A Very Yuma Christmas

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all!

The last few days have been a total blur for us, and I think we're all just starting to get our bearings here in Arizona.

I guess I'll start from the top. Our journey from Sacramento to Yuma went very well. I am pleased to report that Landon slept most of the time...pretty much all through the flight and most of the car ride. After getting into Yuma, we had a few hours of downtime before the infamous "Tamale Night" started. People started to trickle in around 6pm or so and from then on, it was party time! Throughout the course of the evening, there was probably a hundred people or more that came through the house. Landon was the most popular person there, constantly being passed from one relative to another. At one point though he decided that he was done meeting new people, and he hit his "fussy wall". We decided that it was time for him to go to sleep, and we put him down. But it sure was nice for him to meet so many people that have watched him grow up through the blog. I think that the general consensus was that he's even cuter in person than on the blog...but I was assured that people actually read this thing, so I guess we'll continue with our fun hobby.

Here's a picture of Michaela with her close friend Becca. As Michaela said that night, "Becca is one of those pregnant women that glows"...even though she was fighting a cold, she was still radiant and you could just tell how much she was enjoying the pregnancy. She is due in early March and we're all looking forward to meeting their new arrival!

After the travel and tamale night, we all slept deeply on Christmas Eve, and woke up re-charged on Christmas morning...actually, it took me a while to wake up because I was so tired, so Rachael had to resort to using the vacuum to wake me up! Anyways, the five of us sat in the living room and opened some presents and had some coffee. It was a very nice Christmas morning.

I told Rachael that I had to tell this story, as I thought it was just hilarious. One of the presents that she opened was a really pretty scarf from her sister Becky, and she decided that she'd wear it the rest of the day. She called Becky and told her how much she loved her new scarf...to which Becky replied "What scarf? I didn't get you a scarf....it's a table runner!"...I thought this was too funny, but you can definitely see how she could make the mistake. Anyhow, later in the day she got a really comfy blanket from Steve's mother Carol, to which I told her "you can wear that as a poncho to go with your scarf!" :)

Afterwards, it was time to get ready to go again, and we headed over to Michaela's Auntie Jinx and Uncle Chine's house for an early dinner chalk full of turkey, mashed potatoes, all kinds of veggies and casseroles. I think I've also eaten something like 47 rice krispy treats and 136 pieces of peanut brittle in the past two days. Needless to say that one of my New Years' resolutions is to lose about 10 pounds! Here's a picture of Landon staring at his cousin Alyssa. If you remember, a few months back Alyssa and Rachael's sister Laura came out to watch Landon for a week. It appears that Landon bonded with Alyssa especially, as he remembered her out of all the kids and grownups that he met, he crawled right up to Alyssa and was climbing all over her. It was pretty cute.

We've only been in Yuma for a day and a half so far, and I think Landon has met something like 250 people, of which at least 90% are related in some way or another. It's really been great to see everyone (since I haven't been back to Arizona in 3 years now)....

Today will be a day to catch up with Michaela's friends Ramsey and Becca, go to her all-time favorite restaurant (Papa-San), and see my friend Dave who'll be getting into town tonight.

Here's another picture from tamale night...Michaela with (an all-time blog favorite) Auntie Tess! After living with her and spending so much time together, we realized how much we missed her quick-witted, sarcastic, and over-the-top ways...

Tomorrow is Landon's baptism, so I'm sure I'll have some more good stories to post.

Hope you all had a great holiday, as you can see, we definitely did!

We'll be back soon...