Happy Thanksgiving !!!

As tradition, the Khoury clan assembled at our house for the Thanksgiving feast. Tata Linda is our chief chef, taking charge of most of the cooking, and after meal cleaning. Nader did the pasta salad, Christine did the yams and I did the desert. This is pretty much the set up every year. The food was beyond amazing. We have plenty for leftovers for at least a week.

I've been thinking a bit about what there is to be thankful for. Yes the economy sucks. But in the end, we could not be luckier. We have two beautiful girls that in another day and time would not exist if it were not for medical technology. We have each other. And we have hope. I figure that is a pretty good list of things of things to be thankful for.

Here are all the cousins. From left: Milani, Dominic, Sahara, Christopher, Maya and baby G. Look how big they all look.

One out of every twenty photos Sahara will smile. Check out this rare shot.



Group shot.

Tata Rose with Sahara and Baby G.

Tata Linda and Baby G.

My brother Ken came from San Fran to celebrate Thanksgiving. He's the one on the right.


Looks at all those teeth !!

We wanted to wish all of our family and friends the warmest regards and we hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving !!

Come Play With Me

As our days race by I managed to snap a few photos of the girls while they played.

Here's Maya petting the fish at Lego Land.

Here's Sahara giving it a try.

Although no one looks happy in this shot, I assure you it's because I made them stop for this picture. I couldn't resist a photo in front of the camel.


The girls are now 34" tall which means they can ride some new cool rides at Lego Land.
They are getting good at saying, "cheese !"

Here's one of our favorite play sets located at the Fallbrook Community Center. This play set is fenced in so we sometimes bring Bella (our dog) with us to play.

Check out Maya and her climbing skills.

Here's Maya and Sahara climbing a lion at the San Diego Zoo. I thought this picture was too funny to leave out.


Our friend from gymnastics invited us to her 2nd birthday party. Here's Kaya getting ready to blow out some candles.

Here are the girls playing.

The horses were the big hit of the party as you can see.

Thomas the Train

We spent Sunday with Thomas the Train and friends. Apparently Thomas the Train tours all over the U.S. like a traveling fair. There were all sorts of fun things to do.

Here's Thomas the Train.

Here are the girls on the train. From left: Maya, Sahara and our friend Lauren.

Here are the girls again.

The event was held at a train museum in Lake Parris. There were a lot of antique trolleys and trains there. The girls didn't really want to stand still for this photo.

Here's one of the museum hangers. They also had miniature train sets set up that were very impressive.

They had several trolleys running that we got to ride.

Our friends Aaron and Levi were there enjoying trolley with us. As you can see, Aaron is dressed head to toe with Thomas the Train.

Here's Sahara on the trolley as we cruised around the fair ground.

They also had Bob the Builder there. It was like a little kid concert. Kids were dancing in the aisles. It was pretty cute.

They had tents set with crafts and trains. Here's Maya stamping trains her paper.



Here's Maya playing with the trains.

Here's Sahara playing with the trains.


They also had a petting zoo.

Maya is pointing out the goats.

Here's Sahara being gentle.



Here are the girls strutting their stuff in the bouncy house.


Here's another train they had running that day.

Happy Halloween !!

Halloween provided a perfect excuse for me to start reading the vampire book series called Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. The only problem was that once I started reading, I could not put it down. Just to give you an example of how obsessed I was, I was up til midnight every night reading. For anyone that knows me, anything past 9 p.m. is a miracle. So at this fever pitch it only took me a week to read a four book series. During this time we managed to squeeze in as much Halloween fun as possible. So without further delay....

This is what mother's live for. Cute and adorable. We hung out with the cousins on Halloween night. From left: Sahara, Milani, Maya and Dominic.

I had to also include this photo because baby Gianna was in it. She's the little monkey on the right.


We did go to half a dozen houses to let the kids experience trick or treating. Not like the girls got to taste any of the candy. When we got home all the candy magically disappeared. Have not, want not.

Here's a great picture of baby G ! She came along with us trick or treating.


During the day we went to the Early Learning Center for a Halloween Parade. They had crafts and face painting and a parade which ended with a bag full of treats which included play doh, Halloween tattoos, spiders, raisins and animal cookies.

Last weekend we took the girls along with Grandma Rose to the Wild Animal Park. They were all decked out with Halloween decor and a bunch of craft tables. The tomb stones behind us listed all the animals that are extinct.

Here's Tata Rose with Sahara on the carousel.

Here we are feeding the Loreketts. This is really cool and a little scary. Too many birds on you at the same time can be frightening.

Check out Maya. There a bird on her head.

Here's one of the employees from the park posing with the girls.

All in all Halloween was fun and now I'm trying to catch up on my sleep.