Family Dinner & 2011 Family Re-union

Last night, we had a much quieter family dinner following the house-packed Thanksgiving Dinner with all the Martins, all the Blooms, all other relatives and many friends. Oh, of course, that delicious one at Gene & Bette’s place right after Thanksgiving Day. Rena and I enjoyed all three very much.

It was awfully good to see Donald around. He is the one that Rena and I haven’t seen enough of after he took off to college. From time to time, we visited him in the Bay area while passing by. But, fortunately, we kind of have an annual family re-union, on and off. At least, this way, we can all get together once a year. Therefore, Rena and I would like to keep this yearly re-union on going.

Yes, this time, in the dinner, we all decided to hold one for next year (2011) in the Pacific Northwest around Washougal, WA area, during the later part of August. Rena and I are very excited and look forward to seeing them all there in August, 2011.

Modern medicine sucks sometimes.

DSC_0054

Edda (and by extension, her parents as well) is still not sleeping well. She’s usually up at 3:15 (sometimes because of a seizure, sometimes not). Then she’s up for an hour watching TV while one of us sleeps in her bed and then at 4:15 or 4:30, when the soundtracks of Dora and Nemo are too much for me, I wrangle her back to bed for mmaaayybe another hour of sleep before Maxi starts barking at 5:15 am.

Then she ends up sleeping at odd times during the day, for longer than usual.

DSC_0136

We are kind of at a cross roads with her seizure medication. We are at the full dose for Keppra now (albeit at a relatively low therapeutic dose) and Edda’s noodle-y side effects do seem to be diminishing, however, Edda’s still getting seizures on an every-other-day basis. The neuro wants us to increase the dose of Keppra. We kind of want to back off the med completely and reassess her baseline seizure level again. It’s where you kind of look at each other and shrug a little bit… which way to go? Dunno. It’s just kind of sad to have Edda bear the brunt of our little drug experiment. She’s not happy having seizures, nor is she happy with the side effects of the medication.

Blah.

(I just reread this post and I’m actually in a much better mood that this entry implies, I am very excited about Thanksgiving – it really is one of my favorite holidays. And Edda is happily waiting for her dinner to be ready. We are all good.)

Gearing up for the big turkey day!

Jeremy is very excited to finally be hosting the huge Thanksgiving feast this year. We are expecting over 40 people at the house (I hope they all can find parking within a block of the house). As we do not have ample seating, we are actually procuring rental tables and chairs and turning the living room into a mess hall. This past weekend, Jeremy has been focused on those little crepe paper turkeys that can be used as center pieces for the tables; we haven’t been able to find any but it doesn’t mean we won’t stop trying to locate them. Might mean a dreaded trip to the Party Store (I don’t like the Party Store – whenever I go there, I feel like I’m at a party no one else wants to come to.)

****

I have been in a leaf blowing war (in the nicest way) with my neighbor. He has blown our leaves at least twice this season and as we live in the middle of the woods (not really, but you should see the amount of leaves that fall on our property), it has been no small pistacios. We have reciprocated with a bag of apples, but it’s all getting a little embarrassing.

We actually don’t own a leaf blower , we own rakes (OK, maybe just one rake). I have thought about asking for a leaf blower for Christmas, but Jeremy says we have to get the 4-stroke one and they’re so loud and create a lot of noise pollution and kick up soot from vehicles which we’ll then inhale and maybe we should just rake. So he’s not entirely thrilled about getting a leaf blower. So when I found my neighbor blowing our leaves for the third time this season on Sunday, I tried to yank his leaf blower out of his hands and I was determined to do this final leaf clean-up. He did not let go of his leaf blower and shooed me back inside my own house.

I did not want to give up, I went to the neighbor on the other side (neighbor #2) to borrow his leaf blower. In addition to a leaf blower loan, I got this:

DSC_0012

Custom made sugar cookie for Edda. Awwwww… so cute.

Then Vince saw the blower and he wanted to try:

DSC_0014

Lots of leaves moving around, not much central collection though.

DSC_0015

Ruby Is Celebrating Too

Ruby is celebrating too!
Ruby likes Mom. Every time, Mom prepares large meat balls, specifically for Ruby. Look at this picture, Ruby was anticipating something big that was going to happen.
Minutes before, we all went to the nearby O’brien Pit Barbecue (a local family restaurant where Rena, Doris, Donald and I often dined together when they were young) at Gude Drive to celebrate. The “Montgomery Donuts” used to there also. At that time and almost every night, Rena and I bought three fresh donuts there for Donald. Too bad, I think it is out-of-business today.
Btw, my birthay cake was tasty. It was good, I think. Happy Birthday again, Mom!

Happy Birthday, Mom

Today is Mom’s birthday. She smiles.

Yesterday, I made the birthday cake (an orange cake) for Mom, of course, with Mom’s help.

This evening, Jeremy, Doris, Vincent, Edda and us are going out for a family dinner to celebrate. After that, I hope, my cake is edible & okay 🙂

When Donald comes back to the east for Thanksgiving, the Lees as well as Jeremy will have a formal celebration dinner together.

Mom said when my birthday comes in December, we will be on the road and far away from home. She suggests to celebrate mine together at the same time :). This way, it is GREENer to save the time, effort and energy. The following picture shows her “GREEN” approach :). Not too bad 🙂