Christmas 2007

Another holiday sneaked up on me!

This year we did not put up a tree or hung the lights on the house. As it is, people who are coming to look at the house complain it is too clattered. Oh, well. another year, another Christmas, another clattered house awaits for me!


Tim flew in just in time, on December 24th. Kids were so excited, they talked me into parking at the Airport and surprising him at the passenger's exit. It worked! Tim was pleasantly surprised and we made there just in time too. When we got to the terminal, the display already listed his flight as "arrived".

At the house we only put up the stockings, and it looked so cozy by the fireplace...

On the Christmas night Gabe decided he will sleep by the presents and try catching Santa when he comes with our presents. He placed a blanket, a pillow and an alarm clock, set for 6:00am next to the presents. He was determined!
At around 11:30pm he started getting worried: "What it I am awake at midnight and Santa doesn't come?.." I told him to go to bed right away.
Santa did come at midnight, but he had a really hard time leaving presents next to a sleeping boy...
Oh, the joy of freshly opened presents on the Christmas morning! The joy of playing with them! Oh, yes, and the joy of getting injured by one of them!..
Gabe and Tim were running around the house, trying to shoot each other with an air gun. Gabe ended up getting Tim right in the open eye, at a close distance.
It took three days, many Tylenol , tissues and ice packs, but Tim is OK.
(On this picture Tim has his right eye taped and can't open his left eye. So, he basically blind...)

All in all, we had a wonderful time! Kids got lots of cool presents, and even though some of them got broken with in 10 minuted of use (grr!), it was great!

Now, if only Colorado weather wasn't so darn unpredictable (extremely freezing and snowy this year), I might have been able to get more bargain shopping done! I hate driving on ice, so I opted out to just stay home and watch TV. I guess i will have to get my "shopping fix" after I move.

December 22nd week(+end)

This was one of the more depressing weeks I had in a while.

We had out Fab23 Winter Party, but all in all it was more of a "Fab23 Shut down party". It was at a pretty nice hotel downtown Colorado Springs (Antlers Hilton) and it was scheduled for 6pm - midnight. I didn't want to miss the party and I didn't have anyone to watch the kids for that long, plus I wasn't sure if we were to get another snow storm and I might have trouble getting back home, so I went ahead and booked a room there.
I have to say that the hotel is a lot more impressive on the outside than it is on the inside... Carpets were not exactly clean, the ice machine wasn't working, and the elevator was acting crazy when I tried using it. It just sat there, opening and closing doors, over and over. I used the stairs...

We upgraded the room to face the mountains. I took advantage and took a night shot view.

The food at the party was pretty good, not spectacular, but decent. It was mostly finger food type. The lines were long, but I was lucky to be sitting right by the door, so when the announcement was made to go get food, I was right there ;-)

There were many really nice prizes given away, including a laptop, PS3, MP3 players... I got nothing though, not lucky at that.
I kept going back and forth between the hotel room and the party. Kids got a room service ($$!) and later I brought them some dessert from my party. They were so tired, they had no problem falling asleep in our king size bed!

The following Friday my co-workers took me out for a Farewell lunch at a Peruvian restaurant!

It was my first time trying food from Peru. Apparently they just opened up recently. One of my coworker is married to a guy from Peru, so I suppose they know if it is really a good food or not :-)

The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning out the house and throwing more stuff away. Our grill only spent an hour by the curb before if disappeared!

We made our rounds and gave presents to the neighbors. We are blessed to be surrounded by such nice people! We will truly miss them...

December 15th weekend

Have been really busy with everything going on in CO, getting ready for the move to OR.

This weekend we had one showing at the house on Saturday and one on Sunday, so we basically had to get out for a while both days (not to mention cleaning the house too)... I am getting really tired of always making sure there is nothing left on the counters, tables, floors, vacuuming, etc.!
To do something on Saturday we went to the Bigg's City. It's an indoor play center. They have SO much to do there: laser tag, carousel, race car track, Little Bigg Town (with dress up, climbing, sand box, music and so much more), inflatables room, bowling alley, arcades, birthday rooms, food, and more!

Temperatures outdoors were pretty cold (I believe 14 degrees was the high for the day), so this was our best option.

We got there right before lunch time (and I brought our own food to save money) and stayed till 8pm! We had all day passes, so it only made sense to "get the money worth out of it"...

On Sunday we had to leave house a little earlier, so there wasn't that much we could do, other than going to the Mall.

We were going to see a movie, but the earliest show wasn't till noon and we got there at 10:30am. After walking around the stores we came to Claire's Boutique store. Larissa has been asking to get her ears pierced for a while, so we just went ahead and did an Early Christmas present for her.

She was such a trooper! She didn't even blink when they used the earrings "gun". When it was all done, all she said was: "oh, that was it? It didn't even hurt, Mom. You said it would!"
Larissa picked out little studs with her birth stone to use as a starter earrings. Now, every time she gets dressed or brushes her hair, she makes a comment like "be careful, watch the earrings!"