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....