Holiday Season 2008

This holiday season was so fulfilling! It is amazing how joyful it can be to participate in family traditions both new and old. Our first new tradition was to visit the Del Mar light display. Francheska and I took Zen, Aiyana and AJ up to start the season off. We drove around the race track 3 or 4 times so the kids could look at the lights. Zen's favorite was the rocket and Aiyana's favorite was the huge light tunnel. It was fun!

Next we set up a little 4 ft tree in the kids room. Aiyana got really into decorating it. I let her pick out her ornaments and have full creative control. She was so proud of her own tree.

Note: Thanks Tonya for the "Fabulous" idea!

AJ got in on the tree decorating fun also. I have never seen a sweeter little helper elf!

The Wild Animal Park had it's final showing of the "Festival of Lights". We got all bundled up and trekked to Park for an evening. Aiyana got her face painted and did some crafts. She made a sand-filled bracelet for each of us and some wrapping paper.

The highlight of the evening was a little snow hill that the kids were sledding down. It was so hilarious! Aiyana went down the hill several times. Each time down she had the greatest expressions!

We ended the evening at "The North Pole" where the kids met Santa, of course.

A couple of days later, Rich and I took the kids to see Shamu's holiday show. Sea World was decorated beautifully and we got a huge bucket of popcorn to share during the Shamu show. We sat really close and the kids loved it!

Nana and I and the kids went to visit a house on Knob Hill in San Marcos. It was amazing! There were characters and scenes and lights everywhere! They even had Santa! When S.C. asked Aiyana what she wanted for Christmas she told him "a Barbie cash register". She repeated this at least 15 times! We were all chuckling our bellies like bowls full of jellies!

As always, for Christmas Eve the whole family gathered at Nana and Papa's house for prime rib and a gift exchange. The food was amazing as always! (Thanks Mom) I made my from scratch buttermilk biscuits, my sisters prepared the green beans and salad and Nana did everything else!

The night began with a reading from the Bible, great conversation and food and it ended with dancing tic-tac-toe and an arm wrestling tournament! Hilarious!

The highlight of the evening was when the kids were opening their presents and Aiyana received her pink convertible mustang to match Nana's white one. She screamed and jumped up and down in the air over and over. Rich and my lil bro Levi spent the next hour making sure she didn't run into anything in the house as her and AJ tested out the new ride.

We spent Christmas Day at Great Gram Curry's house. She always cooks an amazing brunch! We had crepes with strawberries, eggs, fruit, juice, potato casserole and more. The kids opened more gifts and played with them while all of the adults played paparazzi and reminisced. Aiyana did get a cash register.

We finally returned home Christmas evening. We were all so tired that we didn't even open our presents at home. We went to sleep and did our family exchange in the morning.

After we all caught our breath we gathered at Grandma's house for a turkey dinner. It was delicious of course!

That weekend we went to my parents house in San Marcos to watch some football and so Aiyana could ride around in her car. Aj handled the radio while Yaya mastered the gear shift.

We didn't do much the rest of the break. We hung around the house and played with all of the new toys and game.

Overall, our holiday season was so full and abundant! We were blessed with joy and sarrounded by our family and friends.