Holiday Greeting from the Tarns

Wish you and your family a 

Merry Christmas

  &

 Happy New Year!

We had a lot going on this year.  New member of the family Lucy born in February, Fei's retirement in June, many vacations, and everyone's birthday celebrations.  It was an eventful and fun year! We will like to share with you and keep you updated to what was going on in the Tarns.







Theresa and Talia's Birthdays

Theresa's birthday is in January and Talia's birthday is in February, we had 2 wonderful birthday parties.  We celebrated them in Jason's house with family members and friends.  Theresa and Jason did a wonderful job in decorating and organizing the party with delicious food and exciting games.  Talia turned 2 years old this February.  Even at age of two or less, she was fully aware what was going on.  She was socializing among her friends including kids in her age range and adults.  She participated in activities and of course enjoyed the birthday candle blowing and cake eating.  Seeing her enjoying both parties, it made all the efforts of putting up such parties worthwhile. 

Fei and Tony's Brazil Vacation in Feburary

Fei and Tony joined a Brazil Trip to visit Iguazu Falls, Rio Carnival 2013 , and cruise on Iberostar river cruise ship in Negro River (the largest branch of Amazon River).   Several 1st time experiences on this trip made it a memorable and unique vacation. 

Please see the following blog for more info:

http://tarnbraziltrip2013.blogspot.com/

Lucy Was Born on Feburary 24

Jeff and Jennifer had an addition to their family.  Lucy was so sweet for waiting till Feb 24 which is Jeff's birthday to come out to this world.  It was a double celebration for Jeff and Jennifer's family.  Tony was able to be in Oakland spending time with Benjy and was thrilled to have the opportunity to meet Lucy right after she was born. Jeff and Jennifer had done a lot of preparation to forewarning Benjy about his new baby sister.   Benjy acted well as the bigger brother and shown a lot of love to her.  Lucy got home on Feb 27 and did very well of getting used to her new home immediately.  Now there is a happy Tarns family of 4 in Oakland, CA.

Jeff's had his birthday celebration on the same day as Lucy was born.  Since Jennifer and Lucy were still in hospital, Jeff had to rush back to have the celebration with Benjy.  As usual, a birthday cake made this little boy very happy.

Fei's Girls Only Trip to New York in March

Fei had their "Girls Only" trip to New York in March this year.  This is a tradition they have been kept for many years and they spend a lot of time chatting, shopping, and dinning.  In addition they even went to see the popular Broadway show "The Book of Mormon" during this trip.  They also had an opportunity to see the live taping of "The Anderson Live Show" in the NBC studio. Again, Fei had a wonderful time with her good friends.

Please see the following blog for more info:

http://tarnnyc2013.blogspot.com/

Fei and Tony's Big Sky Ski Trip in March

Our ski friends decided to go to Big Sky, Montana for our annual ski trip this year.  This was the 1st time we visited Montana and learned a lot about Montana.  Big Sky has nice ski slops with less crowds.  It is an ideal ski resort destination.  We stayed in a ski-in and ski-out condo which was very nice.  The only issue was that it is located on the mountain and the attitude did cause some problems with several of our ski buddies.  However, we still had a wonderful time.

After the ski days, we spent some more time in Bozeman and were able to travel to northern part of Yellowstone NP.  We even had an opportunity to visit and witness an ice falls in a nearby state park.

Yeh's Beach House Weekend in Galveston in May

Betty and Mike invited several SMDC friends to their beach house in Galveston to spend the weekend of May 4 to May 6. They have a beautiful beach house with gorgeous views of beach and the Gulf of Mexico.  They had a 3 story big beach house to host 16 joyful and good friends.  We had wonderful time on the beach walking, bicycling, and photographing; we also had great time indoor enjoying the delicious food everyone prepared, playing games, dancing, mahjonging, and chatting.  It was a memorable weekend for everyone.