Christmas Craziness!

First present! What could it be?!

Christmas Day stroll along city beach

New games!

In case you don't know me very well, I'll let you in on a little secret.  I love Christmas!! So I was pretty excited when everyone said they could come up here for Christmas since I was on call.  I was a little stressed out hosting that many people for that long, but they didn't all come at once, which broke it up a little.  I had work until noon on Tuesday and then was off for the rest of the week, luckily. 

Jon's family showed up around 3 on Tuesday, after I madly tried to clean and grocery shop and get everything ready before the craziness began.  We did stockings and one present Christmas Eve, so that we could play with it :) It was a new game, Small World, which was pretty fun.  Then the next morning was CHRISTMAS! YEA! :D  I didn't sleep well most of the night and finally couldn't sleep past five, but had to wait till 8 to open presents.  And that was a compromise :)

Sporting my new sweatshirt

copious amounts of cookies...

We went for a stroll along city beach on Christmas and busted out 2 more new games- Firefly and Seven Wonders.  Firefly was a bit too complicated for me and I spent the afternoon preparing dinner, which took a lot more time than I estimated!   But totally worth it for all the deliciousness and leftovers we had.  The Campbells left Thursday after an excursion at Deception Pass, a short hike around North Beach, and then lunch at our favorite- Jeda Thai.

We had a bit of downtime Thursday night and Friday, and then more family arrived!  Kenneth and Andy arrived from Portland around 7pm, and mom and dad around 9pm, with schnauzers in tow!  It was their first time to visit us and while they weren't overly enthused about having Gromit around the the disruption in their routine, I think they were still glad they came.   Saturday we went to church and then came home and prepared the leftovers for Christmas dinner part II.  After lunch we hopped into the car and headed to Patmore Pit, the 40 acre dog part near Coupeville.  We tried to get the dogs to do some of the agility course (no dice) , but at least they got to stretch their legs a bit and run around, and then we took everyone to probably my favorite spot on the island- Ebey's Landing.  The sun had just set and there were still some beautiful colors in the sky along the beach.  I think that was the first time Mischa and Fritz had seen the ocean.  They weren't thrilled.

Gromit enjoying his present :)

Erwin/Campbell presents!

We came home, did some last minute wrapping, Kenneth went to take a nap, mostly so he could pretend it was Christmas morning and get woken up by the traditional music.  Presents were had by all, even the dogs.  We then made use of some of those presents by playing a few rounds of banagrams and Kenneth's new game- Forbidden Desert.  Sunday we hit the shops.  We went over to Burlington and the guys got some clothes, followed by delicious Mexican.  We tried 3 separate times to make some apple cinnamon sweet rolls, all with no success. I hate yeast. 

Erwin/Campbell's stocking!

Out for a New Year's Day hike at foggy Mt. Erie.  Sporting his new sweater :)

Monday I went to work and met up with everyone for lunch before they headed out of town.  We tried 3 different restaurants.  The first one was closed because it was Monday.  The second had serious promise.  The special of the day was vegetable crepes and they had many other vegetarian options.  We even mentioned to the waitress most of us were vegetarian and she said yeah! no problem! and listed a bunch of things we could have.  So we ordered. Got drinks. Waited about 15 minutes.  She then proceeds to come out of the kitchen and informs us that they are out of vegetables.  We clarified.  All vegetables? Surely not. Yes, all vegetables.  So, all the stuff you ordered you can't have.  We were speechless and frustrated and angry. So we left and did Mexican again. Can't go wrong with Mexican!  And there ended our Christmas fun!