WHITE Christmas 2008

A typical Seattle Christmas is wet and cold. At times I remember wishing that it would snow if it is this cold and wet. Well, we got our wish this Christmas. Maybe a little more than we bargained for. This was actually the first time that I had to put chains on the tires since living in Seattle for over 20 years. Of course, it would of helped if I had a 4x4 this year.
We had a mellow Christmas this year compared to last year when we had the whole Sakuma clan celebrate in Hawaii. Grandma & Grandpa came for dinner. Due to the weather, we hanged out in pj's all day.

Thanks Kurihara family for the art set. The girls are always drawing and we go through coloring books pretty quickly, so it was a great gift. Thanks Uncle Atau and Aunt Kiyomi for the webkinz as well. Dad is sporting his new remote control car from Karen which she bought from the school bazaar.

Ho Ho Sno!

Our first snow of 2008 and it was a doozy. No school for a whole week, which was fun for the kids. It was good timing for our cousins from Hawaii to enjoy the snow as well.

Maya started ballet this year and had her first open house for parents to see all their hard work. Our little ballerina did a very well arabesqe with her friend Sasha.

Our cousins from Hawaii came to join us for a little pre-Christmas get together. Luckily, they came just in time to enjoy the snow storm. 7 little girls (and Kashus) were running around in our little house. Girls at this age tend to play a little nicer than boys, which is a good thing.

Happy Turkey Day!

We had a partial Sakuma family Thanksgiving. We stayed away from our usual staple rice, and enjoyed potatoes and stuffing. Dad did the turkey, but since he forgot to remove the foil cover, the turkey did not have the nice brown crunchy color. The turkey looked raw so Kaori censored it.

After Thanksgiving, it is a family tradition to put up the Christmas tree the following Monday. Yes, it's fake but the kids had fun putting it together. This year, the kids put all the ornaments.

Klair's 2nd birthday

Klair had her 2nd Birthday, Yeah!! We invited Ojiichan and Obaachan over for dinner and had tempura and soba. Klair loves shrimp and noodles. Klair likes playdoh as well and her cake kind of looks like wads of playdoh. She couldn't figure out what to do with the candle, but hey, we have next year to figure that out.


We spent Klair's birthday at the zoo. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the zoo was. A lot of upgrades. I think I enjoyed the zoo more than the kids. I thought 3 hours would be more than enough to see everything, but we ran out of time.

Trick or Treat

For some reason, it always rains on Halloween in Seattle and this year was no different. We tried the Mall seen this year for Halloween and was suprised to see so many people. Most of the stores ran out of candy by 7PM.
This year Karen wanted to be a witch, which was a pleasant suprise, since all they talked about was being princesses. Maya was very content with Karen's costume from last year (Mulan) and Klair was excited just to wear a crown. Good thing about having 3 girls is that the costumes can be recycled again for next year.

We decided to go to the Japanese Kubota Gardens to see the beautiful Autumn leaves. We have lived in Seattle for over 20 years and never have gone to the Japanese garden. It was a pleasant surprise to see such a beautiful garden in the middle of South Seattle.

Getting ready for Halloween

This year we went to Craven Farms in Snohomish to pick our pumpkins. Unfortunately, all the good ones were already taken and we didn't want to walk to the far end of the pumpkin patch to find the good ones. The mini-pumpkins were a bigger hit for the kids so we bought those instead. This year, Karen was able to handle the carving knife for the pumpkin and designed her own jack-o-lantern.

Maya's new friend and kindergarten mate Sasha and her little sister Mia. Zoe also came by to visit. It was a nice surprise to see Zoe, since their family moved to Lake Stevens during the summer.

First PTA function of the year was a roller skating party...I didn't know these things still exist, but gotta help support the PTA, and of course anything to make the girlz happy.

October update...It's getting cold up here.

Well it's been awhile since we last updated our blog. Being busy is a good excuse. but now that the kids have finally settled into their school routine, Kaori has been able to have some free time to update some recent pictures.

Now that Autumn is here we took a little family trip to Snoqualmie Falls to see the autumn leaves, unfortunately we were a little early, but Klair enjoyed seeing the water fall for her first time. Maya made some new friends in kindergarten. Sasha and Mia.

Karen has started ballet lessons again this year. Here are some pictures of her last years performance.