I can read!!!! I can read the words!!!!

yelled Leilani just 2 hours ago. She was looking at her Dino book. She has memorized a few books that we read often, so I would not believe she truly reads in these, but the Dino book we had not read in at least 3 months. (And it’s German, I know Andy did not either :)

Interested I asked for her to read to me. She pointed to 2 words and read “Eine Erdbeere” – a strawberry. The words were “Ein Erdbeben” – an earthquake. There was nothing in the picture that resembles a strawberry even remotely, and I was pretty awed, even though a few letters were obviously guessed.

She had been doing fairly well with letters – Saturday we went on a short hike, and she traced with her finger all letters of the sign at the park “Alum Rock County Park” and read all correctly except for the K but so far could never combine the letters to make words.

Christmas 2008: Austin Trail of Lights

We had a great trip to Austin again this year, Leilani really like visiting Grandma and Grandpa, and it was relaxing for us parents.

This year we arrived on the 23rd of December, just in time for the last evening of Austin’s Trail of Lights. It’s a 1.5 mile-long display at the city park, all decorated with various scenes and lot of lights—over a million they said in true Texas style. It was very pretty, and given the entrance alone, almost believable.

The scenes were mostly cartoon and Disney characters, not always painted very well. Others were more creative, but except for Rudolph and a manger scene, not all that Christmas-y. Here are some of the better ones:

Above is Mother Goose, the cow jumping over the moon, the dish, and the spoon, done in the style of a book that Leilani actually has. The Texas armadillos below were almost cute (ask Jim if armadillos in your garden are really cute), but the prettiest by far were the trees.

Where the Wild Things Are, originally by Maurice Sendak:

Merry Christmas 2008

We send you all our best wishes of peace hope and joy this holiday season and throughout the new year!

Andy, Sonja and Leilani


Click on the “>” to play O Tannenbaum!

Tomorrow early morning we’ll leave for Austin, to visit Andy’s parents in Texas, so we pre-celebrated Christmas today.

Sleep in heavenly peace…