Christmas Vacation

Another Christmas has come and gone. It was a lot of fun. Nathan wanted all things Iron Man. He wasn't disappointed. Santa brought him a new Iron Man bike, Grammy and Poppa sent him an Iron Man action figure, I gave him some Iron Man clothes, and he even got bonus presents of a Batmobile from his dad, and some Wii games and a bunch of other little presents including some new Lightning McQueen toys he was pretty excited about. Brookelyn is definitely in her princess stage. Santa brought her a Razor scooter with princesses on it, I gave her some new princess clothes, her dad gave her a princess storybook pillow, and Nathan gave her some princess wall art. Between her and Katey they got a lot of cute new little girl toys also, along with an adorable pink polka dot armchair from Grandma and Grandpa. Katey enjoyed her first Christmas. She enjoyed trying to eat the wrapping paper. Santa brought her a leap frog musical table that all three kids have enjoyed playing with. She got her Boyd's Bear from Grammy and Poppa and a monkey from Grandma and Grandpa. Mark and I got a new digital camera (since Nathan dropped ours and broke it just a couple of weeks before Christmas) from Mark's parents and my parents gave us a Costco gift card that we used to buy Wii Fit. Mark's family came over to our house for a Christmas Eve dinner that I cooked. It was really nice. Then on Christmas day we went to his parents house. Mark and I got to go out cross country skiing on the roads of Midway. That was fun. Unfortunately, having all that snow on the roads meant we got stranded up there on Christmas night and stayed over. The next day was very busy. We came home and were busy all day cleaning and packing before we went to the Davidson family party. Then on Saturday we finished packing and drove to Mesquite. We stopped in St. George to visit with Mark's grandparents. That was nice. Then we stayed at the Falcon Ridge hotel that night and let the kids hot tub. Then on Sunday we drove the rest of the way to San Diego. We got there just in time to go to David and Mayumi's house so Mark could watch the San Diego Chargers beat the Denver Broncos to get into the playoffs. He was excited about that. We had a really nice time. The weather was perfect-60s and 70s and clear and sunny the whole time. We got to go the the beach twice. The first time Karen watched Katey so Mark and I were able to just play with Nathan and Brooke and let them splash around in the freezing cold water. The next day Karen went with us and we took all the kids on a walk down the beach then Karen watched all three of them so Mark and I could take a turn splashing in the freezing cold water. We had our wetsuits, but even with those it was Cold! My feet were completely numb by the time we got out and I didn't stop shivering until I had changed into dry clothes and got into the car with the heat at full blast, but it was fun. It wasn't a very long trip because we had to be back for Noah's birthday party on Saturday, but it was nice and relaxing. I even got to see my old friend from Coronado, Karina Lopez (now Villegas). That was really cool. We didn't get to see each other for very long because her little boy got very sick, but we plan to get together next time I go down there. The drive home was a little scary because we hit a big snowstorm in central Utah, so we didn't get home until 4:00 in the morning on Saturday. It's been snowing off and on since we got back and has dropped down to 0 degrees, so being home is a little depressing at times compared to being in the warmth and sunshine, but it's nice to get back into our normal routine again and to be able to let the kids run and jump without the psycho lady downstairs freaking out on us. :) I'm looking forward to a fresh new year. I hope it goes well for our family and for every else. Happy New Year!