Holiday Recap - Fun Stuff We did

Continuing on the themes from our wonderful winter holiday trip back to the US, today a run down on all fun stuff we actually did. The word "fun" is in there deliberately as there were some less fun things that also had to be done.

The family fortress, with giant stone daisy visible from outer space.

Hang With Family - I get to see my full family in one place maybe every two or three years. We are all married with kids now, and we live all over the freakin' place. So when we get together, it is AWESOME. We are the rare family that gets along. We spend most of the time just talking, running after kids, and catching up so I can't report that we did any particular activities except what we always do when together...

Eat A Crap Ton of Food - Granted we do this apart as well but when you get us all together it is like condensing matter into a black hole of foodie cooking. The patriarch and matriarch were our hosts and were so wonderful in getting the whole house prepared for such an onslaught of people. In addition, my father cooked nearly all our meals beforehand to save time AND they gave mother earth the middle finger by using disposable dishes for the entire trip to save on dish washing. Food highlights include: two kinds of lasagna, the traditional homemade pizza on Xmas itself, and my mother's amazing candy, which I am blaming for the 2 kilos I put on in 10 days. More deets on the whole affair on the patriarch's blog and the sister's blog.

One of the really fun things was seeing the kids interact with our baby. They are old enough now that they see her not as a threat (usually) but as the best toy doll ever imagined.

In addition to talking about, eating, and making food, we also like to watch shows about people making food.

See, the family gets along fantastically.

Catch Up with Awesome Friends - We saw NMMichelle and I finally got to meet her then 5 week old son, who is totally adorable and soooo little! It is already hard to remember our 4 month old + being so tiny. We had the amazing luxury of spending an entire day together, something we rarely get to do as we live on different continents. And it was really neat to connect on a mama level. NMM has been a mama for a while now, so there was lots of probing for ideas and opinions. We hung out at the house then played at tourist by going down to Old Town to eat New Mexican, wander around, and support the local economy by buying lots of stuff. Sadly I missed seeing most other friends but I guess that is the way of things.

Friends burping babies together

NMM is an amazingly talented lady. She did the flowers for my wedding, she makes amazing jewelery, and she knitted this SO ADORABLE I WANT TO DIE hat for our little one.

Take Family Pictures - All I can say is we survived photographing four families with six children, oldest being 13. It seems there is a gender split between women loving family photos and men dreading it. Have a Date Night - OH and I managed to foist our kiddo off on grandma and grandpa (after she'd adjusted to the time difference) and sneak out for a romantic evening of sitting in a slightly tatty movie theatre to see a classy movie. Okay, we saw Mission Impossible 4, but I'm sure some other people were seeing a classy film that evening. We ate cold pizza which I smuggled through in my purse and were exhausted when we got home at 10:30. Woo, living the high life!