Family right around the corner...literally

We have been so fortunate that in the past few months, 2 of Erich's sisters (Hilary & Hilary) have moved to the Seattle area! This has meant lots of fun sleepovers/get-togethers with the Kemmling cousins. And just last week, the Beggs finally arrived from Chicago to the Northwest. They've been staying with us and we are having such a great time! Last night Hilary cooked us an incredible French lamb dinner...it was sooo delicious. It will be so great to have them as neighbors! And even more exciting, we will be so excited to have the newest little nephew living so close...just a few more months! This will mean that the kids will have 3 cousins so closeby - 5 grandkids in the same city - watch out!

 

It's the most wonderful time of the year

As soon as Thanksgiving was over, the Christmas spirit hit the Patten household immediately! As is our tradition, the kids donned their new Christmas PJs right away!

We've been playing Christmas carols, but it didn't really feel like Christmas time until today - when we got our tree! Each year, we get our tree from a local Boy Scout troop lot (Erich IS an Eagle Scout, after all) and this year was no exception. We have a huge tree, it's fully decorated and now all we have to do is fill it with presents!

 

California Turkey!

This year, we ventured down to San Jose for a fun Thanksgiving. It was really only a 48 hour trip, but we packed alot into it! We stayed with my cousin Aditi and her family, and Sonia and her cousin Ananya who is exactly the same age had their first sleepover. Neal started to feel left out since he didn't get to play with the "big kids" all that much, but he had lots of fun with his sweet little cousin Amisha.

 

 

We started with a VERY early morning flight...usually not a bad idea since the kids are terrific flyers, but this turned out to be a bad idea. A 4am wake up, no naps and hyper kids - ahhh, the holidays. We started out by going to the San Jose Children's Discovery Museum. Our intent was to wear out the kids, but there was so much fun stuff to do - that didn't really work. Next we went to my Dodamma's house for a delicious lunch and spent the day with her and Mohan Uncle. Then we headed to Aditi's house to settle in. It was so great to see the kids get to spend time with their cousins and become inseparable. It was amazing! Thanksgiving was at the Mohan casa in Cupertino, which brought many friends and family (many of whom I hadn't seen in years). And the weather was amazing - I think it was near 70 degrees, a nice change from rainy Seattle!

 

 

 This photo pretty much sums up how exhausted the kids were after thier fun filled visit to CA! (though truthfully, this was taken right in the middle of the Thanksgiving Day festivities!)