Our neighborhood, the Westwood area of Rancho Bernardo, has a long standing tradition of lighting luminaria on Christmas Eve. It's a beautiful sight to drive around on Christmas Eve and look at the lights and luminaria - although not every house puts up lights, virtually every house in the neighborhood participates and sets out luminaria. We line the street and the driveways and light the candles between 5 and 6 pm. The candles usually burn well past midnight (ours were still going at 4am), lighting the way for residents and visitors.

In the wake of October's wildfires, in which many homes were destroyed, it seemed questionable whether the tradition would continue. When we took Zach and Bailey for a drive around 9pm on Christmas Eve, we discovered that the tradition was being carried on - even in front of the houses that had burned. It was both sad and beautiful to see the luminaria in front of empty lots as well as the homes that were still standing.

The photo above is of our house, and you can see the luminaria lining our street and driveway (as well as our pathetic light display - Bryan and I both agreed we needed more lights, but ran out of time to both buy lights and put them up - funny how having a baby does that to you). It's really hard to describe how amazing it looks (particularly when they line so many streets in front of so many houses) - they are literally everywhere, and it's a quiet, beautiful effect.

Once again, we are very, very thankful that our luminaria were burning in front of a house, not an empty lot.

On Saturday we took Zachary to his first Wild game. The Wild were in Los Angeles to play the LA Kings at Staples Center. As is often the case with our hockey adventures, this was a last minute decision, and once again the Good Ticket Fairy came through for us. We had seats on the red line at center ice, technically row 4, but it actually meant we were in the second row behind the end of the Wild bench. Sitting that close is great because you're so close to the ice, but it's a little distracting because I usually end up watching what's going on on the bench more than what's going on on the ice. I almost always notice something new or interesting. This time it was that Gaborik has "Gaby 10" embroidered in gold on his gloves. Didn't see anyone else with their nickname and number embroidered on theirs. It was also interesting to be that close because as the players exited from the ice onto the bench, you could really see them. At times, it's a little unnerving because you totally make eye contact with them.

After procuring fabulous tickets, we dressed Zach up in a Wild outfit, grabbed a hat and mittens for him, put on our jerseys and made the two and a half hour drive in traffic to Staples Center. Zach did pretty well considering that the puck dropped at 7:30 pm, which is usually his bedtime. He did cry a little during the national anthem, and then once during the first period and another during the second period. Bryan had him in the Baby Bjorn and quickly quieted him down each time to avoid being obnoxious to the other folks around us. Zach finally fell asleep about halfway through the third period, but woke up as we were leaving.

In a comical turn of events, Mick McGeough, the worst officiant ever was one of the refs. I hate McGeough. The guy looks like a toadstool and is quite the drama queen. There were the usual Bizarro World calls and non-calls one would expect in a McGeough game as he and one of the other refs tried to one-up each other. I wasn't the only one with that opinion of McGeough, either, since other people were shouting things at him.

Staples Center does offer a family restroom, which I have to say made things easier for us. It's a large one-room unisex bathroom with a changing table. The women's room had changing tables as well (Bryan had Zach strapped to him, so he never got to find out if the men's room did as well), but we could all just pile into the family restroom and take care of business and swap off baby-watching very easily. Apparently they also have a stroller check at the Guest Link Center, but we managed to park in one of the nearby garages and since Bryan had Zachary in the Bjorn we didn't need to mess with a stroller.

Unfortunately, Derek Boogaard was a scratch for the game (it sounds like he's still having problems with his back) and I am still 0 for 13 in attempts to get his autograph on my jersey. At this point, it's just become funny. This autograph is turning into my own personal holy grail.

Anyway, a huge thank you to Bryan (my knight in shining armor as always) who was willing to be the baby wrangler/soother for the entire night. We were worried we might have to leave the game early if Zach got out of control, but he did a great job of keeping Zach settled and content. We had lots of people looking at us and admiring our tiny little Wild fan, even Bailey, the lion mascot of the Kings, who stopped by to say hi to Zachary several times. Zach seemed to have a good time just looking around at everything. Hopefully this will be the first Wild game of many for him!