Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy MLK, and now Happy Chinese New Year. How many holidays have I missed writing about and I'm forgetting the most important one. Meika turned one on January 15th. We spent the Christmas holidays in Boise where the kids got to spend some quality time with their cousins sledding, playing in the snow, swimming at the hot springs, and then we flew off to Tokyo on New Year's Eve and spent the first 2 1/2 weeks of 2014 back in Tokyo eating good food and catching up with friends and family.

Meika celebrated her first birthday in style with a visit to my old workplace, Park Hyatt Tokyo, where we had a rather sophisticated lunch at the modern Japanese restaurant, Kozue, and they surprised us with her own special cake. She is 31 inches tall and weighs 19.2 lbs. "Tall and slender" is what her DR called her and as active as ever. She's already running and almost able to feed herself with a spoon. She still kisses with her mouth wide open and her tongue sticking out, and loves nothing more than getting Kian' attention.

Kian's a man. No longer a baby, or a toddler or a boy. His face has lost every tiny bit of the very little baby fat he had and his jawline is more prominent now... sigh sigh.. what happened to my baby boy?

As for us (mom and dad), we are celebrating our 9th anniversary tomorrow. Thank goodness for Mar's mom who's in town for a visit allowing us to go out for a night out sans kids. Stay tuned for more on that as we're planning to go to dinner at State Bird Provisions which was voted "Best New Restaurant in America" by Bon Appetit and we're going with no reservations and crossing our fingers for a walk in table at 5:30. Wish us luck! New Year's resolution: post more on my blog and learn to cook Vietnamese food (my fav). xx