'Twas a Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas!  Justin and Sarah were here on Christmas Eve and on the all important (to me) Christmas morning.  On Christmas Eve, we had tamales and played the board game Wits and Wagers.  In the morning, Jessica, Pat and the boys arrived followed by George and Robin and Jeff's mom, Audre.  We opened our stocking stuffers then had our usual brunch- see last post- and then continued on with opening the gifts.  Ryan was most excited about a Spiderman that climbs up walls.  Jacob was happy with tools and his Bob the Builder DVD's.

Jessica and Jeff both got new Kindle Fires.  Sarah surprised Justin with plane tickets to Denver towards the end of January.  Her best friend lives there and it's her birthday and Justin will be able to bring along his snowboard for some fun in the Colorado snow.  As I write this, I'm smelling white chili with chicken cooking in our new Cuisinart Slow Cooker.  I don't make Jeff abide by the "no gift with an electrical cord" rule!  We had four dogs here (Justin's Sierra and Sarah's Buddy in addition to our two) and our three cats.  The dogs all got Christmas presents and the cats shared an electronic mouse with flashing lights that made squeaking sounds.  So on to 2013.  I signed Jacob up for a little class called Busy Bees that takes place in our local recreation center so will be taking him to that on Tuesday mornings.  Sarah gave Jeff and I the book 1000 Places to See Before You Die, two passport applications and a suggested itinerary (complete with flight, hotels, etc...) that would take us from LA to Dublin, to London, to Paris, to Venice, to Rome, back to Dublin for a flight returning us to LA.  She's hoping we'll take the hint and make our travel plans a reality!