Funny how time flies...

A true blogger I am not. But here's a quick update:

• the semester ended very close to Xmas time, so no holiday cards got sent this year (sorry everyone! Maybe we'll send a Valentine's Day card?). I had my yearly baking experience with the girls (Wendy, Anna, Danielle, Melissa, and Rose) at Danielle's house; it's been an annual tradition for many years now and is a great way to catch up a bit and have some fun with old friends. We had lots of fun at Dana and Jim's holiday party followed up by Jessica and Greg's holiday party - I hope we didn't scare off any of their friends with our singing.
• Xmas eve was spent at Mom and Dad Saito's house. Being the crazy Japanese-American family that likes to take on other culture's holiday traditions if they involve tasty food, we had tamales, posole, and fancy decorated minicakes that Jeri made. The tamales and posole are a tradition since we visited my great aunt Yuki in Alberquerque, NM many years ago. Jess, Greg, Jeri, Ray, Pat, Albert, Maykel and Junna (dancers with the SJ Ballet and new friends of us all) and the rest of us participated in a Hawaiian style version of the "12 Days of Christmas" complete with ukelele accompaniment. The evening was capped off with gift opening, with many laughs about the "Jim Sart" gifts, another Saito tradition that started when we began receiving junk mail addressed to "Jim Sart" due to my father's messy penmanship. "Jim Sart" gives crazy gifts like a denim TP cover to Jess and Greg, a toucan-shaped can opener to Maykel and Junna, a banana container to us etc.
• Soon after Xmas, we left the cold Bay Area and headed off to Pat and Albert's Hawaiian home in Hawaii Kai. It was 80 degrees for most of the time we were there (a big difference from the 30 degree weather that we missed having to suffer through in Cupertino - yikes!). We got a good laugh from the Hawaiian weatherman who declared it was going to be a chilly night in Honolulu...72 degrees (and he was dead serious). We spent 2 weeks there and went to the beach (Ryan is still not a fan of the sand and surf), visited the Honolulu Zoo (where Ryan got butted by a small goat and kept wanting to see "more pigs"), watched some movies (Tropic Thunder, The Women, Valkyrie), ate A LOT, hiked Diamond Head (just me and Steve; I'm so happy we didn't have to carry Ryan!), shopped at Ala Moana, endulged in some shaved ice from Matsumoto's in Haleiwa and Kokonuts in Koko Marina (where President Obama stopped during his HI holiday), and visited various places like the USS Arizona Memorial, Kahala, Ko'Olina, North Shore (Haleiwa), and Turtle Bay. We didn't get to see any monster surf on the North Shore as it was remarkably flat with no wind the day we drove up there. I'll post some pics of our Hawaiian baby Ryan when I get a chance; that keiki get one nice tan! He was really great on the plane (except for the many diaper changes I had to do because he kept sucking down watered down juice like there was no tomorrow).
• Ryan's latest new words and short phrases: geecko (for gecko), peacock, wock (for wallet), pocket, circle (sorry to all of the people around us on the airplane - he kept saying circle because of the circular sticker on the back of each seat), more + whatever he wants, no + whatever he doesn't want, "mama car" (when he saw an SUV that looked like my car), "mama yeh-yeh go walk" (when he wanted us to go out with him).
• Ryan's latest antics: being a daredevil (he likes to stand up on the bed and then just fall back...he assumes the bed will always be there to catch him), getting swung around in the air, dragging a plastic bag with something inside it (he went through the whole Kahala Mall with one), finding things to put in his pockets, asking for his "dog" before he goes to sleep (he had not attached himself to any toy or blanket until now), running.