Quick Recap of the Weekend

Hanukkah started this weekend and Christmas will soon be here. My wife and I both feel like we have way too much to do and not enough time to do it. How I wish I had followed my blog friend Betsy’s lead in starting planning for Christmas back in October. Anyway, this will be just a short post on our weekend.

We won’t have our family Hanukkah gathering until next weekend, but we did light the candles on our menorah the first two nights. Kai is looking forward to the presents, and seeing everyone, too!

We are also counting down to Christmas. Well, Kai is counting down with his Lego Star Wars Advent Calendar. Every morning, the first thing he wants to do after he gets up is to see what the model-of-the-day is, and to build it right away. This morning’s figure was an AT-AT Walker from The Empire Strikes Back.

We were all in a grocery store yesterday when Kai saw coconuts for sale. He always takes an interest in fruits and vegetables that we have never had before. So, this time he wanted to bring him a coconut.

As a kid, I remember seeing my dad climb a tree in Hawaii and knock down some coconuts for us to eat. But I don’t remember cutting one open myself.

It was a once in a lifetime experience. Which means, it was such a pain to take out the juice, open the coconut, and cut out the edible parts that I never want to do it again.

But Kai really enjoyed the whole process, and he liked drinking the juice and eating the fruit as well.

Morn than a year ago, Kai’s grandfather in Japan brought over a Japanese marble race toy for Kai. Kai had seen Japanese videos of elaborate setups where one marble would run into something that would set off another chain of events. The toy he got was a bit difficult, even for adults, and Kai did not show a whole lot of interest in playing with it after Jiji returned to Japan.

But this weekend, he pulled it off the shelf and started building with it. He wanted me to join him, but he was the one who came up with the ideas of what to make. It was nice to see, as with Legos he usually just sticks to following instructions instead of coming up with his own creations.

And while we did not build anything too elaborate, it was great that Kai showed interest. Yes, at times like these, I can see that he is maturing.

Happy Hanukkah!