In looking on Facebook, I’ve come to realize that the Fourth is a much bigger deal for other people than it is for me. There’s my one friend, who has had a party with her family as long as I’ve known her. Now that she has three beautiful daughters, she dresses them up gaily in red, white and blue.

It’s just another day for us, for many reasons. Growing up, my mom worked at a hospital, which meant that holidays didn’t exist; she worked them. So Thanksgiving’s the same no-big-deal day for me too.

My family never did fireworks. I didn’t light one until I was in college (so I had an unnatural fear of them, as you can imagine).

Now Max is weird about fireworks, so it’s low on the list every year. I wouldn’t dream of lighting them in front of him (though sparklers would be cool). Now we live in Southern California, fire capital of the country, so they’re banned for people to do themselves here.

He also hates fireworks shows. You should have seen him when he was 2 or 3 at Epcot. Ballistic. I haven’t tried it again. Last year we watched them from a parking lot, far from the booms that would send him into hysterics. We’ll do the same tonight. Armed with some froyo and maybe a bottle of wine, we’ll celebrate the country’s birth as we always do – low key.

• Went to Julian, famous for their apple pie, and didn’t eat apple pie
• Took far too many layers to wear on our very long Harbor Tour
• Spent far too much money at Old Town
• Drank a lot of wine

Then Mom stayed with Max while hub and I had a little wine country getaway in Temecula. Check out our photo tour.

I’ve got a business trip the rest of the week, and I hope to catch up on all my blogs.

I also write resolutions. There’s a lot of argument about whether having resolutions actually works, but for me, they do. I keep them on my wall where I can see them and read them throughout the year.

I’d like to share mine with you.

1. Get my family back together.

2. Lose another 10 pounds.

3. Learn to snowboard and ski.

4. Have more than enough money.

5. Move to a city we all love.

6. Be more thoughtful toward husband.

7. Love son hard.

8. Change someone’s life for the better.

9. Get a camera.

10. Be happy.

You can see, they’re simple and attainable. I plan at the end of the year to be able to say, “Yep, did that one,” for each of these.

What about you? Do you make resolutions or goals at the start of the year? Why don’t you share them with us so we can help keep you accountable to your own success?

Happy New Year!

Some people decorate their Christmas trees with the same ornaments, like all red balls and silver ribbon. I scoff at those people (sorry). My mother’s tree, and now mine, are a culmination of 45 years of collecting. Every time we go on a trip we get an ornament. She still has the tacky Charlie Brown ornaments I painted with that awful sticky paint 25 years ago. The God’s Eye one of my brothers made. The plastic Santa and reindeer that topped one of my father’s cakes 30 years ago. And I love it all.

I love that each ornament takes me to the place we bought it. The kiosk in Holland. The RiverWalk in San Antonio. Tarpon Springs. And I look forward to the day that Max (or maybe his significant other) will want to take some of them for his own tree, just like I did when I went off to college.

What about you? How does your family celebrate the holidays? What are your traditions?

And everyone had soooo much fun. I mean everyone. Dads too.

And it was so much better than a party at Chuck E. Cheese or sweaty party at the park. It was even educational! And Max had a blast with his new friends.

Max would be the brown one. Ha!

Anyway, my baby is 5. I can’t believe it. This was the perfect party. It was pretty stress-free and easy. We all wandered around playing for 2 hours then did cake and ice cream. Then we got the hell out of there. No straggler guests at your house that you want to leave. No mess to clean up.

Wonder where we’ll have the party next year??

PS We discovered our friend Derek has the same hair as the newest member of our family, Aslan:

We went to the park and took a nature walk.

We had a playdate.

Today might bring the lake or a movie. I was very surprised nowhere in downtown Orlando is having a parade today??

I’m trying to soak up Orlando as best I can before we move.

Seaworld

This was only our second visit to Seaworld, but we love it. I love it because it’s closer to my house (downtown Orlando), the parking is easy to navigate (read: you don’t usually need a shuttle or bus), and there’s so much for preschoolers to do.

We went with our friends, Olivia, Sam, Toni, and Angel. Good times.

Birthday World

We’d never been to Birthday World in Altamonte Springs, but they were having a special Easter egg hunt day, so we checked it out. Very cool. It’s a little like Monkey Joe’s, with the inflatable bounce houses, as well as little carnival rides and games. There was a very sad Easter bunny (see below), but Max had a blast, as you can see.

Happy Chinese New Year! Toni and I took the kids to our local asian store where the dragons danced, firecrackers warded off the many evil spirits of the economy, and masters demonstrated kung fu. Oh and we got some amazing free asian food. Can’t beat that.

I love, absolutely love watching him get excited over presents. Even the ones I really, really, really did not want Santa to buy (Pixos are the devil). I want to savor this time, because one day too soon, he’ll be a teenager like my nephews and want only money for the holidays before he crawls back in bed.