Big Things (and one cute and tiny thing) Coming in 2010!

The California Deans spent their Christmas together on Kiowa Avenue and did their best to make it feel like the holidays, which is not easy to do when far away from family and with no cold weather or snow on the ground. Jay decked out the balcony, staircase and fireplace with candle light and cranked up the iTunes holiday mix so Karen could catch that Christmas Spirit when she came home from the Valley on Christmas Eve, but he was soon knocked out of commission with a fever and chills. Luckily, he was over the illness within a few days, but for someone who is never sick, the timing was pretty poor.


We feel very ready for Grover's arrival and I think we can officially say we have just about everything we need. The sight of the newly installed car seat (thanks, guy from CA Highway Patrol!) has helped the reality of it all to sink in. People have been dying for the latest Bump Watch Photo, so here's Karen (36 weeks) posing last night prior to leaving for our annual Maggiano's Holiday Dinner (what a hot pregnant lady, right?)...

For those of you who don't know, each year we go to The Grove in West Hollywood to an Italian restaurant called Maggiano's for a family-style holiday feast with our collection of friends all connected to Jay's Syracuse days. The group keeps expanding and changing (friends move away, new boyfriends and girlfriends join the fun), but each year proves to be a fun, festive night of food and wine to celebrate the holidays. Karen's doctor even made her promise she'd have a glass of wine. Here's the crew (someone commented we are all wearing blue. it wasn't planned):

We will be ringing in the New Year with our good friends Dara and Darren and their new dog Cooper (one of only 2 dogs in the world Karen likes). It will be pretty low key, as our entire holiday vacation has been, but that's kind of how we roll these days. I think we are doing what they call "nesting."

Thank you to everyone for helping to make 2009 such an amazing and unforgettable year! Now it's on to 2010, a brand new decade and certainly what we can call a new phase of our lives. Baby Dean aka "Grover" will be here (hopefully) in less than 4 weeks. One set of his/her grandparents, Bonnie and Jack, are scheduled to arrive on January 23rd and will stay in Los Angeles until the end of February. We hear the family support in the first few weeks is invaluable. We feel very lucky.

Happy New Year!