Christmas in California

Yes, it's 2013, and I still haven't talked about our California Christmas trip! To pick up where we left off... By Sunday all our family had arrived to the California house. I woke up with my voice half gone and feeling pretty sick, but I thought it was just a common cold so I went about the day like usual.

 It was SO fun to visit with all the family that we so seldom see these days! We got to watch Kim and Steve open their wedding gifts and heard all about their honeymoon in Costa Rica!

Monday was Christmas Eve, and feeling pretty sick, I took the day easy and listened to everyone talk because my voice was completely gone (for me, that is pretty tragic). We made some upside down ice cream cone Christmas trees and had a competition between all of them, ate a delicious breakfast for dinner (one of my favorite Christmas traditions), had a sibling gift exchange, opened matching PJs, played games, read from Luke, and celebrated my Grandpa's birthday!

My Grandpa led us in his birthday song!

My Christmas trees...they got fourth place...out of five :) Steve won!

All our Christmas festivities!

We all got matching PJs, but we couldn't convince Mary to join the picture :( I love my sisters!

Then we all went to bed with sugarplums dancing in our heads...until....I woke up at 2AM feeling so sick. This happened repeatedly and poor Ben helped me through all my sickness. Finally, it was Christmas morning, and I watched a few people open presents, and then I felt even more sick and went to bed again without opening presents or my stocking (this is BIG for me). 

At about 9AM, Ben and I decided to go to the doctor. Of course, being Christmas morning the only thing that was opened was the ER, so Ben and I spent Christmas morning in the ER. Wahoo! Guess what? There is no one at the ER on Christmas morning, go figure. Well, turns out I had some nasty virus which wasn't quite the flu but had flu like symptoms, so they couldn't really do anything for me. I went home and slept all day, almost.

By 2:30, I gave Ben his presents and we had our gift exchange :) . Ben was so sweet and got me the apron I have really been wanting along with a few other thoughtful gifts! Ben got a very nice camera he has been wanting for forever from my parents! He loved it! The rest of Christmas day is a blur. I was in bed most of the day and everyone else played games, watched movies, and Steve made an amazing enchilada dinner (the joys of having a future pro-chef in the family!) 

 We even got to talk to Spencer on his mission in Russia with a four way skype!!

It was definitely the most unique Christmas I had ever had, and Ben was such a great sport throughout it all. Our Christmas in California didn't go as anticipated, but the meaning is the same: Christ was born to atone for our sins--that message is still true, the real reason for the season!