I fell behind on this. We had the cold travel around the family. First Robert got it and then both Neil and I got it.
Christmas Eve
Rawley and Alissa came down for Christmas Eve. I made mole, but I burned the rice. :-( Rawley and Alissa gave Robert and I a sweatshirt from Stand Up Paddling and some other things. I was so excited with such a thoughtful gift.
On Christmas Day, Robert's family came. I met Steve's lady, Marilyn. She is a super sweet lady and I hope that we get to see more of each other. She was able to convince Steve to stay longer than he usually does. It was also fun to have Alicia, Christopher and Turtle (Olivia.) They now live in Arizona so we will hopefully see them more. Neil loved playing with Turtle, Margaux and Ines (Andy and Yvette's girls.) He used it as practice for his little sister. Raquel was here with Porfirio. Virginia and Richard were here with Villar and Randy who was on leave for 16 days. Belen and Cita were here too. I found out later that Cita moved to Arizona with her mom and Christopher. Patty came with Emily, Beatriz and Steve. Rawley and Alissa came back and Drew came over too. Of course, Robert's parents were here.
New Years was quiet. We stayed up to watch the ball drop. I remember looking through the blogs and thinking that hopefully by next year nuestra princesa rusa would be with us. I looked through some sites thinking maybe I should think about buying some real winter clothes (for us and for a baby girl) in the event we had to go to Russia in the winter.
The best thing happened on January 2. It was very cold. Early in the morning, Robert told me that it was going to snow over night. Then at 11:00, Robert came in and told me it was snowing!!!! It was unbelievable. Throughout the day the snow fell. The streets were covered and so were the lawns. The kids were throwing snowballs at each other. The Manns have a sloped lawn so all the neighborhood kids were "sledding" down their lawn. Later in the evening (snow still falling) Neil went out. About six of the kids were out and they started throwing snowballs at Neil. He picked up a snowball and thought he was throwing it at one, but threw it at another. It got him in the face. At first he got upset, but two minutes later, we saw him walking with a shovel full of snow. Walking towards Neil, he yelled "Oh Neeeeeeiiiiiiiilllllll" in a Jack Nicholson voice. Too funny.
Unfortunately it didn't last long, but it was a wonderful day.
