Decorating for Christmas

Our house doesn't look too much like Christmas this year because we are still in boxes from the move and trying to get organized, but we did manage to put up our little fake tree, and I even bought us a wreath to help the house smell nice. Last year, Emeline had a great time playing with ornaments while we put up the tree. This year, we tried to get her a bit more involved, but instead of putting ornaments on the tree, she just pulled off as we put them on. So most of our decorating efforts happened after she went to bed. But here are some photos as we put up our tree.

Dancing with Papa

Bethlehem

This year, our friend Elizabeth invited us to visit Bethlehem. Every year, a church in Santa Clara builds up a replica of Bethlehem and puts on a live demonstration of the Christmas story starting with of Joseph and Mary signing the census, searching for a room at the inn, and ending in the birth of Jesus. It's really neat to walk around the city, see the guards, vendors in time specific garb, and even watch a parade of belly dancers and animals, including a camel!, with the three wise men come in to Bethlehem to greet the baby Jesus.

We all had a rough week, including all of us having the flu, and ending with a fever and head cold for Emeline, but we still wanted to get out and experience the joy of Christmas despite our difficult circumstances. So we bundled up Emeline in the stroller and off we went!

My pictures don't do it justice, night time photos are the hardest, especially in a crowd. But here are a few to give you an idea, but it's really something neat to see in person.

Outside the city walls...

An inn inside the city.

The roman guard telling us to line up and take the census.

Up close with a guard.

The angel proclaiming the birth of Jesus.

Mary singing to Jesus.

All our busyness, moving, and sickness has made it hard to get into the Christmas spirit, but we're hoping to be healthy for the next few weeks and enjoy celebrating the birth of Jesus.

Thanksgiving

Since we had moved less than a week prior, we were very glad to have an invitation to Thanksgiving with my Aunt Diane and Uncle Miles and family. We were in no state at our new house to cook. Diane and Miles always put on a very delicious and traditional Thanksgiving dinner. It has been a few years since we were able to attend, so we enjoyed ourselves that much more.

Emeline enjoyed the food too, and she had fun playing with both her cousins, but I only got a picture of her with Nicole.

She also really loves Uncle Miles and Aunt Diane, but again, only got one photo. Emeline is distracted, but I love this picture because of Miles' smile. Emeline used to be afraid of him, but now she goes up to him for help playing with all sorts of things.

Emeline also has a love/fear relationship with dogs, and Jesse and Nicole's dog Sam was no exception. She really enjoyed him when he was on the other side of the glass.

We tried to get some outdoor photos of Emeline in her cute outfit, but she was too distracted to sit still for long.

And it was equally difficult to get a family photo, but here are our best shots.

Children's Museum

To help us out during our move, Grandma Chris came down from Oregon for a week. It was such a blessing to have her here to help with Emeline while we got lots of stuff done. One day we needed to be out of the house for some work to get done, so we took the opportunity to go to the Children's Museum. I'd heard there were some good things for kids Emeline's age, but we hadn't gone yet. Here are some highlights:

Emeline like climbing on and inside all the large vehicles they had. Firetruck...

I think this was an ambulance. This older boy was nice and played with her.

She was a little wary of the water play area at first. She didn't like having to wear the cover up, and we there weren't enough of the toddler ones, so she had a big kids one on.

But after a while she did have fun playing in the different portions of the exhibit.

Emeline's absolute FAVORITE part of the museum was the dance room. They had a large room with disco lights and loud music, all different kinds from salsa to rock, for kids to just run around and dance. Emeline just busted a move in there. Here are a couple of photos, but you've got to watch the videos at the bottom. It's really dark and hard to see, but if you watch closely you can see her little silhouette shaking her booty!

New House: A Teaser

It's been a busy and tiring month here at Team Zuber, hence the long blogging hiatus. One of the main reasons for our busyness is that we moved into our new house! We said goodbye to our nice little duplex in Cupertino, and we moved about 15 min east in Silicon Valley into the city of Santa Clara. We bought a major fixer upper in a nice neighborhood near a nice elementary school and close to some friends. The house is a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, with an extra family room (to soon become a playroom) and a nice, modest backyard with plenty of room to play. The move has cut down Wes' commute a bit, and Elaine and Emeline have been slowly getting to know the neighborhood.

I know many people have been wanting to see photos of the new place, but this is going to be a bit of a teaser. We have lots of before photos, but it's going to be a while for all the work to be done to be ready to showcase the after photos, and the some of the before photos are pretty awful, so we want to show the whole transition :) So far we ripped out all the floors, and by we I mean Wes and friends, new floors were installed, and the inside of the house was painted. Now there is lots of finishing work to do like baseboards, fixtures, wall sockets, curtains, you name it, not to mention a much needed kitchen remodel...not sure when that will be.

So, I'll try to give updates as rooms are done, but it is going to be a long slow process. But without further ado, I give you....the hallway! I hope it's enough of a teaser to keep you looking forward to seeing the rest of the house :)

Here's the before photo. Notice the wall paper on the living room wall before going into the hallway. Notice the 60s green tile leading from the entry door into the hall and turning right into the bathroom. Notice the warped wood floors throughout the hallway. This was probably the worst condition of the floors in the house, but other areas were also quite damaged.

Next, we see Wes using his awesome Gutster to rip up the floors. This is his new favorite tool.

Floors all ripped out.

Painters are done, but floors to come.

Now here is our after picture. Paint is all done, doors and trim work is done, floors are installed, new hall light, and new door hardware is on. Still missing are a couple door knobs for the closets, the baseboards, and the light switch plates. Like I said...slowly.

So that's your teaser. :) Hopefully soon we'll get to see Emeline's room, which is getting close to done, and maybe the living or family rooms. And now that our computer is set up again, I can continue on with other recent happenings of Team Zuber!

Run with the Jets: Bay Area Half Marathon

This past weekend, Wes was off at our church's men's retreat, and I ran my first half marathon. I've been getting back in to running over the past few months, and as I started to build up my distance, I got a bug in my ear to do a half marathon before the year was out. So I followed a low key training plan, and this Sunday I did the Run with the Jets: Bay Area Half Marathon (don't ask me who the Jets are, I have no idea).

Sunday morning Aunt Diane came over bright and early, or should I say, dark and early at 6:20 to watch Emeline while I went off to run 13.1 miles. I gave her the low down on Emeline and headed off to pick up Sarah. Then Sarah and I headed up to Coyote Point Park in San Mateo. The weather was lovely, chilly but lovely. We thought it would rain, but it was bright and sunny. We found parking, got all our gu ready to go, and headed down to the start line.

At the start.

The course was a flat trail along the bay. I thought the trail would be dirt, but most of it was paved. There was some dirt or sand on the side of the trail, so from time to time I ran on that to give my shins a break. I think it's safe to say, this run felt good! I had run 10 miles the week before, and I survived that, so I felt relatively confident going into this event. Sarah was an awesome running partner, and we chatted the whole way. We kept up a run 5 min, walk 1 min interval to help keep my shin splints and knee pain from acting up, and it proved to be a good pace for her too given that she just finished running a full marathon only a few weeks before.

I started to feel stiff in the last few miles, but no major pain, and we kept up a steady pace. As we neared the finish line, I started to get excited! A half marathon! I was about to finish a half marathon! This had been one of my long term goals, but I never really imagined doing it so soon. As we got up to the finish, I saw someone wearing a medal, and I got even more excited. I had thought this race was pretty low key, so I didn't expect a finishers medal, but seeing one at the end made me want to pick up the pace for the finish.

At the finish.

We crossed the finish line with a time of 2 hours and 47 minutes. My lofty goal was 2:45, but my realistic goal was 3 hours, so I was pleased with our time. We got our medals, cheapy ones, but medals nonetheless, the last of the Hobees coffee cake, and did some stretching. Then we hiked up the giant hill to our car (torture after 13.1 miles!) and headed home.

The hill back to the car. Also shows a bit of the beautiful scenery comprised of eucalyptus trees and the bay (forgot to take a picture of the beautiful bay!)

After resting for the car ride home, we realized how hungry we were, so we made a quick stop at Five Guys for some delicious burgers. Then dropped off Sarah, and back home to Emeline...who had a great time playing with Mommy's first Half Marathon medal.