Christmas in Mexico

Christmas Eve... we relaxed at the villa we rented in Cabo.
A nice dinner was delivered that we simply heated and assembled!
The stockings were hung by the ... erm.. hung on the cabinets with care.

Christmas morning! We could have had a white Christmas in Portland, but this sunny one was really nice!
Christmas breakfast.
Opening the presents in the stockings! We were so lucky to get our stockings -- the luggage that my parents checked and that we checked (a total of 3 bags and a carseat) did not arrive when we did -- we got the bags the evening of the 23rd and the carseat the evening of the 24th, whew!! The stockings and presents for them were in those checked bags.

Tyler got some bad-ass socks.


Jake loved reaching into his stocking and pulling things out.
He got a new wooden train for his Thomas the Train collection. Gordon joined Duck, Salty, Bill and Ben the trains. (Funny, he asked for Thomas, but we haven't been able to find Thomas!)
After presents, this is what we did.

To Cabo!!

On December 20th we headed to the airport to fly to Seattle, then to Cabo, Mexico. Portland had been getting snow and ice and another big storm was on the way -- to arrive the afternoon of the 20th. Arriving at the airport, we found that our 9am flight to Seattle was delayed, thus we would miss our flight to Cabo. The airline had put the 3 of us Vees on a 8am flight, even though our boarding pass printed the day before showed us on a 8:30am flight, but we had not received any notification of all of this! Craziness. And my parents weren't put on an earlier flight. So after standing at the ticket counter for 30 minutes, trying to figure out some other way to Cabo (San Francisco? Phoenix? Houston? LA? Everything was booked full) it was looking like there was no way we could get there until the 23rd since everything was booked and there was a huge snow/ice storm coming in. Then we had the agent check again and discovered that the Cabo flight out of Seattle was also delayed, so we were able to fly out of Portland to Seattle at 10:15am and made the flight to Cabo. Lucky, lucky, lucky us!!!
This is where we ended up.
Amy and Tyler made it out of NYC during a blizzard -- most flights out of NYC were cancelled but they got out. Lucky, lucky!!
After some stressful traveling, some pampering was needed. Mom enjoyed a pedicure, I got a massage.
Dad was happy to read a book when he wasn't running or snorkeling.

Jake played and read books and played some more.
So happy at the swimming pool at the house we stayed at. They had a big pool and this little one that was perfect for him to play in.
And blow bubbles.
All sunshine here... while Portland got 2-3 feet of snow/ice.

Merry Christmas from the Vees!

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Doll Sling

There was more playtime today. The kids pulled out this doll sling that I had gotten just after Jake was born but he hadn't shown any interest until now. Isn't that cute!?
Skylar loved it, too. She kept walking around with the doll in there and would pat its bottom on occasion.
They even went in for a "family" group hug :)
Meanwhile, it snowed on and off all day. We've had temperatures in the 20's this week, but today it was hovering around 35, so the streets were pretty slushy. They are frozen tonight!

Playdough Boats

Yesterday Skylar came over to play in the morning. The nanny is away on vacation and Skylar's mom needed some help to get work done. I was very happy to have her come over so she and Jake could both get some cabin-fever energy out!
They played with playdough. Jake always has us make cars, but then Skylar asked for boats. However, I didn't understand her when she was asking, and Jake looked at her, then at me, and signed "boat." That was officially his first time interpreting a word for me! I was amazed.

December Snow II

The snow looked so beautiful and Jake wanted to go outside, so we got all bundled up.
Theo came outside and immediately turned around and went back inside.

Snow plow fail. Sorry, you're just a dump truck.
There was a lot of snow!
Then we went inside and Jake had hot chocolate and mama had hot tea.

December Snow

We woke up late this morning. Jake got out of bed and wandered out, then came back and was pointing to the window, so we opened up the bedroom window...
SNOW!
Getting a better look...
Daddy signing "snow". Jake was so excited. Then he kept asking where the rocks went, you know, the gravel rocks for the driveway? We had to repeat several times that the rocks were "covered by the snow" and "under the snow" before he finally seemed to understand.
It is very cold out today! The cats went outside for all of 90 seconds. I think I'll put on the fire and grab a good book. Oh, we also have the second Narnia movie to watch (not Jake), so that will be fun!