Thursday, January 3, 2013

Some love football...

but I honestly don't! What is wrong with me? Lots of things- including my apathy towards the "greatest" of American sports- college football. Now, Steve on the other hand could be described as obsessed. He knows everything about it, and to my question yesterday "Steve, just how many hours of football can you watch a day," he responded 5 or 6?! Holy moly. Some have heard of my complaints... and logic that goes something like: when would it ever be acceptable for me to watch 5-6 hours of "Keeping up with the Kardashians," or "Bachelorette" or even "Downtown Abbey" in the middle of a Saturday? Probably never, but for some reason, sports is a different category. You got me. I don't get it, but we all have to pick our battles, right?

So- Steve's present this year was a ticket to the Rose Bowl and three full days off from his normal duties as a father/husband/provider/fixerupper/younameit to do whatever sports crazed activities he wanted to do with his friends from yonder days.

He texted me on new years eve ... "Thanks for the trip. I'm having a really good time."

Steve never says this... so I think he was :)




GO STANFORD!!!

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Christmas 2012

Christmas 2012 came and went by too fast- we had some very relaxing and fun fill days. Of course Christmas is filled with food- so we spent a lot of time in the kitchen, starting out with scalloped potatoes and eclairs this year!



Can you ever have enough eclairs? I say NO WAY! And- we ate every last one of these... and they were so delicious.





These are the kids' Christmas pajamas brought to us by Santa Laura! They fit perfectly :)


For Christmas eve, we had some of our old friends over for dinner, Gingerbread house making, scripture story reading and singing. We had a great night.


The next morning we found this under the tree :)


Maddie drew us some pictures and wrapped them up!


I love this note from Maddie to Emilie "I love Emi, I "Lely" or "really" do.


This girl had a great day playing with her barbies, playmobile characters and Critter mice...


And Maddie got a new bike!


Award for the silliest photo.


Later that night, we had our neighbors over for dinner and a white elephant exchange- they invited us over for Hannukah (which was amazing) and we had them over for an "authentic" Christmas- it was a great trade. Definitely want to do this again :)

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Welcome to Paradise!

Our trip to Los Cabos started out a bit rocky, but we got there in the end! Since we were heading out of the country, we obviously needed passports for everyone in the family-including Sebastian which wasn't an easy task since his adoption isn't completely finalized. Let's just say that the State Department isn't super consistent, and what they told us we needed to file wasn't enough after all- it was a major pain, and cost lots of money, but we finally got his passport the day before our flight was supposed to take off... that is, until I checked all of our passports one more time- and realized Maddie's passport was expired!!! AHHH. We completely forgot that kids passports expire in 5 years and not 10!!

Well, we canceled our outbound flights, called hotels, car rental, and headed up to San Francisco the next day to the San Francisco passport office. They will tell you they don't take walk in's, but they do... it will just take you all day- but we got out of there with Maddie's passport in - and rescheduled our flights for the next day out, and a lot of cash! So frustrating, but it was so worth it.

 After all of the mess, we were super happy just to be in the airport!

W

 Finally getting on the plane- and everyone anxious to get there!

 We  have stayed in a good share of hotels in our day- but I think this hotel definitely gets an award for the best welcome gift! The girls were welcomed with their own fish (of course just for the time of our stay), but so super cool! Emilie immediately named him Alfie- and they both took great care of him.

 This hotel was great- I would definitely stay again- we stayed in a two bedroom that came with a kitchen, washer/dryer, beautiful balcony... and amazing views. One of my favorite memories is just sleeping in our bed, and being able to hear the ocean outside of our window. It was amazing.

 Their infinity pools were unreal...

 On the side of the property is a little beach that is only accessible for a couple of the properties which made it feel a lot better that some of the strips on cabo that are loaded with tourists...

 Steve took this picture of the girls on our balcony- it's one of my favorites :)


 We basically swam, ate, swam, ate... what more could you want?



 The hot tub was the size of a normal pool, and Emilie/Sebastian and I spent a good 50% of our time there.  I so want to go back even as I write this...


 Because the resort is sort of like a group of apartments, they let you use the barbeque etc-- so we decided to cook on Sunday, and it was great! (esp when Steve cooks).




 The amazing hotub again...

 A couple of friends joined us on our trip- it was super fun to have them share it with us- luckily they reserved the room right next to us...
 Eating lunch...

 Could this grin get any bigger?



 My friend celebrated her birthday while we were there, so we treated her to some super delicious authentic Mexican food... the mole was soooo good!

 Super slap happy family!


 One of the mornings, we jumped on a "pirate ship" to search for whales...

 Pretending to be a whale...

 And a pirate...

 Yikes- photos totally out of order... one of the nights Maddie wanted to make a special dinner for everyone and be in charge of the meal- she chose the food, and waited on us hand and foot. Super cute ! And kuddos for Steve in helping her with everything...


 Pool inbetween swimming...

 Snorkeling... Maddie went out the rocks with us- super great!


 Crabs!

 This is the first day we got there- they were so excited they jumped in the water without getting their swimsuits on.






 More cute swimming pics.







 A view of the harbor...

 Back to the pirate ship...








 Every morning, there is a papparazzi of boats that go out and search for whales during whale season. It is almost hilarious to see all of the boats race around when they get a look at one... and we were one of those boats.According to them, we couldn't get as close as the other boats because our boat was a lot bigger and needed to give the whales more space. But some of those boats got SO close.


 I  love this picture, because our hotel is in the background!!

 So neat!


 Back to swimming.







 We also took one of the mornings to take Steve and Maddie to swim with some dolphins- Emilie and I were going to do it, but Emilie was feeling a bit under the weather. So- we happily sat on the side watching...












 These dolphins were so beautiful... we couldn't stop talking about them.

 After the excitement, we stopped on the beach for some hamburgers, lemonade and amazing views.






 And then walked the beach and tried to soak up all the warm rays we could...


 Maddie had a great time jumping in these waves.




 Everyone having a good time!






 Back at the beach for our last morning before our flights out. So so sad!!





Had to hit the hot tub one last time...

Definitely want to make this a tradition!