Christmas Eve Festivities

Christmas Eve included strolling the Naples Canal Christmas light extravaganza, Chinese take-out, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. You could say it put us in the proper Christmas spirit. Yes, you could say that...

Merry Christmas!!!

We have had a wonderful Christmas. So wonderful that Ryan was inspired to create this short movie (on our much needed, brand-new computer!). yay!

Christmas Parade '09

Last Friday was the annual Seal Beach Christmas Parade. It's a funny marker for us because it feels like we JUST went to this, but I guess it was a year ago. They advertised it as the largest parade they'd put on yet, and it was looooooong (but didn't feel as long as last year's, which must have had at least 10,000 Boy and Girl Scouts).
We've been kind of sick at our house, no Swine Flu or anything like that, but Ryan stayed home from work that day because they poisoned him the night before with their "dinner;" and Gwen's had a cold, and gave herself a little black eye on our ottoman. (I'm trying to explain why my family looks a little off in these pictures, haha.)

The parade was complete with elves playing baritones, the Volunteer Clowns of Orange County, Kazoo Marching Band, firetrucks, Navy boats, dog walkers, dogs who read, the Sunset Assisted Living Community short-bus...you name it, we saw it and clapped for them.

And I wanted to note that this is the first time that I've ever gone out early in the day to set out chairs and claim a spot - people mocked me, but nobody was complaining when we had AWESOME seats for EVERYONE thanks to me (and Gwen who helped move them out of the garage, into the wagon, and drop them off that morning).

Need a Shower

Jen and Alex threw me a sweet, sweet baby shower to get us geared up. Thanks Bizzles - you're fo' rizzle:)
Too bad we didn't take any pics together...

More Montana Thanksgiving

Lots of playing in the snow. Tubing with Grandma Jill and Grandpa Max.
I decided it was okay to risk the baby and also did a few runs. This is me and "Aunt Buckey."



Ryan and Max's snow bear attacking a human on the golf course.

Eating snow. "mmmmmmm" (a Gweener quote).

Four-wheeling.
Walks to the big house.
Air hockey.

First Sledding

We spent Thanksgiving in Montana with Ryan's family. We took Gwen out tubing on at a nearby ski resort that hadn't opened yet for the winter. There was still lots of snow, but we had the mountain to ourselves which was pretty nice, as you can probably imagine.
So, Ryan took her down in a tube and the first picture is of the snowball that you could see coming down the mountain (I think he put his feet down in an effort to slow them down so she wouldn't be scared?). The next two pics are at the bottom. It was HI-larious. She got over it pretty quick and had fun on the rest of her runs (which started out much lower on the hill).