Christmas was a quick 3 day trip to California. Spent Christmas eve day with my daughter at her house (I hadn't seen where she lived yet). We made lasagne and raspberry pretzel dessrt, opened gifts and just hung out together. I didn't start blubbering like an infant when I left this time only because she will be here Wednesday... that would have just been silly...  Christmas day we went over (early!) to my sister's place in Pasadena. Watched the kids open Christmas gifts and my sister made tasty french toast and mmmmmbacon! We took a short hike in the Arroyo Seco which is about a block from my sister's house. It was an absolutely beautiful day. With the rain they have gotten, it looks like February out there with lots of unexpected green. It was a sight for sore eyes! I forget how bleak Wisconsin in winter really looks. I think I'm going to plant some pine trees in my yard so I have some year round green. My Mom, other sister and her hubby plus her kids, their husband/girlfriend showed up, as did my brother, his wife and 3 kids. It was quite the houseload at 20 people. We were trying to figure out how long it's been since ALL of us got together like that for the holidays... somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 years? Way, way too long.  If all it took was me moving out of the state to get everyone to come together, I would have done it a long time ago!  We had a great day of food, laughs and general family mayhem. I miss my family a lot. It's strange because we didn't see each other all that much before even though the furthest is like 45 miles away, but I guess it was just the knowing that if I needed to see them, the longest was less than an hour away. Now it's a strip search or two, 4 hours of screaming kids/obnoxious people all trapped in a metal tube hurtling thru space PLUS a 45 minute drive to see them. Oh well... at least that's all it is... Saturday morning we were awoken at 4:40 by some jerkoff beating on the vending machine outside our room at the hotel. It scared me cause of the noise and I was like.. where am I??? lol. We laid around for a bit watching the news to see what kind of weather we were heading in to. We decided to get to LAX early because we were expecting security to be brutal (it wasn't) after that dickhead tried to blow up something on that flight to Detroit. Trip home was uneventful except for the 20 minutes of circling the plane had to do while the runways were snowplowed. We only got a few inches of snow on the ground while we were gone. The river was frozen when we left and not when we came home. The level is much higher because they got a good bit of rain up north. It was probably a mini ice breakup due to the water level... would have been cool to see. 
midwest snow - from 30,000 feet 
the Colorado Rockies 
The Grand Canyon 
Christmas Day - bridges in the Arroyo - look at the beautiful blue sky! 
mud nests under the edge of the bridge 
stairway in the Arroyo 
see waaaay off in the distance? the top of the mountains? California gets snow too! Love you family thanks for a great holiday! | 
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