Merry Christmas 2012!

Well Christmas came and went in our semi-Asian house here and it was a fun one - one that Sage could participate in and enjoy, knowing more.  Even though it is not a holiday here and I had to go to work later (where we just played games), it was a full day and I think he (and I) will remember this one for awhile.

We got all of the family's presents before Xmas (with Wen's sneaking in on Monday) and I tried to set up a visual countdown calendar as well as talk up Santa more this year so that Sage could get more excited.  He did.

Ok, onto pics and their stories.  We took quite a few vids and not so many pics, so also head here to watch, when you have time.

 Happy Ho Ho

Love Jeff, Jo, Sage and Mocha

 Just a comfy reading position

 

 

 Getting some rest before the big day!

Paco's (Sage's name for "Gramma and Grampa") package came and he saw this and I said we could play a little with it.

You can see a vid to watch him talk about it more.

 These are cool and I actually bought one like this for V and A (not dinos) so I hope they like them, too

 Going out to meet some friends

Ok, you can smile now

Two hat lovers

Our countdown calendar, where I would draw something on the day, say which day and how many days till the main date and then he insisted on drawing in black on that day as well.  I think his mantra was "santa come; open presents" for about 2 weeks straight and he said it many many times.  Here, only 2 days to go!

The pre-xmas day tree (I had to hide my 'special' gift in back of the tree since that lessened the urge to open the damn thing).

The day of.  I added balloons since Sage likes them and they make it look fuller!  haha

The first thing he gets into is the candy, as any self respecting Angelovich will attest to.

After opening Wen's hat, we said it was a dinosaur and the first thing he does is put it on the ground and step on it, saying 'Dinosaur Foot!'  But we helped steer him in the right direction, so no worries Wen!  It looks great!

I just fear I may have it on backwards!  But regardless, it is cute

Sage is bringing Santa 'Spicy Xmas Tea' since he asked for it.  If you look carefully, you can see Santa's boot in the upper left, but for some reason Jo did not get a pic of him and I was (ahem) out buying donuts.  If you want to see the video it is cute the way Sage acts.

Santa brought the 'nice' present - his first wooden train set, and then he promptly ignored Santa and started to open, assemble and play with it and has been the whole freakin' day!

Some other loot

I love those big hankin' puzzles!

Oh, I scored on this one.  On a whim, I bought this and it was an immediate hit (literally).

 Ok, watch the vid on this one.  But here I am FINALLY reaching around to claim my pre-teen years back from the dusty shelves of yesteryear.  My lovely sisters got me some Star Wars ships and figures that I so loved as a kid and never had the intelligence(?) (lack of shame -?) to get again.  But I was ecstatic to see the Millenium Falcon, an X wing, Darth's modified TIE Fighter and a freakin' Taun Taun!  These are well loved and they look like the real originals, which is fantastic.  They will be much loved here as well and I will enjoy hooking Sage on the Star Wars series (starting with #4, of course).  Again, thanx to Wen and Jen for being great sisters! 

An after shot

Another

Sage enjoying victory candy

We moved the train to his room and set it up (like on the box).  I think this one will be well loved.

Of course anything dinosaur related is still good

And some random train stickers (more for mom!)

 

Mom wanted to do some inventorying I guess, so here are some of his spoils.

I had fun making this with Sage but it was pretty complicated for a foam 3d puzzle!

But it came out well

Course with the train set, there is no question about where his energy is going....

Oh, one of the cool presents (as if there were not enough) was Paco's (both, remember) gift of a story book/card where they read The Night Before Christmas in their own voices and recorded it so as we turned the pages, we heard their voices.  I love the thing and Sage was pretty ciked about it too.  We listened to it a few times during the day but we had to listen twice before going to bed.

 Good present!

Merry Xmas!

My First Movember

Well, there are firsts for everything.  

This past November (which has been renamed Movember by many men), I embarked on a journey of self discovery, joy, anguish, woe, heartbreak and most of all, swag. 

I let my natural overly-manly tendancies have their sway over my face and proceeded to produce a fine luminous coat of silky man-fur.

Basically, I grew an itchy caterpillar on my upper lip and let it have free reign as it pupated into a ....no, it did not turn into a butterfly unfortunately.

But, ok, enough teasing.  I grew a 'Mo' as they say in Australia to benefit a good cause: to help increase men's awareness about their health, especially men's cancer related items. 

Men are notorious at trying to act cool and not see a doctor ('real' men, that is...) but perhaps that is why there are so few 'real' men these days; maybe they died out when the original moustaches died out in the early 80's.

As shown in the talk below (which I highly encourage you to watch), Adam Garone helped bring this tradition to life based on a much healthier attitude towards charity: have fun while doing it.

Movember

Thus, I will try to participate each year in this manly ritual of caterpillar harvesting to help promote better health, better awareness and better facial hair.
 

 This is what I suppose would happen if i go full beard....

 Go ahead, tease away!

It comes off in a few days!

A few more pics

We have indeed relaxed a bit on our camera trigger finger, yet we find ourselves taking more movies now than pics.  To see more movies, head over to Dropshots. I updated them and erased the old ones (to maintain space).

Anyway, things are normal here and progressing as they should. If you watch the movies you should hear Sage talk a lot more (for real, instead of just me saying he is talking more).  

So take a peek and enjoy.

Happy almost Thanksgiving!

Race cars and cups calls for speed destruction

 A little balance practice

 In his element

A bit of reading

A pre-xmas gift that he loves (heck, I love it too) that we have since put away to open again on Xmas.

Speaking of Xmas, we 'upped' the tree last week.  Early, but it looks nice and we don't really celebrate Thanksgiving here, so yeah! Early Xmas!  Sage thought some of his 'baby balls' would look nice under the tree.

Some nice pics by mom

Dad prefers more 'action' shots

Yeah! Good!

Jo's New Job

 Well, Fall is here and that means a brief respite from the heat of summer.  

Sage is not in school yet so I can not talk about that (which will happen next year - maybe), but I can talk about a recent development that has changed for the better - Jo's employed again!

For the past 4 years Jo has been on a hiatus of sorts, becoming a mother and a housewife (which she never thought would happen) and while at first she hated it, she did get into a groove that she liked, being at home with Sage and pretty much relaxing (since Sage has been pretty easy to raise).  

There were still nagging thoughts that she should head out when the time was right and find another job, but she vacillated between maintaining the status quo (I actually like being a housewife!) to the boredom of it (I need to be with people! You and Sage don't count!).  Thus for the past 6 months we have been discussing the potentiality of her going back to work.  

Course we had a lot of hurtles to overcome:

1) she had to find a job that was flexible for time (since we did not want to get a full time nanny to offset any income she did make - if her salary was X and the nanny was a little under X for the month, it made no sense to work and not be at home!)

2) she had to find something that she was interested in (which was difficult anyway since she gets bored easily)

3) she had to find a job that paid well since while minimum wage jobs are available, who wants to do that when they are 40? And unfortunately, the average salary has gone down(!) over the years here, too!

 4) she wanted to find a job that was 'easy' as well but 'challenging' at the same time

Thus we prepared to earnestly start to look from August and we gave ourselves a year or so when Sage starts school next year.

Basically, after 2 random interviews with not very appealing jobs, she saw an ad for a sales rep basically 500 feet from our house.  On a lark, she went to inquire and ended up having an interview.  Then after discussing it for a few days, she basically decided "why not?" and said ok.  

So basically, she landed a job that she is at now only after 2 weeks of looking.  We never thought it would be so fast.  She says luck, I say she is skilled and people know that, but anyway, she just finished her first week of work and is off for week 2 tomorrow!

Miraculously, it meets all of the criteria she wanted, the main point being free.  Since she is a sales rep, she was told, as long as she makes her quota for the month, she does not need to be in the office too much.

Ok, selling what?

Basically, she is working for a high tech company that helps create marketing videos and other advertising systems that other companies can use to help them expand their markets.  As I understand it, she will basically talk directly to the boss of a company to explain why that boss should create a video to help them sell more of their stuff. 

The cheapest product they sell is about $10,000 US and for a big company, supposedly that is chump change to get good marketing up and running.  Thus, if Jo does get her quota, her commission should be pretty good.

Also, did I mention that the main markets are overseas? Did I also mention that they even asked her if I could be an actor/promoter in some of their videos when she said she was married to a Westerner?

Anyway, all this is moving pretty fast, but Jo prefers that and we are off and running.  I am happy since she can use her energy for something more constructive than housework (which her hapless husband can take care of - sort of...) and now the financial pressure is not only on me.

So, we are adjusting to the new routine and the new circumstances and I am sure I will have more posts in the future about the goings on in Jo's new job.  When we know more, I will try to explain. 

Besides that, Sage is Sage and I am me.  Same.  Good.  Happy.

Here are some recent pics.

 This is Sage's oldest cousin Pei-Ying.  She comes to visit us occasionally and this time she stayed for a few days with us and then Jo and Sage zipped up to Taipei with her to see the family.

Hanging out with Ah-Ma

Now it is Auntie's turn

Back home and smiling (course there has been a clear increase in frowns and yells recently...)

Come on, admit it!

Some say he is looking more like Jo now (note: big mouth)

For work Jo needed to get an ipad (to show their videos to clients) so Sage and I are reaping the bennies from that!  (it really is a great learning tool!)

Another fort

Sage seems to be as anal as Daddy at times......(he lined up each one, then proceeded to take off all their stickers and realign them).

Oh, I am not sure what sparked it, but we are now the owners of a little mouse, Mimi.  Jo says it is for Sage, but we know the truth.....

Anyway, have a good start of Fall!