The Reynoldz

Hey, well it sure does get busy about now doesn't it? Lots of things going on, dinners, presents, baking pies. This is Eric again. I finally get some Christmas holiday coming my way. I worked till around 3:00pm today, and now won't go back until the New Year. I am taking the girls somewhere, anywhere, tomorrow so that Anna can do the Santa thing. Hope you all don't have to much to do to get ready for the big day.

The above pictures. One is a Montana Christmas, the other a Minnesota Christmas. Brought to us by google images.

Not the same as being there.

Well it is Saturday, we were not affected by the earthquake, and we are off to our favorite (or favourite) Chinese Dim Sum. A Chinese restaurant at Christmas time. Reminds me of a movie.

"The Christmas Story" is one of our favorite Christmas movies. And it was most definitely a favorite of my Uncle Bob's. One Christmas he got his grandkids an official Red Ryder, carbine action, 200-shot range model air rifle. (a BB gun). We were all at his house for that Christmas, and he played it out just like in the movie. Waiting until after the kids had opened all their presents, and some of the Christmas morning frenzy had died down, and then saying he thinks he can see something over by the closet. All the kids immediately run over to the closet to look, because they know their Gramps (Uncle Bob). Anyhow, we ALL ended up with a Red Ryder BB gun that Christmas.


Years later, we all got Bob a full-on "leg-lamp" for Christmas. We had it delivered to the house (Bruce and Debbie’s - his Daughter and son-in-law) saying he had won a contest. Trying to play it out like the movie as much as we could. I don't think he bought that he had won a contest, but he didn't see it coming and it worked great.

It worked even better than that. Uncle Bob and Patty had a very nicely decorated house during Christmas. Lots of old style Christmas decorations that filled the house. Well, much of that had to be removed to make space for the new "leg lamp" - in the front window. Patti would try ways of getting the leg lamp placed in a less conspicuous place each passing Christmas, but Bob would have none of it.

You can get yours here: http://www.amajoraward.com/



He was great at making holidays or any other event, special.

Uncle Bob was a unique character. Sadly, he passed away this year.

He has a special place in our hearts.

So go out and have a little fun today, have some Chinese food, and don’t shoot your eye out!

Day 20 is for the folks in our lives who we can tabs on via their own internet blogs.

We started this whole blog picture posting business because we really enjoyed keeping up-to-date with friends (Vashti , Robin and once upon a time Barb) via their blogs. Since we live so far away we totally appreciated having glimpses into the lives of the people we hardly get to see...

So we followed their lead and started our own family blog as a vehicle to share our far away lives with friends and family too.

We love that these folks keep their blogs going and know that it can be a pain in the butt or may seem like a burden at times to do so! But it is appreciated!

Merry Christmas to all of you and also to everyone who reads and posts comments! =)






Vashti, Michael, Maeve and Madigan! (do you like the picture?? I do =)









Lisa, Andy, Ronan and Liam





Kevin, Kate, Sydney and Madison

Cyndi and her crew

Hi again.. Anna here once more. Eric is working late late again tonight!

Here we are playing on the beach. The weather has been really nice up until this past Tuesday. Tuesday the sky opened up and it has been raining and chilly ever since. Kind of feels like Christmas to me now though. The cold weather got me into the shopping mode, I finished up the remaining x-mas shopping today. (at least I think I did)

Today the advent shout goes all the way to California to our friend Kevin Scott for his birthday!

Happy Birthday to you. Hope you are having a great day!

Anna here.... Well, it is Sunday night and Eric had to go back into work so I thought I would take this opportunity to give him his advent day.

He really has been putting in a ton of hours lately trying to finish up on his latest movie called Jumper. They want to get it done before x-mas break but it sounding like it is not going to happen.

Here is the Jumper movie trailer if you are interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS8u4MDq7Ow

When Eric says that he is busy and has been getting home late, he means it.
He really amazes me with his stamina. He is full on at work and when he gets home he is full on either working on the house, posting advent blogs or being a great daddy/hubby to his girls.

Here are some things Haidyn would like you to know about her Daddy. (Athea is sleeping so you will not get her input tonight)

His favorite colour is orange
His favorite restaurant lately is a chinese dim sum (yum chow) place in Wellington. (he really likes to take a nap after. (to sleep off the MSG =)
He likes to nap.
He likes to snorkel for fish and likes to get a crab.
He likes me and likes to dance with me and give me hugs.
His favorite animal is a cheetah and in NZ he likes the pukeko.
He likes to read a lot and likes to read to Athea and me.
He likes coffee.
He likes camping.
He has a beautiful smile. =)

Eric Reynolds is a great daddy and a wonderful friend!
We sure do love him!

This is a picture of Haidyn and her great friend Lenka. They found each other when Haidyn was still at Worser Bay School. They are both absolutely goofy around each other and no one seems to know what they are playing, but THEY do, and that is one of the sad things about changing schools. Haidyn still gets to see Lenka a lot, but alot isn't the same as EVERY DAY at SCHOOL!

Lenka and her family are from Serbia. Marijana, her mom, is an amazing cook. Sinisa, her dad, always has a nice scotch for me when I come over. We have had dinner over at their house a few times, and many play dates. (I am at work during those.)

Their home is where I found my girls when I went racing off to find them because there was a convicted axe murderer who escaped from the prison, (we have a prison on the north end of the Miramar Peninsula), and the police had blocked off an area where they thought they had seen him, and that area, and that time of day, was the area and time of day where Haidyn had art class. I am hearing all this over the internet at work, and think, I'll just go check and see how things are going. I also knew Lenka was in the art class, so when I saw that I couldn't get to the actual art school, and I couldn't get ahold of Anna to find out what was going on, I thought I would just go to Lenka's house and maybe someone there would be able to clue me in. And there were my girls! Running and playing. Whew.


They caught the axe murderer a day later at the ferry terminal.

My girls know three serbian words:
"Do videnja" (doe-vey-jen'-ya) means good-bye. Athea yells this at them as we leave their house.
"čokolada" means chocolate.
"sunce" (soon-say) means sunshine.

The pronounciations I typed are how the girls say it. They may not be totally accurate. (In case you run into a Serbian and want to try one of these words out).

Well the gifts are starting to show up under our tree. And the girls are getting more and more excited for Christmas. The lady who is living where we lived last year (that's two addresses ago) spent some time tracking us down because some of our presents were delivered there. She talked to some neighbor who knew one of us worked at WETA, so she started calling and got me at my office.

Sorry for the stock photo in the advent calendar, but I got home late from work today, and, well,... that's my excuse.

And here is our Anna. She's the one who holds it (us) all together. Making the kids lunches each morning, getting the girls to all the various places they need to get to, making sure none of us, (or the cat), starve. She keeps in touch with old friends, new friends, and everyone else so that no one thinks we fell of the edge of the earth. (but we can see it from here). She keeps track of all the finances, birthdays, oh, just everything. And she gives us all lots and lots of love. I don't need to tell anyone what a big heart she has.

I have it so good.

She sure misses her family. She misses Minnesota. She even misses Alameda.

She misses Target.

She's wondering why Puma got an advent shout out before she did.

We sure do love her!

Well here is the one picture of Grandpa Ted that I have on this computer. It is the one of him texting his buddies that he is at a Willy Nelson Concert in Choteau Montana.

This guy sure does keep up supplied with good ol' USA TV programming. For me, it's mostly the Colbert Report. But he also sends tons of other good shows for Anna and I, and alot of shows for my girls. I think we got something from him almost three days in a row. The last package was a nice DVD set of all those old Rankin/Bass Christmas shows. "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer", etc.

And he's mighty nice with the blog comments as well.

Here's to Grandpa Ted!

We made our trip to the downtown Wellington Mall (about 1/100 the size of any mall in Minnesota) to see Santa Claus. We waited in a short line and were only about 3 kids away from getting to the big guy, when he up and left. A few minutes later this thin dude with glasses came out wearing a Santa suit. Oh well.

Then it was our turn.

Athea walked right up to him and said "I want a swimming pool".

Haidyn, proving my point that that girl has EVERYTHING, told him "I can't think of anything I really want for Christmas."

The girls got their picture taken. Then, since we had paid for two, Anna and I also got in the sleigh so we could get a family picture. The girl taking the pictures raised up her camera but didn't take a picture. We waited and waited. What is she waiting for? She finally pointed at Athea who was busy cleaning out her nose.

Well it was THAT time again. Where we take a hundred pictures of our family and hope that one will be close to good enough to send out for our yearly Christmas postcard to friends and relatives far and wide. That would be our far friends and relatives, and our wide friends and relatives. Ha Ha Ha. Brilliant Reynoldz!

Here are some outtakes of our "album cover" attempt. Ahh Christmas.

Clearly, I'm the issue in almost all these pictures.

Here are our cousins Dani and Faith with the Advent Calenders we sent them. The cousins; Matt, Faith, Jeb, Finn, Brian, Harrison, and Jacqueline also got one. Well, maybe not Jeb and Finn, as we sent all their stuff to their very old address. But we are hoping.

Our girls both have one, and Nicola brought us back one from their trip to the UK. We are all over this advent calender stuff.

Last night was just too crazy and late to get one out on time, and most of today was as well.

Dani is already getting famous. Check it!
http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/11825616.html

Under construction

Ha Ha Krusty! Here you go.

I'll be mostly done with the bathroom by then end of the year.

Here is our little Athea. We are at an Orchestral concert for kids. She is pretending to conduct. It is great that the girls like music. They get to watch "Little Einsteins" on TV every now and then as a reward for cleaning up after themselves. The show is great. It teaches alot about music terms and music recognition. When we run down the sidewalk towards our own Breaker Bay park, we run Legato, Andante, and Presto. Sometimes Poco a Poco. I'm not sure on that last one, but that's what we say. "Little by little", and it's too late and I'm too lazy to look it up on the web. Even though I am on the web Right Now! OK. I just looked it up and I was correct.

Sometimes we run Stacatto! But no matter what tempo we run, I always end up carrying Athea all the way back home.

Meet our Elfin Family, we sure love and miss them soooo much!!!

don't forget to click the links....

Anna, Eric, Haidyn and Athea- http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1163392457
Grandparents - http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1169184304
Aunty Chris, Uncle Jim, Jeb and Finn - http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1158424455
Cousins - Matt, Dani, Faith and Erin - http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1172070177
Cousins - Michelle, Jackie, Brian and Harrison - http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1172252478
Aunty Gail & Julie, Uncle Dan & Glenn - http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1172310235
Aunty Barby and Uncle David - http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1172373589