Christmas, etc.

Having just had our last guest, Sacha's mom, make it safely home, I wanted to post a few photos of our last couple of weeks. Christmas was particularly memorable this year because of the weather! In the week before Xmas, it snowed and froze and rained and snowed some more and then everything just sat on the ground and became a huge slushy disaster. As a result, Sacha and I both had several days off work and spent lots of time cozied up in our house. As the days went on and the snow stayed and stayed, we started to wonder when our toddler was going to finally lose it from being inside too long...but, actually, we all did just fine. It was really nice to have some time together, especially during the holidays.

And, we were lucky in that all our family members managed to make it into town. My parents just barely made it by taking an earlier flight when their original one got canceled. Sacha's parents drove down and didn't hit any major problems. And, my sister and brother also made it here safely. We managed to navigate the slush between here and my grandma's house and had lots of fun catching up with everyone - although we did have a few close calls! We realized after everything melted that the chains to our primary car, for which we had been looking all over, had been trapped in the trunk of our other car! So, we did lots of sliding around when we did manage to get out. Thank goodness Sacha did almost all the driving and got us home safely every time!

This was the first Christmas that Mateo seemed to get, at least partially. Obviously, he doesn't understand the idea behind it, but he was very accepting of the whole concept of getting presents! His Bubby and Poppa got him a play kitchen that he is completely in love with. He calls it his kid kitchen. Other big winners were a trike from Apa that Mateo has named The Commander (after a bike in a favorite book of his) and a musical puzzle from Grammy and Grandpa.

Last word on Xmas: this was the first year we've stayed in Portland instead of heading down to my family's house in California, and the first time we've ever attempted Christmas dinner. It was actually the first Christmas I have ever spent outside my childhood home. Crazy. Anyway, I think it went pretty well. Thanks largely to Sacha's planning and cooking skills, we did a lot of the prep ahead of time and had lots of help on Christmas day and it all came together quite nicely. We even had tamales courtesy of Apa!

So, here are some photos of Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Sacha's birthday, which was on the 26th. We also had our 8th anniversary of being a couple on Dec. 28th, so it was a jam-packed several days.