Christmas and New Years

I wish I was better about taking pictures, but alas, I still have none from Christmas or New Year's to share, but I'll give an update on what we did anyway.

Christmas Eve

We have generally had the tradition of spending Christmas Eve with Juan Carlos's family (primarily so they have Christmas Day off to recover, I think) and the kids open presents at midnight. But my family has also always gotten together on Christmas Eve and this year, I really missed being with them. We went up to Carlos's brother's house pretty late (around 7:00pm), ate even later (around 9:00 or 10:00) and by about that time, I was exhausted. All the guys were in the garage playing pool and since Juan Carlos wasn't ready to go yet and I was about to fall asleep in the living room, I ended up going upstairs and sleeping from 11-2:00ish. Then, I drove everyone home.

Christmas Day

Juan Carlos and I got up to go to mass with my parents at 10:30ish and Juan Carlos was in great spirits in spite of the fact he couldn't understand much, so it was really positive and special for me. Then we went back to my parents' house for brunch and to sit around the Christmas tree to open presents with my parents and my sisters who came down from Seattle and Bellingham. We laughed a lot and were so grateful for one another's generosity...
Then, Juan Carlos went to eat leftovers and spend some time with his family while I stayed with mine. We went to a movie and came back to have an amazing dinner. After dessert with some family friends, I headed home.

Our Vacation

Juan Carlos and I were incredibly blessed with having the same week off this year between Christmas and New Years!! It was amazing- we slept in every day, had breakfast together, relaxed, did random errands, and grew a lot closer again. What an incredible blessing time is sometimes!! It was hard to come back to work but I definitely felt like I got a good break.

New Year's

We invited a "small" group of 10 over to our house for New Year's this year. The garage is full of "la zanahoria" Juan Carlos's orange truck and baby stuff we picked up from my aunt, so there was no place for a kazillion guys to come over and drink (what a shame!) so we just had some people over for ceviche, ribs, twice baked potatoes, garlic bread and salad. Juan Carlos was impressed I pulled that off. It was actually really fun, very relaxed and really nice to be together- we all sat around, talked together and laughed a lot- it felt like good quality time.

Christmas in OR

The day after New Year's I headed down with Michelle and my parents to see our family in Oregon and that was great. It seemed like we really got to connect and spend quality time together.

It's always strange to me how much anticipation there is around the holidays and how quickly they seem to come and go, but I am so thankful that we live close to so much family during this special time of year. I know it must be hard for Juan Carlos when I have 3 different "families" to visit and he misses so many of his family members in Mexico, but we are lucky his mother and brothers are up here at least. We are so blessed in so many ways and I just pray that I can continue to count our blessings and not get bogged down with the small day to day trials...

I hope you and your family had a very merry, blessed Christmas and that this new year of 2010 brings hope and many more blessings to all of you!