Christmas 2013

Man alive, I cannot seem to catch up on the blog! And quite frankly, the Christmas blog post always intimidates me a little because I know it will be long and detailed. :) So for Christmas we went to my grandparents' house in Lower Lake, CA. My dad drove down from Klamath and then Kat flew in from Atlanta and we picked her up at the airport in Sacramento on the drive over. We left on the Monday before Christmas and actually stayed the night in Reno at Circus Circus. We stayed there because a) it was super cheap, and b) there were actually some fun free kid-friendly shows we watched that evening.

We got to my grandparents, with Kat in tow, on Tuesday afternoon (Christmas Eve). It was fun to see everyone that evening, and then before bedtime, we let Grace open one present in particular - a storybook about Jesus' birth - and read it to her. Our little family slept in the trailer (or tried to sleep. Sheesh, my babies struggle to sleep well in strange places!).

On Christmas Day, my dad spent the morning with his wife and their family, then drove down to Lower Lake and was there by mid-afternoon. So we just did stockings in the morning and waited for Dad later in the day to open presents. Grace got gobs of necklaces from Santa (per her request for him!) in her stocking, and wow was she a happy camper pretty much the rest of the day. I'm not even sure she was excited about the rest of her presents because she was so enamored with her necklaces...

Someday, she might get mad at me for this picture. But not for awhile!

This one, too. :)

Oh, the excitement!

Because Connor had a bad night Christmas Eve trying to sleep, he literally slept Christmas Day away. And the couple of hours he was awake he was grumpy and lethargic. Poor guy! I was so sad that he didn't have a perfect first Christmas. :( I hardly took any pictures of him Christmas Day.

Christmas Day with my poor, tired Connor.

The day after Christmas with a toy car. Much happier!

Auntie time!

After several bad nights of sleep in a row, Boyce and I decided to change things up. So Kat (being the nice sister that she is!) slept with me and Grace in the trailer, and Boyce and Connor slept in the living room in the house (we decided to separate the kids so they wouldn't wake each other up in the nighttime). We did that for the last two nights. It was fun to have some "girl time" with my sister those nights as we chatted.

To let Grace run off some energy, Boyce took her to the local park a couple of times. And I do NOT know what her hair was doing!

Why not wear necklaces on our ears, I say?

Kat and I also slipped away from everyone to go see "Saving Mr. Banks" one night while we were there. While we agreed it was a lovely movie, we were kind of depressed by it! I'm so glad "Mary Poppins" is a lighter, happier movie. :)

Perhaps the most eventful thing to happen to us all Christmas vacation was the last morning we were there in Lower Lake, as I was doing Grace's hair, I asked her to hand me her hair tie that she was holding. "Mom, it's in my nose." WHAT? Seriously? Yup. Seriously. I had her lay down and grabbed a flash light and sure enough, there was the hair tie, WAY up there. After several failed attempts to remove it using tweezers, a Q-tip, and I don't even remember what else, Boyce ended up having to take her to the ER to remove the thing. And even the ER doc struggled to get it out and at one point told Boyce she may need surgery. Very thankfully, it did not come to that. Mr. ER doc got a hold of someone in Respiratory with a strange, tiny, wiry tool that did the trick. But it was a little traumatic for little Grace, who told us for several days after that going to the doctor hurt. I'm sure it did.

Post-ER visit.

First hospital visit.

During our stay at Grandma and Grandpa Ryder's, Connor became totally smitten by their dogs. Well, so did Grace, but I couldn't believe how my little man's face would light up when he saw the dogs. So much so that Boyce continues talking about getting a dog. Yikes.

After a few days, we ventured down to Bakersfield to visit Boyce's parents. We had a fun time, and Grace was giddy to see Grandma Nez and Grandpa "Gug." Connor is old enough now to recognize the familiar love of Grandma and Grandpa too. One day while there we took Grace to CALM, a zoo focusing on animal life native to California. It was certainly Grace's first time (and mine too!) seeing a porcupine, a beaver, and a few other strange things. Her favorite was most definitely the huge owl that keeping hooting at us (I am almost positive the animal was asking us to stay and keep her company).

We spent New Year's Eve in Bako and had a fun time relaxing at home with Doug and Rinez. We stuffed ourselves full of holiday candy and cookies and sparkling cider and played games.

We went to the park in Bako. The warm weather was much appreciated!

The next morning, Boyce and I left the kiddos with Grandma and Grandpa and went to Laguna Beach for two days. What a beautiful place! We arrived mid-day, grabbed some sandwiches to eat on the beach, then went tidepooling. It was so fun! We saw a bunch of starfish, some really pretty purple sea anemones, some sea urchins, and I don't remember what else.

At the tidepools. Boyce is pointing to his find: the starfish!

Those slimy black things are the starfish.

Pretty purple anemones.

Pay no attention to me. Pay attention to the beautiful sunset behind me!

That night, we went to dinner at this fancy place (after trying really, really hard to find local sushi only to find the place closed) and sat next to some really drunk people who were pretty funny. The next morning, we got up (after an amazing night of uninterrupted sleep, might I add) and then wandered into town to the shops. We grabbed lunch, spent a couple more hours strolling the beautiful beach, and were off to Bako in time for dinner with everyone at the local bowling alley for their "famous fish and chips." I know, strange that the bowling alley is known for that, but whatever. We left the next morning, bound for home. It was a fun trip with lots of family, but our little family of 4 was definitely ready to be home and to sleep in our own beds. Phew!

Some final pictures of Laguna Beach.