On Tuesday, Mio and I drove over to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna with our parents for an early afternoon stroll. My parents used to take my siblings and I here all the time as kids, and we always called it “duck pond” because of all the ducks and geese we’d see there every time we went. It was really nostalgic to revisit the park for the first time in almost twenty years, and share one of my childhood memories with Mio and make it hers, too. 🙂
Yesterday afternoon, we set up and decorated the Christmas tree! It was actually our first time decorating a tree together, because Dan and I never bought a tree while we were in California because we didn’t really have the space for it a lot of times, and were lazy. But tree-trimming is one of my favorite childhood memories of the holidays, so we wanted to make sure we revisited the tradition this year with Mio! 🙂
Earlier in the day, we met up with our friend Stephanie and she inspired us by showing us an awesome stop motion video she created of her pumpkin carving! (Check out more of her creative work at her blog, From Woo to You.) It definitely made an impression because when we returned from lunch and started unpacking the Christmas tree from my parents’ basement, I excitedly suggested to Dan, “Let’s make a stop motion video!” …to which he responded, “You mean a time-lapse, in this case? A stop motion would take forever.” And I said, “Yes! Time-lapse. That.” (Take no offense, videographers, I do indeed know the difference — just used the wrong term in my moment of excited inspiration!) So below is the result. Thank you so much Stephanie for inspiring us! We hope you all will enjoy this fun, short video of our first tree-trimming experience as a family! 😀
Instead of hitting the malls and going shopping on Black Friday, we spent the day meeting up with friends who were in the area! It was food-and-fun-filled holiday weekend — this is what the holidays are all about! 😀
And I shall conclude with our adorable burrito Mio!
On December 25, I’m turning 30.
For my 30th birthday, I wanted to do something special and memorable. That’s why this year, I’m giving up my birthday to charity: water. Instead of getting me a birthday present, taking me to dinner, or writing on my Facebook wall, please donate $30 (or any amount you are comfortable with — every cent counts!) for my 30th birthday, and help me bring clean water to people in need. It breaks my heart to know that millions of children my daughter’s age do not have access to clean, safe water, and because of that, will not live to see their fifth birthdays.
Go to my campaign to donate: http://mycharitywater.org/misono
What’s really cool is that 100% of the money we raise will directly fund water project costs in the field, and charity: water will prove every single dollar. When the project we help fund is complete, they’ll send us a digital completion report with GPS coordinates and photos of the community we helped. Here’s an example.
I can’t think of a better way to celebrate my birthday than by giving the gift of clean water to people in need. Please join me to make this birthday count, and make my only birthday/Christmas wish come true!
Special thanks to my friend Estella for inspiring me to do this when she gave up her own birthday a few years ago!
This was our second Thanksgiving as a family, and the first time in six years that I got to spend it with my family in Virginia. It was all the more enjoyable because I’d missed celebrating with my family so much!
After stuffing ourselves like the turkey that we ate, we spent the rest of the evening playing board games and spending quality time together with the whole family! 🙂
We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, full of laughter and love shared with family and friends! I love this time of year! 🙂
