jacko the weblog

chris December 30th, 2007

They say that spending time with the relatives over the holidays has it’s ups and downs. This video demonstrates that this is true. Literally.

Front seat: Uncle Buzz and myself. Back seat: the nieces Madison and Brianna outta Texas. And the car in front: Aunt Susan and cousin Brenda.

Filmed the day after Christmas on the Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. At right is a picture snapped by the coaster cam, revealing my filming technique, using my not-so-steady-cam. This done with my new Olympus 790SW.

• buzz , chris , holidays , santa cruz
• Comments(1)

chris December 22nd, 2007

Natalie’s birthday bash was hosted at the Redwood City Bowl. It was wild. It was Crazy. There was pizza. There was cake. There was a dance-off. Oh, and there was bowling.

See all the birthday pics!

And then I let Natalie’s friends, Shayna and Becky, use my camera…

See all the wide-angle madness!

• holidays , natalie
• Comments(0)

chris November 1st, 2007

See all the Scary Photos!

• holidays , home
• Comments(0)

chris October 15th, 2007

This is what we came home to this evening. Some nasty squirrel had bored hole in the pumpkin we just paid too much money for, excavated it’s innards and left it to rot on our front porch. If it were closer to Halloween we might have been able to improvise… “oh, well the hole left by that horrible rodent can be the mouth”. Maybe we can still make pie. Does the baking process kill rabies?

• holidays , other
• Comments(0)

chris November 7th, 2006

We all had a fun Halloween this year. Shot a few photos here and there… Included the Peninsula School Halloween Parade (and yes indeed, the guy in the “zombie homeless guy shopping cart” is Natalie’s teacher)… Also trick-or-treating in San Carlos with Natalie’s friend Ariele (and family). This was one of those neighborhoods where they give out the full size candy bars. Yes, Indeed.

See all of the Halloween photos here!.

• chris , edie , holidays , natalie
• Comments(0)

chris April 19th, 2006

We celebrated easter with a mellow family get together in Santa Cruz over the weekend. It rained like mad most of the day, but that didn’t matter because we knew it was the last rainy day of the season. Yes, I may be tempting the gods by saying that, but you know… one never really knows the effect one has on dieties until one challenges them. I’m willing to risk ruining everyone’s summer, just to find out.

Anyway, it was the typical great fun, great food, great people type of affair that my family is known for. Eggs were dyed by Natalie, Pam, Floyd and myself.

Check out the photos from the day (including some wonderful low-angle party shots taken by Natalie).

• holidays
• Comments(0)

chris December 31st, 2005

We did Christmas big this year and we did it at the beach. Never-mind the weather. The Petersen family was distributed across two beach houses and four hotel rooms in both Capitola and Rio del Mar. I think the only time we were in the same place at the same time, however was Christmas dinner at the Bayview Hotel in Aptos. There were in the neighborhood of forty of us and it’s safe to say that we owned the place. Three (or more) hours of dinner madness. I will make no mention of the spoons. What happens at Christmas dinner, stays at Christmas dinner. Eh, Brenda?

Other Highlights?

Caroling on Christmas eve, with my dad and I making our debut as the guitar duo, leading way (or playing catch up, depending on the song). When we ran out of Carols we went on to John Denver classics and other folk tunes. Most of which my dad didn’t entirely remember, and I didn’t exactly know. Noone seemed to care. I guess that added to the charm of the evening.

Christmas morning. It started at about 6:30am (which was a bit rough for those who went to midnight mass), and went on until about 3pm. We had alot of presents and a bunch of kids with very limited attention spans. Exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. Oh, and eggnog.

Surfing the day after Christmas. I don’t think any of us really wanted to go out in that water, but the proper balance of cyclical peer pressure resulted in Buzz, myself, Brad, John and Mike paddling out into the frigid surf. As it turned out the water was warmer than expected and the sun came out to warm our faces. Surprisingly pleasant. I won’t say how we did out there..the important thing is we did it.

What else? Seeing long lost cousins from Texas and Washington. Natalie couldn’t get enough of Emily, Ben, John, Madison, Samantha, Brianna. Throw the locals in to the mix, Gabby, Halle, Kylee, Lelani, Kyle, Megan, Ashley and Macey (whew!) and you have a madd madd couple of days. And chinese food. Enough chinese food to feed most of China… or John, whoever got there first.

See the Christmas Photos Now (if you’re interested in getting some prints of any, I’ve also uploaded them to Shutterfly here - talk to me for a password)

• holidays
• Comments(0)

chris December 13th, 2005

Well I’ll have you know that the roller disco is alive and well in Redwood City. Natalie and 12 or so of her friends celebrated her eighth birthday on wheels this year at the Redwood Roller Rink. Nonstop flashing lights, disco ball, music from the Seventies and Eighties, it was a wild time and the place was packed. Despite the incredible amount of people on the rink there were no collisions Well one, Dillan took a skate to the back. But he was back out there in no time. Ice cream cake was above average and the pizza was, well, roller rink pizza. In the end it was all smiles.

See the Roller Party Photos!

• holidays , natalie
• Comments(0)

buzz December 8th, 2005

Ok so I just had to blog this tonight. This evening Leilani and I set up our electric train around our Christmas tree. We then proceeded to walk Jesus, Marry, Joseph, The Three Wise Men, The Angel, Shepard and animals from our nearby nativity scene (also under out tree), into the various train cars (coach, freight, zoo, engine and caboose) and then took them all for a ride around the tree for numerous laps – of course intermittently stopping to check for tickets, appropriate paper work, to disembark, and re-embark. Leilani loves the nativity, Jesus and our train, and her combining them was so innocent and endearing. A great combination I might add, given it’s local and scale our Nativity scene does look a lot like a train depot and frankly I don’t think God didn’t minded the ride, in fact I got to say they all looked pretty happy to me. Leilani and I had a great time, thank you God.

Another incident that I found particularly touching this evening was that after we drove the train back to the station, washed up for bed, gone potty, read several stories in bed, done the nightly head rubbing, back scratching, butterfly-kisses, followed by Eskimo, on the lips and cheek kisses, and saying “I love you - will you please come in and snuggle with Mommy and me in the morning” with agreement confirmed, and giving Leilani the final tucking in with Grandma’s hand nit “rainbow blanket,” which she so dearly cherishes; I finally walked the 10 steps to door and almost had it shut when Leilani calls out to me, “Papa, you forget to tell me that you cant wait to see me in the morning,” which of course is true and was also an accurately noted closing statement oversight on my part. Needless to say, I can’t wait to see Leilani in the morning. How blessed we are.

• buzz , holidays , leilani
• Comments(0)

chris December 4th, 2005

Chris and Kathy (and Brianna and Bryce) hosted this year’s early Christmas party, the official kickoff to the Holiday season in our family. Ok, so we kicked it off a week ago when we go our tree, but this was the first *party*.

And what a party it was. Millions of kids. Not sure where they all came from. Wasn’t it last year there were a bunch of babies, maybe a kid or two running around? Gift exchange was chaos as usual, competetive but friendly. And only one exploding wine glass (Natalie learned the party reality: the fancier the dress, the more likely red wine will get spilled on it).

Was great to see everyone, both local and from the far reaches of California, with Julie and Kevin and family coming down from Sacramento and Allie and buzz and family coming up from San Diego. In all a great evening.

See the Party Photos! (Interested in ordering prints? Go to our shutterfly site and talk to me for a password).

• holidays
• Comments(0)