Christmas Letter 2010

Merry Christmas to all of our dear family and friends! We hope this letter gets to you before the end of the year!

We have much to be thankful for this year and writing our annual letter is always a time for us to reflect on that. The best news by far that we have to celebrate this year is that some of our dearest friends who have been trying to have a baby for over a decade are now expecting a baby girl. God is so good and miracles are so precious. Thank you for the gift of life!

Vincent is still in tech, he has enjoyed getting into a new role at work as a project Manager. Though it’s been a challenge, Vincent always knows the challenge to learn something new can only help him to grow. We are really proud of him.

Vincent has done a great job exercising a few times a week and keeping up with his good eating habits. He is looking fit, and feeling great. His heart hasn’t given him much trouble this year.

Eileen’s trying to keep it together, some days feeling like super Mom and other days feeling like social services might come knocking. Despite our awkward looking photo which is making her look deceptively large in that wide striped sweater (no not pregnant) she has done well to lose all her baby weight and is enjoying the extra energy she has. She has been following the simple diet Vincent uses. Cut out bread and sugar and increase protein and water intake. That’s all, no calorie counting. Needless to say the sweater is not going to be a future fashion choice! Getting another chance at someone taking a photo of all of this for this letter, well that just is NOT going to happenJ

Eileen is running a small universe with the help of Super Man Vincent, but what you really want to hear about is the little super hero’s who inhabit that universe:

Joseph turned 6 in March. He makes us so very proud. He was diagnosed this year with high functioning autism after months of extensive testing with child clinical psychologists. Knowing more about how our child thinks and reacts has only been a blessing to us in getting to know this little boy. We have so much yet to learn, but we have enjoyed studying more about autism and how best to engage with Joseph.

Because he is high functioning, at first many people may not notice anything, while others may notice right away, but spend some time and you will get to know his loving and unique little personality and you will understand more about it. It keeps us on our toes. We have a little saying when things go awry in the house; we just turn to each other and sigh saying “Ahh…life with Autism”

Joseph is in Grade 1. Eileen is homeschooling the kids. This has been the first official year in grade school ages and we love it. Being able to take such an active part in their learning, while also being able to partake in activities a little “outside of the box” has been such a great ride.

We are under an ISP here in California called the Almaden Valley Christian School which specializes in helping parents who have special needs kids and want to homeschool.

Joseph has been getting piano lessons from our good friend Hanna. He loves it and has been picking up Christmas carols by ear!

Joseph is learning to read and picks up new words very fast. He is also a very talented artist as many of you know. He and James are in a weekly horse riding lesson which includes Occupational and Speech Therapy work.

Recently, friends honored us by asking us if we were interested in taking Joseph to Lourdes, France with a group of the Knights of Malta who do a yearly prayer pilgrimage. Lourdes, where the Blessed Mother appeared in 1858 to St. Bernadette has long been a place of healing and prayer. Please pray for Joseph that he would be accepted on the trip and that we can raise the funds to send Vincent. We think that this is a beautiful opportunity to actively put our trust in God for whatever he wants from our entire family.

James our happy little boy, he is in Kindergarten homeschool and is always ready with a hug and a squeeze. He turned 5 in November. He is a wellspring of affection, what a joy he is to his parents and those who know him. He is making us very proud as he is growing, learning his letters and doing great at Math. He loves to sing and when it comes to dancing he can really cut a rug!

When deciding to evaluate Joseph we knew that James was struggling as well, though a year ago the issues weren’t as apparent as they now are. So both boys went through many months of appointments and testing, it was a very expensive and arduous task but we know that we needed to do it and we don’t regret it.

James didn’t get the official diagnosis of autism; though it is highly suspected that he will as he gets older as he is right on the borderline and some things couldn’t be properly evaluated at this time, so we can see more this year. Right now they see many autistic tendencies and traits and sadly our little guy is years behind in most areas, testing at more the level of a 2 ½ year old. It was a little heartbreaking for us to hear, as he is not thriving like a happy little 5 year old usually does. Both James and Joseph will be tested for dyslexia in separate evals this year as the psychologists felt this was most likely an additional thing they have on top of the autism spectrum issues.

Vincent just says, “We know how to make em babe” really though it is very common, when there is one child with autism in the family, many of the siblings present some degree of spectrum like qualities such as sensory issues etc…

Therese our little princess, or Queen she would say, is a doll, a beautiful strong little person who we are enjoying immensely. Eileen loves having girls since she had no sisters growing up. Therese is miles beyond her tender age of 3, which she just turned in October. She fits in 4 and 5 year clothes, looks about that size and talks about that age as well.

Therese has presented some typical autism issues that siblings generally have and so we need to help her along with some of those things, particularly sensory issues. She had taken to twisting her hair so badly that she only has a full head of hair on one side, needless to say she looks quite lop sided! We bought her a little bean bag ball to hold at night instead of her hair. Sometimes she whips it at us as we walk past the door. Ouch.

She has also the very typical autistic “my way or the highway” outlook, she and Joseph share many similarities! Or is that Mommy she gets it fromJ We are enjoying helping to form her and have high hopes that her leadership qualities will become a benefit to the family. She adores mothering her baby sister Celine.

Baby Celine… aren’t babies such a blessing? We are so grateful to be able to have our kids, they are such a gift, and we never tire of her antics and her little toes! She is delicious in every way. It was such a hard pregnancy, yet such a wonderful gift. She turned 1 this Dec and it has been a marvel watching her grow. She has been so different from out other kids in terms of milestones. All our kids were walking well before a year but Celine only began crawling 2 months ago! She is bright, affectionate and happy to go to anyone.

Lily, our autism service dog, a black standard poodle was added to our family Dec 11 and though it’s only been a few weeks, we are all truly in love with her. A heartfelt thank you to many generous friends and family who helped us by raising the needed funds with the North Star foundation. She is so gentle and intelligent. She came already with a lot of training, but she is still a puppy, she is only 7 months old. She will continue in the New Year with a local trainer working with us in order to pass her service dog exams. Right now you may see her around town wearing her service dog in training vest, please pet her, she loves the affection. It’s a great way to engage our kids in conversation.

The highlight of the year was attending Vincent’s brother’s ordination to the Priesthood in Alabama and New Orleans. Father Anthony S.J. is a wonderful new priest and a great example to our kids.

We also got to be at a Wieck Thanksgiving at the farm in Oregon with all the siblings and cousins. Christmas is quiet for us, we don’t have any visitors this year but we plan on a Canada trip this summer for a month. There will be a family reunion on Eileen’s moms side of the family in honor of it being100 years since moms Dad, Francis (Frank) Carson cleared and homesteaded the land in Warspite, Alberta. Vincent will work from his laptop in Edmonton. We haven’t been home since right after we were married, almost 7 years. We have been lucky that Eileen’s parents make it down once or twice a year to visit. We are very much looking forward to seeing our long lost family and friends in Alberta!

As usual, don’t be strangers. We love company, please do visit.

With much love, Vincent, Eileen, Joseph, James, Therese, Celine and puppy Lily.

Lily has arrived!

Calm and assertive, calm and assertive....

Lily is an awesome dog, such a good girl. We however are nervous nellies who need a chill pill.

Joseph espeically has responded with so much calm and care around Lily.

We can't get over how soft and cuddly she is. I love poodles that the hair stays where it belongs, attached to the dog and not your nose!

Enjoy the photos, there will be more to come soon.

James turns 5

November 11th, a special day indeed. Remembrance day in Canada, Veterans day in the US. Also the day we remember my (Eileen's) Grandpa Frank Carson who died in 1948 in Alberta and left Grandma behind to raise 8 beautiful kids, including Mom who was only 3 at the time. It's always been special to me personally.

Then along came our precious boy, our second child, James. A very textbook labor for a not so textbook kid. James was my first homebirth and it was beautiful. Things kicked off at 11 a.m. I began making butternut squash soup and cherry pie! He was born at 11:10 pm on 11/11/05.

What a blessing this boy has been to so many. His name really could have been bundle of joy, not a care in the world or sping in my step! It also could have been short temper, rockets red flare and several other little catch phrases we commonly use for this not so cool headed but oh so lovable passionate, sanguine little kid who wears his heart on his sleeve and lives by his stomach!

James has had more trips to the hospital on average than any of our children, we fell that simply being around to celebrate his 5th is truly cause enough to celebrate. He did take quite a whack to the face when concrete came up to meet him yesterday, so his birthday pic's wont be too lovely!

I hope you enjoy his photo collage as much as we enjoyed reviewing the photos and shooting them. James we love you so much, you bing us indescribable amounts of joy, you pull at Mama's heart to the core and Daddy would do just about anything for you.

All Saints day and All Hallows Eve

Lily the North Star Dog

Sometime in late December or early January this little lady named "Lily" will become a new member of our family. She is a standard size poodle. In these photos she is about 19 weeks old.

Much like a seeing eye dog, Lily is a working dog or service dog specially trained to meet the needs of a child with autism. She is from North Star Foundation. They have been a superb organization to work with. We are most greatful to our wonderful friends who assisted us in raising the funds needed to cover the cost of Lily's training.

I will be writing a little more later to explain what Lily can do and more about the program. We are just delighted for this special blessing in our life.

Happy Homeschoolers and Therese on her 3rd b-day

Jumping into fall

I love season changes. It’s taken a while to get use to the California season changes though but if you look for them they do exist. Now I know to my fellow Canadians that changing from shorts to capris might not mean much but…

Seriously though I have come to love to cool mornings with a hint of rain, it does remind me a bit of the snowy north, just the darkness and the cozy feel. I sure do enjoy the fireplace. Though this is our first slightly chilly week, last week was in the high 80’s and sunscreen was still being liberally applied!

We have been quite busy recently so Ill try to give a few little photos along with some brief telling of events here.

For my 35th birthday in August, and my Dad’s 66th, Dad flew down to California and was a wonderful Grandpa again to his grandkids. We took the kids camping at Big Sur and it was a very memorable 2 nights.

We had the pleasure of a weekend visit from one of our dear nieces Julia who is currently attending college in Oregon. She is such a beautiful sweet girl and we have enjoyed getting to know her better on her visits.

Vincent was given tickets very generously by his manager for a recent SF Giants game, and if you are following the baseball season at all well then you will know just how valuable these tickets were! They were the best tickets we could have imagined right behind the dugout and we spotted the owner of the Giants a row ahead of us. We took Joseph with us. We knew the external noise would be tough for him but we wanted to try with him since it was so close up. He struggled quite a bit, though we bought him a big set of earmuffs which he wore the entire time. The giants lost that night but went on to win the next important game. That night Wille Mac was released temporarily from the hospital to be at the game to give out the Wille Mac award to Andres Torres. Kind of emotional I have to say! Andres Torres really accredited God for his success, very beautiful.

In San Francisco a few weekends ago we went to fleet week and the kids were able to board some coats guard ships. 2 ships from Canada were down and I nearly cried. Then we took the kids to the North Beach Columbus Day parade, which was very Italian and family friendly. From where we were we could also catch the Blue Angels air show The kids were sitting on a curb in a great location and needless to say they garnished a lot of attention sitting there. Pretty near every float stopped to give something to our kids. Unfortunately it was a lot of candy! We generally don’t give our kids candy so this was not really a great thing! Luckily with Therese’s 3 year old bday the next day I was able to stick it in a piñata and pass it along to some wonderful little darling kids who came to play.


So yes our baby girl turned 3, hard to believe, all on Oct 11, Canadian Thanksgiving. We were extremely blessed with a visit from Uncle Anthony- Father Anthony, or as the kids say Uncle Father Bananthony, yup, it’s a long one. He said Mass in our home as well as at friend’s of ours who had just moved into a new home, what a blessing that was to christen their new digs. Basically a large acreage, couldn’t be happier for our good friends. They also surprised us with go cart rides that day on their property and Father Anthony and Vincent proved to the kids that they still have what it takes to tear up a field. Father Anthony also took Joseph in our inflatable kayak (thank you Clark) at Half Moon bay as we spent an afternoon there during the visit.

Nawdy Baby

"Mommy I didn't do anything. Ok Mommy I did it, but Mommy Mommy Celine is nawdy."

Her words not mine.

Pepper fields and kids

We often stop by the side of the road, for many reasons, 4 of them to be precise. Last week while driving through our favorite town of Gilroy, we had to let the kids experience a pepper field. They didn't want to come out. THIS IS WHY we dont have cell phones, ipods, wii wii's or whatever the heck they are called for our little ones! This is God's wii field! Ok now I'm getting pretty carried away, but I did tell you we have 4 reasons to stop by the side of the road, and yes you know what Im talking about...

Blaaawwwggg

Well I figure I should keep my work and update every once and a while!
We have kept our busy pace going all summer. The boys attended 2 camps this summer with the homeschooling families, music camp and sports camp. Both were a lot of fun. They were about 4-5 hours long for 5 consecutive days. The boys were plenty tuckered out at the end of each day.

Joseph and James both went through some extenseive evaluations this year, many of you already know that Joseph has high functioning autism HFA and James has many similar traits thought is not diagnosable as of yet for anything concrete other than speech and learning difficulties, PDD NOS. What a challange, but we embrace it trusting that it is just what we all need. Our 4 kids are special indeed as are all God's little ones. We enjoy them and want to throttle them at the same time! They do keep us active.

So we have started homeschooling a bit more concretly now and are really starting to live it despite its true challanges. Its becoming who we are, or rather I should say, we are becoming each day more who we are supposed to be, I guess a little more comfy in our own skin.

Adding some photos here of last weekend, one of our favorite activities, picking fresh berries by the ocean at Swanton Berry Farm.

Napa Valley

This weekend we left our oldest 3 with our trustworthy fiend and babysitter. The kids had a blast with her as usual. Vincent and I took baby Celine and set off for Napa Valley. It was nice to be able to do a little Wine Country with a lot less Whining, if you know what I meanJ Though its so bittersweet, cant wait to get away and yet the moment we do all that can be thought of are the children and how much we love them!

What did we do with our time?

Friday night, highly recommended; we dined at Fume. Everything was great, loved the cheese plate appetizer, but the best by far was the 8 oz steak topped with a butter medallion made of cabernet and blue cheese. Completely mouth watering and brings whole new meaning to the term melts in your mouth. Went back to the hotel and Celine cried half the nightJJ Ahh parents always.

Saturday we started with breakfast at Harvest Café in our hotel, the Marriott in Napa. We were blessed to get 1 night free on our banking points. Though it was so nice to stay closer to the wineries than the original 99 dollar special we had booked in farther away Vacaville, it wasn’t this super posh nice room we were thinking. Should have known when they said they only had one room leftJ It was on the main floor right next to the lobby, yeah, loud, real loud. Sadly it was also pretty small, but hey don’t get me wrong it was perfectly fine, and yes a quality hotel, but for the price they actually charge if we didn’t have points, I had imagined more. I don’t think I would have paid full price for it, it wasn’t too much better than comfort suites in Vacaville. What I did love though was not having such a far drive and the stars I give Marriott are for the help of the staff and the concierge, what a treat; they really know the meaning of service. Another real bonus was the wait staff in the hotel restaurant were better than the wait staff at any other fine dining restaurant we visited while in Napa. If we had moolah, Id stay in Yountville, a little closer to most of the wineries. C.S says Meritage is awesome, but super pricey.

Our first stop, Yountville, La Bouchon Bakery, so hyped up for the experience after the reputation of this place. SO disappointed in the dry dry pastry breads we got. We had the almond chocolate croissant, sticky pecan bun and the Chantilly lace éclair. All were dry as though they were a week old, very very bummed. I think it was on off day and we tried the wrong things. LOVED watching the baker through the bakery window. Learned how to snip and braid. WOULD have loved to stay longer in Yountville near the bakery, lots of cute shops, but we were in a hurry for our scheduled wine tour at Sterling.

Off to Sterling Vineyards to take the aerial tram to the top. Loved this experience and it’s a must for NAPA. Liked the wines, though didn’t love love any of them, bought their last sweet desert wine a Malvasia Bianca. Loved their gift shop and highly recommend the products I found from www.modern-twist.com check them out. It’s amazing what you can do with polymers.

Lunch in Calistoga at Hydro. Wanted to go to flat iron on the recommendation of a local but it wasn’t open except for dinner. He also recommended Hydro and boy we are glad, SUPER CHEAP CRAZY GOOD FOOD. Pulled pork sandwich, amazing, take me back to N’awlins, it was as good as the best po boy I had there. In fact we are definitely willing to drive to Calistoga just to get one of these again.

Shopped at Mud puddles shop in Calistoga. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=86525318243 Bought Therese a really fancy little sweater for the fall. Met the owner, Elizabeth and she was a doll. About my age, a mom of 2, and a local, enjoyed swapping stories with her and she gave me some good recommendations. If you get up there and love kids clothes please stop in, very cute little clothes shop. She has done a great job with her selection of items.

Thanks to Elizabeth’s recommendation we decided to go ahead with the Castello di Amorosa winery next on our agenda. Good friends M and R mentioned it but when we called for a tour the Castello said no kiddos. Even though Celine is just a baby they wouldn’t budge, so we were bummed, but Elizabeth said, oh you don’t need the tour package to see it, and you can bring your baby up there if you aren’t on the tour, so we did just that and it was really pretty. I have to say though, having been to Europe so much in my 20’s, I find it very hard to oohh and ahhh at a replica that is only 5 years old. I go for the falling apart historical buildings, so it was hard to change my mood. Still they had a nice wine selection and we went ahead and purchased a Fantasia wine. Nice sweet desert wine. Again, not the red Cab or Merlot we went out to find but hey…

That night we had dinner reservations at FARM in Napa. I do recommend the restaurant but have a few bones to pick with them. Ok, I’m no food critic, oh wait… I am, yes I am. The flatbread appetizer was very pretty, but pretty…tasteless. The after dinner Cheese plate was a let down. FARMS cheese plate only had one item on it that we loved and that was the famous cowgirl creamery cheese from Petaluma, always a winner. The fact that it was paired with a sweet pecan raisin bread was a real let down. We like a little crunch and there was really none to be had on the plate save 2 candied walnuts. I’m allergic to most nuts, so didn’t work well with me. I love a little trio of breads for those that like soft and those that like crunch, gives you the chance to really go to town with your cheese. No quince paste here, but there was a nice dreamy apricot spread resembling quince. Again, soft pecan bread didn’t pair well with it. Ok snob snob snob, you never knew did you? Actually we are just so miserly that if we are paying big bucks for dinner, we really want it to be worth it, and FARM was just a good restaurant, not a great one as I had hoped. Fume out smoked it by far!

Sunday morning Mass in a nearby parish where we ran into an old friend of the family, what a pleasure. Then back to another excellent breakfast at hotel, again superb service, better than the ‘oh so posh’ FARM! No I’m not bitter.

We decided to take full advantage of having a hotel with a concierge, and we asked them if they could recommend a scenic drive that was favored by locals, and boy did we get one. I feel I have a new appreciation of Napa. I told Vincent about 5 times; pinch me, I’m back in Croatia. I was completely transformed back to my most favorite places on earth and it felt, magical. I could cry even writing this. I can smell the HOPS of Medjugorje back lane morning paths as I write this. I bothered Vincent all the way home to move us to Napa immediately!!! But then I thought of my close friends in San Jose and couldn’t come to terms with it…well not completely…

We stopped at 11 a.m. for the final Vineyard on our trip. We decided to visit MUMM Napa Valley winery for its famed sparkling wines. Note to self, even with breakfast on your tummy, 11 a.m. wine tasting hits the spot…in a not so appealing way. Though Linda, our wine expert of the day was as lovely as it gets, we didn’t settle on any wines here, though if you are in the market for an interesting sparkler the Cuvee was nice, as well as the red Santana.

Now for the real awaited experience which if you only take my advice once, this is it, my favorite all time burger stand in Napa. Now, I’m not a big big burger fan, so the fact that we stumbled upon this place a year ago and it still wakes me at night with an insatiable appetite… enough said.

You must order the Western Bacon Blue Burger. Even if the ingredients seem not so appealing, for instance I NEVER thought Id like blue cheese, WRONG. Bacon, Blue cheese, a fabulously large Walla Walla sweet onion ring, BBQ sauce, just to mention a few items found in this hidden gem. This burger has so much going on in one bite. I think it’s the only time I have ever eaten at a public restaurant and hit the table several time saying “OMG,” and “man this good” in between other loud grunts and sighs. Embarrassing but what can I say this Burger is amazing. This place next to the Oxbow market was formerly knows as Taylors EAT, but now is simply called GOTTS roadside. GUESS WHAT I see it is also in the ferry building in San Fran, and I’m sure it’s good there too, but oh Napa, Oh Bacon Blue, ahhhh…

Oxbow Market, a must see, fresh meats, seafood, chocolate, but the best of all Kara’s cupcakes, get the red velvet. Not overly sweet, but it gains the name velvet in my book.
Off for home, happy to get home, 5 minutes after sitter leaves we are yelling at the kids with tears in our eyes, when did parenting get so hard? FIAT FIAT FIAT.

Hope you enjoyed my snob review, ignore the grammatical errors.

Of Wine and Roses

Need I say more? Oh Vincent don't kill me:)

Wine Tasting

Things get blurry after one too many:)

Stay tuned for more pictures from my trip to Napa Valley with Mom and Dad.

Why not blog about it?

Ok it’s been millennia. I’m thinking why would you bother to come to my blog if I don’t update? Because my kids are so cute, because you’re bored, or out of an unwritten blog rule that says we must check in on our friends blogs every once in a while in case God forbid something awful has happened? Sad but it seems like the only way news travels these days is through blogs, FB, and tweets! Well if it’s us, don’t worry, we won’t blog it, fb it or tweet about it, it will be on national news under some horribly twisted headline. When we do drama we go for primetime.

That said, there isn’t much new with us, our focus as always is our little family and these cute munch a bunches we call children.

Pictures say a thousand words, so this is my preferred mode of communicating to you our recent adventures. From New Orleans to San Jose, we have had a heck of a summer so far. I'll be posting some updated photos in these next few days.

For Now, I love Therese and her twisted sense of sibling love towards Celine, "Now Baby you're gonna smile for Mama or else"

What to do on the weekend?

This question is always answered in the same way for our little tribe... outdoors! After all, it is California.

This past weekend we took the kids hiking in the hills. A beautiful spot with a play structure at the bottom of the hill with cook stations for our hot dogs, and a little man-made lake to splash rocks into.

At the top of the hill, hang gliders were swooping down all around us. Our kids tried their best to fly little kites but kept getting tangled.

Ed Levin park, a great place to be on a weekend:)

Celine is now 3 monthes, weighing in at 16 lbs, she isn't deprived.