Christmas in CA

After a minor incident at the airport, hence the band-aid on Geneva's eyebrow, total lack of naps on the flights, and resulting crying by ALL THREE children AT ONCE during our car ride to Tahoe, we finally made it to our destination following a long day of travel.  I suppose I am thankful that the kids behaved so well on the plane and reserved their breakdown for the car ride, but a nap still would have been nice.  And appreciated.  Anyway, the whole family was waiting for us in Tahoe which made it all worth it!  They got right down to the business of playing with the kids and handing Dan and me a well-deserved beverage.

First morning in the hotel, the kiddos crawled into Pake & Beppe's bed and crunched Cheerios all over the place (you're welcome!):

As you can see, there was not a lot of snow in Tahoe, but half the group still went snowboarding/skiing on Friday.  Heavenly did a good job of redistributing the snow that had fallen previously and the group got to board/ski the whole day on the Nevada side of the mountain.

We enjoyed our weekend in Tahoe, doing some shopping, eating, gambling (came out ahead!), and ice skating too.

After Tahoe, Dan and I were able to visit JQ & Karinne in the Bay Area for a night (which included a DELICIOUS dinner at Sushi Ran and a meeting with a realtor to jump start our move!) while Pake & Beppe took the kids back to their house.

My dad showing the kids how it's done:

Mom and her little elves:

And then we spent the rest of the week looking forward to Christmas and just doing the things that we do...

Catching up with Pake:

Playing outside and saying "hi" to the cows:

Watering Beppe's flowers (who has flowers to water in December?!?):

Decorating the Christmas tree with Tante Jessie:

One of many walks on the dairy:

Frosting Christmas cookies:

"Helping" Uncle JoJo play the guitar:

Loving on all the grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc.

Another walk on the dairy, this time with Tante Karinne & Chewy too:

More loving:

Christmas Eve with Great Grandma:

 And Christmas morning/day at home:

 Waiting VERY impatiently to open gifts (so many of them!):

 Until it was off to see more relatives!

One last cup of coffee with Pake while Mom & Dad packed up, and we were off! Another long day of traveling without naps, and we almost got stuck in Denver overnight, but thank goodness we finally made it home after midnight EST.

And that's a wrap-up of Christmas 2011!

December 2011

We spent early December doing indoor activities and getting ready for our Christmas trip to California.  It's all a blur, really, as I spent most free moments packings, creating gifts, and shopping online!  The kids have really started playing well together though, now that the twins are old enough to take instructions from Sydney and play by "her rules" from time to time.

The night before our flight to California, the kids opened their gifts from us.  Just a couple small things each since they really do have plenty and are still young enough to be happy with anything at all (or nothing)!  It was cute to see their excitement at this age over a pillow pet (Sydney), new doll (Geneva), and plastic animals (Asher)!