go to the ones in which everyone is fully clothed), or (c) to attend a charity dinner.Lately, all three of those things have been dragging us down to the Strip.
Given the nature of my work, we are invited to attend a lot of charity dinners by friends and colleagues who buy tables for these events and have a few seats leftover. The summer's scorching heat is gone and wealthy families are back in town - so now is the season for fundraising events.
And this being Las Vegas, there really are an awful lot of fundraising dinners and auctions. Here's an event last night at the Bellagio...
While most events are simply business attire, I've had to wear a tuxedo for three of the last 4 weekends. But as a guy, at least there's nothing unusual about wearing the same penguin suit to each black tie event. My wife, like all the ladies who attend these things, has to find something new to wear.
Of course, Cari makes everything she wears look lovely...
So we had two dinners to attend this week on the Strip.
I also made a trek to the Strip this week was to see an old friend from Tufts who was staying at Paris Las Vegas...
That's me with John Reblando, an old college buddy. He's having his first child in a few months while I have six kids. That must be the reason I've lost my figure while he still has his.
And we made yet another visit to the Strip this week because we were given a pair of tickets to see a show...
"Spamalot" at Wynn Las Vegas. Or as it's described, Eric Idle's and John Cleese's "new musical lovingly ripped off from the motion picture 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail.'"
If you enjoy Monty Python humor, you'll love the stuff like this which is all around the theatre's lobby...
The story is basically King Arthur's absurd search for the holy grail. And no, despite the fact that this is Sin City, there were no references to the grail of the DaVinci Code. Arthur was looking for the more traditional version of the grail.
Of course, it was right there in plain sight. All Arthur had to do was check with Cari. She had it all along filled with a strawberry daiquiri...
Of course, Cari's grail was an overpriced souvenir, but at least Spamalot thanked her in blinking lights...
That's a week in Las Vegas.
Hi Grandmas, Grandpas, Aunties, Uncles, and lots of other family and friends!
Mommy says Daddy needed to take the day off so we got together and put up some pictures for him.
You see earlier today we all sat around the kitchen table and carved our pumpkins. Here we are posing in front of all our hard work...
We loved carving smiley faces on our pumpkins.
But Daddy's pumpkin was, um, well, a bit different...
Mommy said that Daddy needs to learn to relax.Happy Halloween!Love,Alyssa, David, Bret Jr., Kekoa, Nalani & Malia
Las Vegas is a big city. A really big city. Nearly two million people call this valley home.
And yet in the middle of all this hullaballoo, you can find a patch of ground which would make even Linus a happy camper...
Yes my friends, that is a really big pumpkin patch.
And those five kids digging around in the middle of it are indeed five of our six children.
The pumpkin that Kekoa found is really unique, and he loves the fact that it is so unique...
Kekoa wants everyone to see the discoloration on one side of his chosen pumpkin which he says is really cool.
Whereas Bretty opted for a smaller version so he could hold it in one hand and strike what he thinks is a cool pose of his own...
Who knew crawling around in the dirt and picking up fruit off the ground could be so much fun?
Oh, and in case you noticed the pumpkin-fruit reference, I had to look that one up. Of course, all our boys already knew that a pumpkin isn't a vegetable, but actually a fruit. Those smarty pants.
This weekend we also had the opportunity to attend one of Las Vegas' famous super fights, the rematch between World Champion Manny Pacquiao and the former champ Marco Antonio Barrera...
If you're a boxing fan, then you'll know that the first Pacquiao - Barrera fight was a huge upset as Manny knocked out the heavily favored Barrera. But even if you're not a boxing fan, you'd love this fight because there is probably no more entertaining and energetic boxer out there than Manny Pacquiao. He's one of those small guys whose hands are lightening fast.And coming from the Philippines, Manny is a sports superstar to us Filipinos everywhere.Cari and I were lucky enough to receive a pair of tickets from a terrific lady who is a true advocate for philanthropy and a friend of the Nevada Community Foundation...
She knew that I am part Filipino (whose mother is from Wisconsin - figure that one out) and probably felt sorry for me because there aren't a lot of Filipino giants in the world of sports (if you can consider the 5' 6" 130 pound Pacquiao a "giant").While my lovely wife has been to countless sporting events in her life, she had never been to a boxing match. Thus, she was a bit confused by the need to be continually reminded what round it was by someone wearing a bikini...
Curiously, there were three different "ring girls" (as they're called) each of whom takes a turn walking around the ring carrying a round card. As Cari explained to me, after their turn in the ring, it probably takes them the next two rounds to figure out which round card to hold up next.I'm staying out of that one.Anyway, it was a really fun fight. There is nothing quite like the electricity of a championship bout between two top boxers. If you really think about it, there is no other sport in which the game could end at any moment from the very start of the match.Every second in boxing is like overtime in football - where it only takes one play to win the game. When you have two champions like Pacquiao and Barrera, both of whom can end the fight with one quick flurry of punches, it makes for a thrilling event...
It was a great fight (and I'm not just saying that because Manny won!).Of course, the tickets for these superfights are quite expensive - and because the main event could potentially be over in one round - they give you a whole evening of boxing matches. I think there were 6 or 7 fights in total. That meant it was quite late when we returned home.Usually we come home to find at least one of our kids camped out in our room waiting for us to get home.Sometimes, however, our kids will fall asleep in the most unusual of ways...
She must have been waiting for the Great Pumpkin to rise!
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