Christmas in California: Part 1

So when I was younger, we borrowed the Encylopedia Brown video from the library. In it he concludes that a Civil War sword is a fake because it was inscribed with the First Battle of the Bull Run, which is a problem since the Second Battle had not yet been fought. The point you ask? Well, don't write this off as a fake just because I'm calling it Part 1 already.

It seems like so much has happened since we last wrote, that I will split it up for ease of posting.

We left on Thursday to visit Tracie's family in California. I had just gotten back from our Holiday party in Chicago (I'll save that post until next year!) on Wednesday, so I was expecting large crowds at the airport. Suprisingly we got to the gate with little problems, but I wish we could say the same about the plane. As has become a holiday tradition, we were delayed, so we arrived in CA just before midnight.
Friday we hung out with Tracie's parents and saw the second National Treasure movie (just like the first one). Saturday Will and Kristin drove in from Utah, so we got to see Sierra for the first time ever. She is quite the cutie, and we agree with Kristin that Ed and Joanna have the cutest grandkids! Saturday night Tracie and I went with Ed and Joanna to the Magic Castle.
We dressed up and had a nice dinner, and then we saw 3 magic shows. One was a very small venue, just the magician and 20 others. Tracie got to sit at the table and be his assistant. When I asked her if she could sum up the show, she said "I don't know where the coconut came from!" We also saw a big show, and a mathmagician. It was a lot of fun, and Will and Kristin were even nice enough to Tivo the game for us and watch it with us on Sunday morning. Let's just say it was nice to fast forward the commercials and between plays, although the ending was very stressful. A win is a win, that's all I can say. Sunday was nice, and Tracie and I even sang in the choir. That made up for missing the Christmas program here in Castle Rock. To be continued....

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Christmas is finally around the corner. We have finished most of our Christmas shopping. All that is left is me to go shopping for Troy. That should be fun and easy since he's gone for the next 4 days in Chicago. JP Morgan decided to fly out all the Compensation and Benefits department out to Chicago for their Christmas party and Troy had to leave a day early to attend a seminar for the Associates of the Society of Actuaries. (I think Troy would actually be proud of me that I knew what the letters stand for) So that leaves me at my lonesome for the next few days. Good thing I have Lexie here. This past week has been busy for Troy. He finished studying and took exam #5 on Wednesday. Lexie even helped study and may have even gotten a little bored with the material. Friday night, I hosted a Relief Society Enrichment dinner. That was a little nerve-wrecking but it turned out pretty well if I do say so myself. I even had everything ready to go on time. Saturday morning we decided to open our Christmas puzzle that we bought our first Christmas. I think we have made pretty good progress especially with Lexie trying to help. Hopefully I'll be able to get most if not all of it done before Troy gets home and we leave for CA for Christmas. Yay for sunshine and warmer temperatures. It has snowed quite a bit this last week and I'll be excited to not have to bundle up to leave the house come the end of the week. We want to wish you all a wonderful Christmas and a fantastic New Year if we are not able to post next week. We'll be having to much fun in the California sun!

It finally feels like Christmas

Maybe it was the early Thanksgiving, the exchange of presents with my family, or the warm weather in late November, but it wasn't really feeling like Christmas. That changed this weekend. Although not really Christmas related, we went to Olive Garden on Friday night, and they did have holiday wrappers on their after dinner mints. Then we watched 'The Transporter' that night. The movie is all right, but the main actress looks exactly like Tracie!!!

Saturday we got some snow that started as a dusting, then quickly escalated to a few inches by Sunday morning. We also had our Ward Christmas Party Saturday night. Dinner was good, but the program was better, mainly because Tracie and I played killer shepherds for the nativity scene (no really, killer, we had headbands that made us look like ninjas.)

Sunday we had the Community Inter-Faith Messiah Sing In. We chickened out at the end from singing in the choir, but it was fun singing with the congregation, along with Aaron, Robyn, and her friend Emily.

Lastly, as promised, here are pictures of our Christmas tree. Hard to find the right lighting.

We also got three plates of cookies tonight. It's that time of year!!!!

December...already

Now that December is finally here, let's bring on all the Christmas decorations. Okay maybe not all, we just got our Christmas tree last night and it's still pretty bare but we got the lights up on the house and some decorations out. It seems like our whole neighborhood has gotten into the Christmas spirit and every single house in our culd-de-sac has lights up. Last Thursday, we went to the Blossoms of Lights at the Botanical Gardens. Tracie got some free tickets through Starbucks. It was very pretty but they didn't have any music playing so that was kind of a bummer. This weekend was supposed to be a very chilly one but we got lucky and didn't see any snow so Troy had the luxury of putting up the Christmas lights. We're hoping that every year we can keep adding more to it. Poor Lexie wished she could come out and play but it was too cold for her. But she is enjoying the Christmas tree and gnawing at the branches.