dinolove: All I ever wanted.

Winter break is almost over :( The past three weeks have been packed with crazy adventures and a lot of fun times with friends and family. The following is only a glimps into how much fun I have had over this much needed vacation.

My vacation began with a Whitney family christmas at Travis and Alycia's place. As most of you know Brian and Marceil's place was devestated by a house fire so Christmas with the Whitney's was a little diferent this year, but most importantly we were all happy to be together, and as our new Motto states, "Home is where your Mom is."

Then I was off to So Cal to visit my Dad, Lyd, AJ, Papa Jim, and Grandma Ida. We did a lot of Christmas shopping, put up there well ornamented Christmas Tree that sat next to Lyd's Manorah, and Dad made some awesome fat Gingerbread dudes. On one of the nights we went to Saddleback Church for their televised Christmas program, where I saw Rick Warren Nonchalantly mention his book, The Purpose Driven Life. We had Christmas breakfast the morning that I had to leave. I left on a full belly of turkey bacon, turkey sausage, eggs, bagels, sprinkles cup cakes and champagne.

I arrived back in Seattle at 5:15 pm and the White Elephant Party that we hosted for our friends began at 8. We had about 20 people show up and expected it to last untill maybe midnight, but no one went home untill 3am! It was really fun to see everyone and we had an awesome time. Some of the best White Elephant gifts were...

A used athletic cup

Some cold pizza and a baby sock

A groom and groom cake topper

The day after our party we woke up and it was Christmas Eve! We went to my parents house for the Annual Family White Elephant party. I ended up with the Spice Girls greatest hits cd (yes!). After the party my family opened presents from each other. Katie and some of her friends were skeptical of Santa this year, but she still put out cookies, milk, and a card for him before she went to bed, just in case her suspisions were wrong. Katie and I had a sleepover in her room and when she woke up, she told me that she had heard Santa's Reindeer on the roof above her room, she wasn't lying, I heard them too!

Christmas Morning we went down stairs to see what Santa had brought. Katie got a brand new lime green bike, and Bubs got a Dale Earnhardt Monte Carlo Racecar powerwheels! He was so excited when he saw it he yelled, "My racecar!" He didn't realize it actually drove untill he accidentally stepped on the gas pedal and ran right into Katie's bike. His face was priceless. He immediately wanted to drive it more. Now he is an old pro at driving his racecar, and after every time he takes it out he parks it in the garage and wipes it down with a rag.

I put my new cowboy boot slippers on and we were off to my grandma's for an unavoidable Christmas breakfast. They tried not to do it this year, but we have been going over to her house for Christmas breakfast for so many years that all of my cousins, aunts, uncles, and a few other people just showed up anyways. After breakfast it was off to Mary and Willi's (David's Parents) for Christmas Dinner and more presents. By the end of the night we all had Christmas Hangovers.

On the 27th we headed down to Seaside for Marceil's birthday! We gave her a special gift this year since it was she and Brian's 35th year wedding anniversary and they had been through so much in the past few weeks with the fire. We took her original wedding ring that she didn't wear anymore and had given to Trev to use for someday buying me a ring, and put the diamond into a necklace. She was very surprised. The rest of the weekend we watched movies, ate, played games, went to the beach, and of course played fascination. One of the nights I won 8 times!

New years eve was another fun party at our place. We had more friends than we expected show up and had a great time. The only disappointment was the space needle. We had planned on watching the fireworks from the middle of our street, but there was some malfunction with the fireworks and the ones on the top didn't go off at midnight, since the top of the needle is all that we can see from our place we didn't see much. Trev, Neek, and Ben cranked up the volume on their concert sized amplifiers and played some live music. Trev was in heaven... or at least on the stairway to. bwahah sorry.