Christmas Day-ing

The morning was filled with a flurry of wrapping paper and new toys and delicious egg nog waffles and rushing around to pack for an overnight in LA. I think I decided I'd be part of the unwrapping instead of having a camera strapped to my hand so there aren't all that many photos (again, photo taking fail by me!) I know we got some video though!

 

 

The kids, of course, were beyond excited when they walked out and saw all the presents!! Lia got her giant giraffe from Santa, a scooter, some legos, a new doll carriage, a backpack with her name on it, a Woody doll and a Slinky Dog (her current obsession is anything Toy Story so now she has almost everyone!), a Leapster and so many more presents it's hard to even keep track.

Max got a new scooter since his got stolen, SO many lego sets, a new wiggle car, some movies, a Nerf gun, Puma light up shoes, a Flash costume... SO MUCH STUFF!!

Tyler surprised me with a gorgeous new necklace. I love that he likes to get me jewelry. It's something I never buy for myself and he always picks out the prettiest things. He knows my tastes better than me!

I surprised him with 12 months of preplanned, prepaid dates. Each month he opens an envelope on the first day of the month to see what the date will be (January is a whale watching cruise), we pick a date right then (if we can, kind of depends on his schedule) and get Danielle to come watch our kids! The kids got him some Cal stuff for his car and my mom surprised both Max and Tyler with tickets to the Holiday Bowl to watch Cal play!! I wish you could have all seen Max's face when we told him what the tickets were for. It was truly priceless. He was just in utter shock. The got some cal gear to go with it, too -- Max an Oski sweatshirt and Lia a pink Cal t-shirt.

After breakfast we loaded up the car and drove up to LA to meet up with Tyler's brother Cory and his parents. Cory lives up in LA now so it was a good meeting spot for us to get together. Sally cooked a delicious Christmas dinner of ham and potatoes and we of course had homemade pie and played games. I was actually feeling pretty lame most of the day thanks to the wonderful flu, but it was still nice to spend time with everyone, especially for the kids -- the LOVE Cory and they love Grammie and Papa!

After dinner we took a walk on the Venice Canals (no, not Italy, ha, I wish!) It was perfect! The kids took their scooters and it was just a wonderful ending to such a happy Christmas for us.

 

 

 

 

That night Tyler and I took advantage of a hotel voucher we had that was going to expire and stayed there while the kids and Sally and Kevin stayed at Cory's house. Luckily we did though because I was up ALL night with horrible coughing spells. Seriously bad ones. The next day I woke up feeling SO horrible but took as much cold medicine as I could handle and sucked it up. I was a little freaked out when everyone decided they wanted to ride bikes on the beach because for one, I hadn't ridden a bike in literally 13 or 14 years AND two, like I said, I was feeling SO so sick. But, it's really hard to argue with Kevin when he gets motivated to have fun (thankfully I'm totally used to this :).

I am SO glad I got on that bike!! First, getting on a bike after a decade isn't that big a deal after all. A few wobbly pushes on the peddles and it's like you never took a break. I guess it was extra fun that that old adage "it's just like riding a bike" is 100% true. Anyway... this was seriously one of the most fun things they've ever made me do. I loved it! The path was perfectly flat, the weather was perfectly sunny and not to hot, the kids were perfectly happy in their bike trailer with snacks and water and the fresh air just felt heavenly! I seriously could have ridden on that bike all day. It was awesome!

 

After the bike riding we spent a little while on the beach letting the kids run around. In the late afternoon we packed the kids in the car and headed back to San Diego. This Christmas was seriously so so good and happy! I liked being able to do our own traditions and outings and baking. Seeing some family, too, was an added bonus!!

Such a great Christmas this year! I have a feeling that this might be Max's last Christmas believing in Santa (and thus, Lia's because how do you really prevent that?) which is a relief and a little sad at the same time. Part of my wish that he would just figure it out is that I'm a little jealous Santa gets so much credit for picking out such awesome presents. Plus, I'm not a big fan of lying to the kids about stuff like that. It's kind of hard to avoid it and as long as it's not detracting from what Christmas is really about I guess it's not a big deal in the end. Anyway... I'm just really grateful this year for getting to spend it with my sweet little family!