Well, the Christmas decorations are put away, New Year's resolutions are broken and things seem to be calming down for a bit. We've had a great two weeks but are a teensy bit ready for some down time.
Last we checked in, we had just celebrated dad's birthday. The very next day, we got up before the sun and headed over to Albuquerque to hang with the Walker clan for a few days. It was an easy-peasy drive- I only had to stop once (at the appointed time even!) for a potty break so I think this was the fastest we have ever made it with me in tow. It was definitely cold there- not as cold as Denver but enough to remind us why we left the great white North. It was a little bit fun for mom to break out all her winter gear because she knew in three days, she would be putting it back in it's box for another year.
We arrived early enough that dad and Mr. Walker got in a mountain bike ride and then we celebrated dad's birthday. Again. Nana made him chicken Parmesan and black forest cake as he requested and as usual, it was delicious. Everyone left fat and happy that evening.
The next day was Christmas Eve. It was a beautiful, sunny (but a little chilly) day so mom and I headed out to the park to burn off some of my stored energy from the 7 hour car ride the day before.
We headed to church that evening and it was actually a pleasant experience compared to church last Christmas. The priest was actually funny and kept things short- always a good thing!
After an excruciatingly long Christmas dinner, I FINALLY got to go to bed. I got Santa's cookies and milk all set up, left out reindeer food and scooted my butt to bed.
I actually slept in a little this time and didn't get any one up until 6:30. That is practically noon! I got to open my stocking stuff and then I had to wait a whole half hour until Uncle Adam, Aunt Erin, Sophia and Brendan made it down. It was tough but I persevered. Mom kept telling me the story of the Christmas she and Uncle Adam had to wait until after lunch to open presents one year. Sounds kind of fishy but mom and Uncle Adam swear by it.
Anyway, it was sooooo worth the wait. My main request was a lap top and Santa came through as usual. I also got this monster Lego set, some Dragonology books and some pretty cool extreme dot-to-dots.
After the frenzy of present opening, we all settled in to Mr. Walker's awesome banana pancakes with banana caramel syrup. Can anyone say sugar- coma?
Baby Brendan!
Me and Sophia burning off some sugar.
Now that I am old and mature, we were able to re-start our tradition of Christmas day hiking. We did a short one not to far from home and it was gorgeous.....
After a relaxing, fattening few days we headed back to warm Tucson. We had a few quiet. relaxing days and then loaded up the RV to spend New Year's Eve at Kartchner Caverns. The caverns are about an hour from our house and are very, very cool. It is considered a "living cave" so there are lots of protections in place including multiple air locks to go through, getting misted down to prevent bacteria spread, not being allowed to touch anything. "Cave cleaners" come through every night to make sure everything is as back to normal as possible.
Since we had nothing else to do, we headed over to the visitor's center and got onto the last tour of 2013. The cave has two sides and we toured the Throne Room. We got see cave popcorn, cave bacon and soda straws. I'm thinking spelunking makes one hungry......
We headed back for a fancy dinner of egg rolls and beer and then hit the hay by 9. Since this was an RV park populated by people north of 75 years old, we were up late by their standards!
The next morning, we headed back to tour the other half of the cave and spend some more time in the visitor center learning about caves. This time on our tour, we learned about cave fried eggs. More with the food.
The cave tours we very interesting and informative but after two hour and half long tours, we were caved out and headed home.
The last few days of my two week hiatus were relatively quiet. I finally had my friend's Max and Claire over to play for awhile on Sunday. It was definitely a little wild and crazy with three of us, but in a good way!
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