It's the most wonderful time....of the year!

I've summarized up our holidays into ONE GIANT POST, so get ready!

Let's see....starting with mid-December, we had a huge Hanukkah/Christmas/birthday dinner and dance party with our newest friends, the neighbors next door! Daniel, Danielle, Will, Sana, Gavin, and Maribeth came over for a yummy Teppanyaki dinner at our house, then J and Jess dropped us off at Last Exit Bar & Grill. There we danced like maniacs (literally, like maniacs- YOU try dancing to ska in an organized fashion!) to the sounds of the 2-Toned Lizard Kings, the best ska band around!!! At one point in the set, Brian even went onstage and started singing! We all took a ride home with a stranger (thank you, kind sir!!!) and we came back to party like it was 1999. They all left the next day to celebrate the holidays with their families on all sides of the country, but it was an AWESOME evening and celebration of new friends!!!! The pic you see are Daniel, MB and I dancing like rockstars at the post-party. Need I say more? :) We love you guys!!!!

Onto pre-Christmas...."da islands" started coming to AZ in the form of cousins!!! Woo-hoo!! Rachel flew in from Tokyo, and her bro Tatsumi came in from Seattle to be with us for a weekend! Jensen and I were SO excited, since its been quite awhile since we've seen these two. We ate lots of Mexican food with them (apparently Mexican food is tough to find in Japan *sarcasm*) shopped, bowled, hiked, hit tha club, and took almost as many pictures as Krysta would!!! (Hey- 4 Japanese people= lots of cameras, ok?) WE MISS YOU guys already! We all hope to reunite next year in Hawaii or Tokyo :) The pic is of us at dinner when they first came into Phoenix.

Christmas was a tiring, but lovely experience! We went to Patti and Scott's on Christmas Eve, and ate and drank ourselves silly with mom's awesome food. We don't do gifts so instead we watched ridiculous home movies of J and I as little kids instead. (If you're wondering what these videos are like, they are essentially Jensen -with an excessively large head- being cute, and Summer as the Asian version of Veruca Salt...) The picture up there is of J and Patti looking happy and festive!

Christmas Day we went to the Kozans' house for a big Turkey dinner, and hanging out with the tiniest member of the family, little Penny. Brian's sister Natalie came into town from PA and brought along her fiancee Chad to dinner! Susan made a delicious dinner and we again, like the gluttons we are, merrily ate and drank everything in the house. We exchanged gifts and John was surprised with his record player getting fixed!! Susan got lots of pajamas and gave all of us underwear and socks! :) We played Scattergories and Natalie whooped us all, to say the least :P

Lucky for us, we only had a few days until MORE family came to visit!!!! Our cousin Cheree, her bf David, and our uncle Tony drove down from their trip to Las Vegas, straight down to Phoenix to hang out with us into the New Year. Now it really felt like they brought Hawaii to us! We shopped again, saw the "sights" (just blah desert), gambled, and ate LOTS of Patti's cooking!!!!! Unfortunately, NYE was a total bust for B and I. We think we both got food poisoning from the shady casino buffet and we literally laying in bed miserable while ringing in the New Year. :( I won't give you details, but let's just say it wasn't pretty! Despite the lamest NYE we've EVER had (we were supposed to go to the Tempe Block Party with friends) we had an awesome first day of '08. Patti made an incredible feast of typical Japanese food, including special sake, crab legs, and noodles. (Cheers!!) These 3 were so fun to have around...they made Scott, Brian and Jess the minorities for once- HA! (Insert "cracka" joke here)

What a fantastic series of family, friends, food and....movies? In the midst of all these people and food, we got to actually go see *gasp* movies!!!!! If you know Brian and I, you know that we cut movies from our budget since it honestly costs an arm and a leg to see a movie nowadays. Yes, we sound like old people, but you'd be surprised how much a year this saves in $$, and we can't quit Starbucks so something had to give! We got gift cards from Lisa and J/Jess, so we managed to see Sweeney Todd (I loved- B hated), No Country for Old Men(2 thumbs up), and Juno (4 thumbs up!!!!) THANKS you guys for allowing us this rare opportunity! :O)

To sum it all up, we had the most exhilarating and exhausting holiday season....EVER. We didn't even write about the dinners and parties with friends and co-workers, B racing his motorcycle, or our beautiful weather here.....But how thankful we are to have so many wonderful people in our lives. Here's to you all! Have a happy and healthy 2008! :0)

P.S....I (Summer) still don't know exactly how to make a post, so forgive this funky layout with text and pix everywhere until I get better at technology. Which will be never.