Korsvall Family Adventures

East coast family Christmas

My family was actually at our house when we arrived back from California. They just returned from South Carolina where they were visiting my Aunt Louise and Steve. Grandma and Grandpa were staying to babysit Emilia when I went back to work, but since I was sick, it was great that they could keep Emilia as far away from me as possible so that she didn’t get sick. On Monday night, Corey and Kyle were with us, too, and we exchanged some gifts.

The long flight home

No need for photos here – it wasn’t a pretty picture. We woke up at 5 a.m. on Sunday to head to LAX. I wasn’t feeling great but I was trying the mind over matter approach: “I cannot be sick – I have to spend all day on a plane.” No such luck. It turns out that Melissa didn’t have food poisoning after all. I’ll leave the rest of this post up to your imagination.

One final day of fun

On our last day, we spent some time with our friends, Adam and Anita, and their daughter (our God daughter), Paige, and brand new baby, Seth. Seth is such a cutie and Paige is very protective (when I was holding Seth she said, “Are you going to give us our baby back?”) Here’s Eric with Emilia and Seth:

Grammy and Poppy live right next to a great park, so Owen and Emilia got to burn off a little energy in the afternoon.

Later that night we met up with Eric’s high school friends for their 16th annual Christmas party. They are a really close bunch and it was great to see them. Here's just some of the crew:

Roller coaster day at Disney

Eric’s Uncle Peter and Aunt Laurel both work for Disney and they graciously gave us enough passes for all of us – Eric, Emilia, Grammy, Poppy, Bob, Melissa, Owen, Henry and me – to go to Disneyland and California Adventure the day after Christmas. Since they had given us passes back in June and we had a great time with Emilia, I had been looking forward to going again. Thank you, Peter and Laurel!

The day started off great. It was cold but sunny and we were all excited. We made a quick purchase -- a Tinkerbell hat for Emilia! While Eric, Bob, Melissa and I went on Indiana Jones, Grammy and Poppy took the kids to the Tiki Room. Apparently Emilia loved it and continues to say “Tiki, Tiki!” (we have the song on a CD at home and she dances around to it). It was really crowded, but we went on some rides and Poppy even brought Owen and Emilia up close to a show with Pluto.

Unlike out last visit to Disney when Emilia was intrigued by all of the characters, Emilia’s reaction to them this time was mixed --
Freaked by Mickey:

Chip’s (or is that Dale's?) best friend:

Warming up to Santa now that Christmas is over:

Here are some other shots from the day:

Eric was thrilled to learn that the day we were at Disney, the park was also hosting both Rose Bowl teams, including USC, which is Eric’s favorite team. We saw a press conference in front of the castle with Joe Paterno, Pete Carroll and the teams, and saw a lot of the players walking around the park.

Unfortunately, the day ended on a scary note. Melissa got really sick and ended up being rushed to the hospital in an ambulance. She was released a few hours later and was feeling better the next day, but it was very scary. We had thought the culprit was food poisoning, but we’d soon have proof of a more contagious bug…

Potty training?

Owen is potty trained and Emilia was just fascinated by this. She kept saying “potty, potty,” so finally we decided to just put her on the potty. She actually went to the bathroom on the potty! We’ve got a long way to go before she’s trained, but we were encouraged that she’s at least interested. Here she is getting a little too comfortable on the potty:

Santa found us in California!

Those yummy cookies that Owen and Emilia decorated were gone on Christmas morning! We had a relaxing day with the immediate family. The gift opening process was pretty slow. Emilia would pull one thing out of her stocking and then get distracted by the dog.

Santa Emilia riding on Brandy:

Horsing around with daddy by the tree:

Taking a break from presents with Poppy:

Eric with smiler Henry:

The Nash family:

Bedtime story:

Cookies for Santa

Aunt Melissa brought the fixings to decorate cookies for Santa. Owen did a great job, but Emilia was definitely more interested in eating the pretty icing than decorating a cookie. Maybe next year…

The real Christmas Eve

After Church on Christmas Eve, Grammy and Poppy hosted more than 20 people for dinner. It was great to see Great Grammy and all of Eric’s aunts, uncles and cousins.

Emilia showing off one of her presents:

Eric’s immediate family:

Emilia with her cousins, Henry and Owen:

Great Grammy with her great grandchildren:

Cousin chaos

On Wednesday morning, after a visit with our friends Keri, Eliseo, Luke and Makena, Eric’s sister, Melissa, her husband, Bob, and their boys, Owen and Henry, arrived! This was the first time we had met little Henry, who is six months old, and the first time they had seen Emilia since she was two months old. Since Owen and Emilia are only eight months apart, we knew they were going to have a great time together. They didn’t waste any time – here they are getting re-acquainted in a bubble bath.

Santa train at Irvine Park

On Tuesday night, we went to Irvine Park to ride the Santa Train. Again, it was cold! But, we had a great time. Emilia again cried for Santa, but as soon as we took her off his lap, she started saying “Santa!” and “bye!” and waving and smiling.