It would have been great to blog each Christmas event as it happened, but it flew by way too fast!  Probably everyone has seen my pictures on Facebook, but here’s a little recap:

My sister had to work on Christmas Eve, so we started the festivities early with breakfast at her house on the way to Los Angeles.  She made chocolate chip pancakes for us and we passed out presents.

Christmas Eve was spent at my Aunt Jessica’s house with Mom’s side of the family.  We always have a wonderful time there, and the kids have cousins to play with which is the BEST!

We spent Christmas morning at home as a family.  It was just right!

I think Natalie is going to be a great reader. She LOVES books!

Our family picture… courtesy of the tripod:

We were so happy to have all of our local family members over for a Christmas Tamale Lunch!   Andy’s co-worker’s mother-in-law makes bunches of authentic home made tamales each December, as we were fortunate to discover last year.  We got 4 dozen this time around! Tamales are one of my favorite foods so this is a tradition I can get really excited about (in case you couldn’t tell)

There was yet another Christmas celebration on Monday.  We had a delicious turkey dinner at Ted & Lennie’s house with Matt, who had to work on Christmas.

Natalie is so appreciative of all her gifts!  She has been thoroughly enjoying every single one of them, and that is fun to see.

On Father’s Day weekend, Andy and I had a rare opportunity for a relaxing weekend out of town.  We traveled up to Madera for the wedding of a friend while the kids stayed at Grandma & Grandpa’s house.  It was nice to not be in a rush to get there, so we took the longer (more scenic) route up the coast and stopped along the way for good food.  I feel like it is my job to research awesome new places to go, but this trip I cheated and took Andy to places I had been but he hadn’t.  First stop… Fresco Cafe in Santa Barbara.  We were not disappointed.

Can you tell we are excited to be on a trip by ourselves?

(PS- My bangs aren’t actually crooked, nor did I cut them myself even though it looks like it. Just having a bad hair weekend I guess. Sorry that was just really bothering me.)

I didn’t really take many pictures at the wedding, unfortunately, so here’s our smiling faces, along with Cathi (Andy’s mom) and Danny, who we got to catch up with during our stay in Madera (nice to see you guys!).  It was beautiful there, in a picturesque setting with a river on one side and a vineyard on the other.

Side note: Andy and I love vineyards.  Not only for what they produce– the perfectly uniform rows of grape vines just really satisfy our compulsive need for order and organization.  We had some good laughs over that, but truly it was sooo soothing to drive through miles and miles of vineyards. Yeah, we’re weird.

On the drive home we stopped in charming Los Olivos, which I knew Andy would enjoy as his Father’s Day treat.  It is almost completely made up of little shops and wine tasting rooms, and beautiful gardens.  Mom, you MUST go here some time… this shop has the most amazing succulents and you would love it.

I wanted to take this beautiful boxwood home with me very badly, but settled for a picture.

Pretty gardens… I would like my yard to look like that.

But this was the real treat we were there for:  cupcakes perfectly paired with a wine tasting at Saarloos & Sons.  Flavors included Peach Ginger Chardonnay (WOW, especially paired with the Chardonnay), Chocolate Blackberry Syrah (pretty and delicious), and my personal favorite, Dark Chocolate Salted Caramel. They were tiny and we were splitting them, but really it was the perfect amount.

We both loved it!   After that we headed back to our kids, who were in fact glad to see us despite their fun filled weekend at Grandma’s. 🙂