[Cape Cod.]

Though my beloved Cape Cod seems to be best known for Taylor Swift - Kennedy clan liaisons these days, it is also the site of some of my most treasured family and summer memories. My parents first started spending a week or two on the Cape while they were in college in Boston, and the tradition has continued almost every summer since then. 

Those are the sibs, in all of their partially clothed glory. Below is Dad, making a deal happen even from the beach. Meanwhile, Mom, always the photographer, never the photographed, still valiantly keeps us sunscreened and Oreo-fed...

I wish I could take everyone I've ever loved with me to Cape Cod. The golden, sloping sand dunes, the quirky Provincetown shops, the evening summer league baseball games, the quiet, wooded cemetery from centuries long past... I admit that I'm sentimental to a fault, but I'd challenge even the hardest of hearts to deny the sweet and simple nostalgia of the Cape. 

In the classic words of Patti Page:

If you spend an evening, you'll want to stay / Watching the moonlight on Cape Cod Bay / You're sure to fall in love with old Cape Cod.

Until next year!

[New Year's Eve.]

This is late. Whatevs. I present to you New Year's Eve at la casa Milan.

I warned Mick that spending New Year's with me wasn't spending a hot night out on the town, but rather ringing it in with a night of my crazy family and a four hour card game and kids and Grandma Katies everywhere...and still he drove eight hours just to make my little day. A good egg, that lawyer man... By the end of the weekend, my sisters and Grandma were in love with him, Indiana Jones the dog was his best buddy, and he had a card move named after him {to "Mick", loosely translated: to consistently draw the worst possible cards, dooming one's team to failure}. Meanwhile, high on Diet Mountain Dew, I busily plotted my kidnapping of the adorable little man pictured at the bottom of this post... For now, must content myself with him and his picture perfect family being our adopted white relatives. Everyone should be so lucky.

The game {Hand and Foot}:

The kids, 15 yrs - 26 yrs {minus Ayrten-slash-Kelly, wayyy too cool to party with the family this year}:

The betrothed children, 3 yrs - 12 yrs {do you SEE that love in her eyes already?}:

The super hotties {the moms}:

The 10 deck shuffling {*someone* has graduated from Georgetown law but still can't quite shuffle properly...}:

The sneaky cheating {caught on camera, don't deny it}: 

The mocking Milan for not being able to count her own cards {it just takes me a second, okay?!}:

The real man of my night {no words...just...adorable}:

All in all, probably one of my favorite New Year's Eves ever. My people are the greatest. And any excuse to wear gold nail polish really will always take the cake. Happy 2012!

***

Also, while we're on the New Year's subject...enough people have asked, so I feel like I should clarify: my 2012 suggestions post was written to me, by me. Wasn't a letter from someone else, as some wondered. Relieved that I answered that burning question, aren't you...

[Christmas Eve.]

Just a quick glimpse at Christmas Eve at la casa Milan...

Things you (don't really) need to know:

• In our annual Nativity play, I'm always, always, Mary. Obviously.
• Mary definitely wore a red cape exactly like the one I'm wearing. And baby Jesus definitely resembled a miniature Santa upon exiting the holy womb.
• Since high school, I've always imported our favorite Jewish individual, Daniel (affectionately known as D-Hor, even to my grandma), to be my Joseph.
• We also have him hang up our Star of David Christmas tree ornaments.
• He loves this.
• Normally, we all receive matching (or at least coordinated) Christmas jammies on Christmas Eve.
• This year, we received matching red staplers.
• We didn't love this.

[Two Tunes Tuesday: Sisters!!]

The Sexisters are back with a vengeance! Over the holiday, unbeknownst to me, Kelly (slash Ayrten--she's currently having an identity crisis) and Mathis recorded this little Jack Johnson cover of "Angel", dedicated to me. Appropriate. I have the best little sisters...aren't they adorbs? And doesn't Kell Bell have the prettiest voice? Yes. (I may have cried when I listened for the first time. And the second.)

And THEN...**drumroll**...I present to you my internet debut, accompanying Kelly to Sara Bareilles' "Breathe Again", an, um, upbeat, happy little ditty. Try not to laugh too hard at my mediocre piano performance, k? Focus on the pretty little sister next to me. [Note: Welp. Hours later, I've realized that when I uploaded the videos to YouTube, her face was basically cut out. Sorry, Kel. Seems like something I'd do on purpose, but I promise I didn't. This time. mwahaha] And then...scroll down. If you dare.

The blooper reel! Basically we think we're hilarious...these are all of our failed attempts at recording the above video. Watch for my jazz hands, a creepy Kelly, and Mom getting mad at me for no reason. Literally.

[The day after.]

Beach. 68 and sunny. Turkey sandwiches and sparkling apple cider. Volleyball battles. Wardrobe malfunctions. Sunset. Sand in my hair for days. Lifeguard stations and palm trees. Better than anything.

[Home for Thanksgiving.]

In a nutshell: Kelly was cool, Mathis chowed down, and I spent most of the day sick in bed. And there were pretty things and delicious food sprinkled throughout the day.
Happy Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for family, sparkly things, jalapeños, and you.

[Where it all started.]

A visit back to our elementary school with the sibs.

It's a lovely, charming little place nestled on a hill in Bel Air with views to the ocean. By L.A. standards, it's an old school, having been established in 1929. Its emphasis on tradition is one of the things I appreciate and remember most about attending school there -- think white robed Christmas caroling, candle-lighting ceremonies, poem recitations... My little brother is in his final year there, so when he graduates 6th grade this June, our family will be effectively graduating as well. Last week my sisters and I visited him at school for a morning and attended a few classes with him as his guests on Grandparents and Special Friends Day. Old lady alert: I was amazed by the technology these kids get to use every day in the classroom (two words: Smart Boards), and floored when the entire second grade class performed a violin concert. Kids these days...

My favorite John Thomas Dye School tradition: Every morning the entire student body gathers around the front lawn overlooking all of west L.A. to recite the Pledge of Allegiance and then, with arms raised to the sky, a Sanskrit poem, "Salutation of the Dawn":

Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn:

Look to this Day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course lie all the verities
And realities of your existence:

The glory of action,
The bliss of growth,
The splendor of beauty.

For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow is only a vision.

But today, well lived, makes
Every yesterday a dream of happiness
And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn.

Tender, right? (I kind of wish I still started my day like this. Roomies, if you see me in the front yard one morning with my arms outstretched towards the sun, reciting an ancient Sanskrit poem, you'll know why.)



Love this school. Love these kiddies.

[Grandma Katie's wedding dress.]

What do you do when you visit Grandma Katie's house? Play dress up with her 1940s wedding dress, obviously! The unbelievable thing is that when she joined in the fun herself, she was able to fit perfectly into her wedding gown from 60+ years ago. (On the other hand, I, ahem, couldn't button it up completely. Let's not talk about it.) Kelly and I loved getting to flounce around in her fragile veil, and it was so special seeing our beaming 83 year old Grammy stand next to her 20ish year old self in her wedding photo.

I was reminded of these pictures as I talked to her today and she told me the story of how she and my Grandpa Pete became engaged, as well as other pearls of Grandma wisdom. I wish I had been able to write the whole conversation down, because there were so many hilarious and wise gems, but I did manage to capture a bit of it. Here's a mix of her entertaining and serious nuggets:

{On her husband criteria} "I wanted a tall boy, who didn’t smoke, or drink. … What more could I ask? All the other Mexican boys were shrimpy! Sometimes there are nice things, sometimes there are things that you have to overlook, but Grammy was not going to overlook the height!” [Ah, the source of Milan's penchant for tall boys and referring to herself in the third person is revealed!]

{On not being embraced by her future mother-in-law} “I had heard through the grapevine that his mother didn’t want him to marry me because I had been in the sanitarium for TB…but I didn’t even have TB, I just went there for the shot! Furthermore, I wasn’t a good Catholic. So I gave back the ring. And told him it wasn’t going to work, and that he needed to find a good Catholic girl. He thought, and thought, and thought…and then he gave me back the ring. 'My mother’s not marrying you,' he said. 'I am.' And that felt soo good. Standing up. That’s the thing that fortifies the feelings…the 'I want you, nothing else matters here.'" [Grandpa Pete...ballerr!!!]

{On spending time apart} "Too much togetherness is just like having too much sugar. Too much candy. Too much pan mexicano!" [Pan Mexicano = Mexican pastries or sweet bread.] 

{On her current dating life} "I have a dinner date tomorrow night. I hope Ralph doesn’t rain check. He says, “Could I have a raincheck?” I’ve had so much rain, there are storms! One month he had eight of them. Eight!!" [I HEAR you, sista!]

_____________

Ah, Grammy....ever the classic. Funny to see how the times change, but whether you're 20 years old in the 1940s, 23 years old in 2011, or 83 years old in 2011, the daily struggles, hopes, and dreams of a girl remain the same.

[On the water in Idaho.]

For Chad's family reunion last week we stayed at a beautiful house right on the lake in Island Park, Idaho, so much of the week was spent boating, tubing, and wake boarding. I hadn't wake boarded since my first time, when I was sixteen (and it involved me getting dragged along the side of an irrigation canal -- highly unpleasant), so I had a lot of wipeouts and drank a lot of lake on this trip. Particularly unfortunate since I LOATHE getting wet -- I prefer dry land, thank you very much -- but after four or five tries I managed to get up and stay up. Meanwhile, Chad dominated on the tube -- I didn't know one could excel at tubing, but apparently there are flips to be flipped and rolls to be rolled. Who knew?

At one point our boat ran out of gas, and we were stranded in the middle of the lake with about a million babies on board. Though Chad and his brother valiantly attempted to row us to shore (using waterskis as paddles), we eventually had to get towed back to land. I was bordering on the verge of a meltdown the entire time, but luckily these two adorable twinsies kept me distracted the whole time with their iPhones. Or maybe it was the other way around, but either way, crisis averted.

Please note that twinsie Thompson (above left) is making the same face as Uncle Chad (below). Must be a Hill men thing...boys will be boys...