Living An Intentional Life
For Christmas Eve, we went to a Saddleback service with my sister’s family. We then all had dinner at my parents’ house.
We had my favorite food tradition–my mom’s log cake!
I like making a big Christmas breakfast at home. k and n do not wake up any earlier on Christmas, which I find strange!
This Star Wars robe was one of n’s favorite presents!
We pretty much avoided the malls before Christmas. However, we thought it would be fun to walk around and look at the big Christmas tree at Newport’s Fashion Island on Christmas Eve day. We went early, and it was not crowded at all!
We made a stop at Starbucks. Coffee for the parents, hot chocolate for the kids.
In early December, we went to Ruby’s Diner to take part in their anniversary special of a burger and fries for $1.99. We had to wait about 45 minutes since we had to wait for D to come home from work. We weren’t too impressed with the burgers though. I actually like In-n-Out’s better!
One of our Christmas traditions has been to attend the Christmas program at Salvation Army Church with my parents. I thought the acting/storyline was very clever this year.
The transition will be a process, and it has already caused some very frustrating hours, but Limbylim 2.0 is coming soon!
D went to Memphis to shoot this commercial. You can only see him for about a second, but he’s the Asian American guy in the car, playing a salesman–haha. We have yet to see this commercial on television, but plenty of other people have told us they saw it.
We had dinner the night before Thanksgiving at a neighborhood Italian restaurant called Il Posto. Note to self: the kid’s cheese pizza is the same size the adult pizza. Also, the meat pizza has tons of meat!
The leaves actually change color in Napa! How lovely.
We ate Thanksgiving lunch with D’s family at Embassy Suites in Napa.
They were already ready for Christmas!
The kids had fun playing with their cousin S. Good times.
k presented “Give Thanks” with our church’s gospel hula team for Thanksgiving. I really enjoy watching her and the team bring glory to God through dance. As a side note, I like to call k “Keiki” as a nickname since it is close to her name.
This is what playing soccer during a drought looks like!
n played both spring and fall soccer this year. After the fall season ended, I was totally burned out. Two practices during the weekdays plus game every Saturday was too much for this mama to handle (along with all the other kids’ activities). n did have a good season, though. He scored two key goals, one that helped his team go into the top division. The second was a last minute tie-breaker to win their first tournament game. (They also ended up winning their second tournament game). His team received both a participation trophy and a championship medal for their division (#2). I am sure we will sign him up again for next fall, but I am taking a break next spring!
One thing that San Antonio does not lack is restaurants. Walking up and down the River Walk, there is a seemingly endless chain of restaurant after restaurant. D and I made mental notes of what was there and I researched them on Yelp during my downtime. For dinner, we settled on The County Line.
For checking into Yelp we received a free appetizer plate of sausage.
We also ordered a side of the homemade wheat bread which was quite good. However, we needed to save room for the main event, the bbq!
We ordered the five meat platter, which included brisket, sausage, turkey, a beef rib and baby back ribs. I realize this picture is not very appetizing, but it was pretty good. I should also mention that our waitress was particularly nice which made the experience even better. However, the mosquitoes also had a feast on my legs while we dined outside, so that was not fun.
View from our hotel room.
After D fulfilled his work duties the next day, we went to an area of San Antonio called The Market Square, which has a bunch of Mexican restaurants and shops. I would not recommend walking there at night, as it is a bit sketchy, but during the day it was fine.
We ate at Mi Tierra. I ordered the lunch special of chicken with zucchini, rice, beans and a side of tortillas.
D ordered the beef enchiladas.
D also felt the need to order this red soda. I forgot the actual name, but when D asked the waitress what it tasted like, she said it was like “Big Red”. That was not helpful since we were not familiar with Big Red either. I had one sip, but was not a fan. I think it is like cherry Dr. Pepper.
The restaurant had a lot of atmosphere, and we could not believe what a bargain the food was!
Of course, we had to make a stop at the bakery counter afterward.
San Fernando Cathedral…more on this later.
This is the courthouse.
Chillin’ out with our guava and lemon pastries—yum! For dinner, we went to the Awards Banquet at the Wyndham. We excused ourselves to make the 9:00 p.m. showing of The Saga, which is an art installation by Xavier de Richemont which is projected onto the façade of the aforementioned San Fernando Cathedral.
This is what it looked like at night, before the show began.
The show lasts about twenty minutes, and there is music to accompany the lights, which tells the history of San Antonio.
The production, which is free to the public, is so amazing! I am glad I was able to convince D to go. It was a wonderful way to wrap up our trip!