Christmas Week Round-Up

Warning: long and picture laden. But what else do I have to do?

Aaron and I ended up going to Sedona on Saturday after the turtle thwarted our attempt to go on Friday. I think the best part of the whole trip was when Aaron gave in and wore my big sunglasses for most of the trip.

I don't think he's fully converted, but how could he now doubt the awesomeness of having huge sunglasses?

We had plenty of time on the way there, so we stopped at Montezuma Well. It's about 1/4 mile walk uphill from the parking lot to the overlook and I just about died. Note to self: hiking while 8 months pregnant=not as easy as you think it should be.


The well itself was kind of meh (it just looks like a pond) but the ruins in the rocks above were pretty awesome. Plus they had a bathroom, so we count the sidetrip a success.

When we got to Sedona, we drove up to a property my dad's company used to own and pulled down the sign with our name and phone number on it so we don't get any more calls. It was an easy job, but thus far no one in the office had wanted to drive 2 hours to do it, so I volunteered us since Aaron wanted to go up anyway.

We had lunch at KFC (classy!) and then drove up a canyon for some pictures. And guess what I found there?

MISTLETOE!

Unfortunately it was really high up in the trees and there was no way I was climbing up to get it. Also, it was about 28 degrees outside and I decided that seeing the real stuff up in a tree was just as good as having a bunch over a doorway as long as it meant I got to stay in front of the car heater.

There was lots of picture taking.

mostly while I played with our point-and-shoot and whined about how cold it was.

This is my favorite of the ones I took on the little camera:

Click to enlarge (it won't look so blurry)

We were up by the Sedona airport and these little biplanes kept doing really low passes over the mountain as the sun was setting and it was just beautiful.

Also, I saw 2 dogs that looked like Ewoks. If I could have snuck a picture, I would have. But the owners were clearly the type of people who thought of their dogs as children and they were giving me a bit of a stinkeye as I giggled at the dogs' little Ewok faces.

Aaron also took a bunch of pictures, including this one since it was (the day after) our anniversary, after all:

Don't you love how we have to bend around my belly to smooch?

He also took some pretty landscape pictures, though I think he was really disappointed that there weren't any clouds in the sky for some good sunset shots.


It was really, really cold where we took this picture up by slide rock. We lasted about 2 minutes.

I did a lot of modeling.

We were going to stay up in Sedona for dinner but it got cold and we were tired and we weren't hungry so we ended up just going home and celebrating our anniversary at Outback. It was really nice, actually. Nikki and Sam got in from Utah right about the same time we did, so after dinner we went to my parents' house and watched Ratatouille with the whole fam.

On Christmas Eve we did all the traditions and went to a longtime family friends' annual Christmas Eve party where we went on a hayride, caroled, and looked at everyone's lights (knock another 2 off my list!). We went to bed nice and late after some mulled cider and finishing the rather difficult puzzle my mom chose for this year (a tradition I forgot: we do a large puzzle every Christmas. It's usually pretty difficult and generally takes us several days of fairly concentrated effort).

On Christmas morning Aaron and I opened what presents we had under our tree (mostly from his parents. Thanks Jim and Sharan!) and our stockings and then opened more presents at my mom and dad's. I got my robe and slippers (yay!) and Nikki and Sam got us a lovely set of fancy wine glasses (we're upscale like that). Aaron got enough Amazon.com gift cards to allow him to hop right online and order the tripod he's been lusting after. Everyone was quite happy.

And of course, there was picture taking.

Watching my dad try to smile is always kind of funny. He was in a water skiing accident in 1991 that smashed the right half of his face and now he has to work really hard to make the smile on the right side of his face match the smile on the left side. A lot of times he thinks he's smiling, but he's not. Like here. I love his crooked-y smiles :)


The aftermath.

Awww, they luuurve each other.
Dad and his new toy. He broke it about 3 seconds after this picture was taken.

After presents and lunch we went to see I Am Legend, which I hated. My mom, sister, and I all wanted to see something a little more light hearted since it was Christmas and all, but we are unfortunately currently outnumbered 4.5-3 by the boys (they insisted that, by virtue of his gender, Wes was voting for I Am Legend) so that's where we ended up. And they all had to deal with my bawling all the way home (I don't have really great control of my emotions these days). Even not pregnant though, I doubt I would have enjoyed it.

Later (after I put myself down for a nap), some family friends came over and we had dessert. Aaaand fun with the camera!

Aaron's handiwork.

My handiwork (I'm finally learning how to use the camera, yaaaay!).

On the day after Christmas we went to my ultrasound and then...

Took family pictures!

Notice in the first one how Aaron's knee gives me a back curve? I look skinny and it's awesome.

On Thursday, Aaron and I went to traffic court thinking we'd be going to a hearing, but as it turns out, the hearing date they give you on your ticket is not your ACTUAL hearing date (which makes total sense). You're supposed to write in saying you want a hearing date and then they give you a new one. So we did that and I'll be going in for a hearing in late January (hopefully. If the baby and fluid cooperate).

And then we went to Ikea and got our crib! And we realized as we tried to shove the massive box plus the crib mattress into the back of the Mustang that maybe we aren't particularly bright. It looks awesome in the nursery though! I'd get up and take a picture, but..ya know.

And then we spent the rest of the day in the hospital and it's been pretty uneventful ever since.