O.K., just one more Christmas post. When we got home from our trip we still had Christmas to open from my family. They sent us all kinds of nice things but our very favorite was a recordable book of "Twas the Night Before Christmas". My mom read the introduction and my dad read the story. It was a family favorite Christmas tradition to have my dad read that book every Christmas Eve. Even though it was after Christmas we were so excited to sit down and listen to Gpa read a story to us. We were also very touched by the beautiful dolls Aunt Karla sent the girls with the special clothes and accessories she made for them. It was just like Santa had come again. The kids were every bit as excited as Christmas morning. Thanks everyone!

This is how Ridge crawls when he is on a mission.

Christmas with the Keelings

Before leaving New Mexico we had one more treat... a visit with Grandma and Grandpa Keeling. We love spending time with them and wish we could do it more often. It was Ridge's first time to meet them and he and Grandpa hit it off. Ridge also loved Wilky and Wilky's toys. Everybody thought it was cool to watch Wilky ride on Grandma's chair. Grandpa gave the girls and I some beautiful necklaces he had made. Before we left they gave the girls a treat for the road, a bag of marshmallows. Katelyn couldn't have been more happy. We had to stop her by the time we got to the car so there would be some left for Kyleigh. It took them awhile to go to sleep.

Merry Christmas.

We had a Merry Christmas at Nama and Papa's house. As usual we had a fabulous time. Highlights included:


- Christmas Eve traditions, including the Nativity, cranberry muffins with butter sauce, singing around the piano (Kyleigh got to play some of the songs this year), and opening the gifts that we gave each other. We changed it up a bit this year and did present opening just for the kids first. Adults opened when the kids were done. All of our gifts were fun. I especially loved my how to belly dance kit and my remote key finder. I found out that I am not the only one with a secret wish to learn belly dancing (Go Brianna!). I set up the two receptors for my remote key finder on my keys and my phone so maybe I won't lose them for awhile. I was most excited to see the gift that Kyleigh gave Brianna be opened. She got her a necklace that says "sisters at heart." Kyleigh had the other half of the pair. Brianna loved it.


- Cousin time. Dress up, games, Nama's playground, Penny Park, and playing with Christmas presents were a few favorite past-times. Kyleigh has been looking forward to having Brianna dress her up for 16 months, since the last time we were in Silver. Nama has the best dress up collection in the world. Brianna did not disappoint. To make it even better, Brianna even did Kyleigh's make-up. Kyleigh also got to spend lots of time with Ben. The two of them have a special bond. They get along so well. It takes about 10 minutes and it's like no time has lapsed since the time we spent in Albuquerque and they were essentially brother and sister. I know Kyleigh really looks forward to adventures with Ben.

- To the mountains. A wood cutting trip to the mountains to stock up Nama and Papa's wood pile. I think I took enough pictures of Rusty cutting wood to make my own calender and he can be Mr. Everymonth.

- City of rocks. We had a fire and roasted hot dogs and s'mores. We did lots of climbing. Katelyn spent her time hunting for "indian stuff."

- Mexican Food. The must have Mexican food at Jalisco's-twice. Long live the large combination.

- SNOW! Our 0% chance of snow turned into 10 inches of fresh snow a few days after Christmas. We can get out the door with sunscreen and a car full of beach gear in about 1/10 of the time it took us to get out the door to play in the snow. Eventually, we made it. The first day we couldn't drive anywhere because the roads were bad so we walked down the hill and found a place to sled. It wasn't a great sledding hill, but it turned out to be a great place to mount a snowball attack on the unsuspecting people at the bottom of the hill. When a counterattack was launched Katelyn hit the deck and slid all the way down the hill. She thought it was so fun and we all did it again and again. Kyleigh put snow all over her face to create a really cold Santa beard. The second time we went sledding we went to a great hill at the college stadium. Kyleigh and I had a snowball factory and built enough snowballs to cover one of the sleds and threw them all at once. Ridge wasn't too excited about the cold, but enjoyed being pulled around in one of the sleds. Katelyn didn't want to sled because she was scared. Finally Nama and Papa convinced her to sled down about 5 feet. Papa slowly inched his way up the hill until Katelyn was sledding from the very top. Then she spotted a little jump that someone had made. She decided she wanted to do that. Before we left the girl who didn't want to sled was going from the top of the hill and catching air on a snow ramp. I purposefully didn't include pictures of Ridge on these adventures because he was decked out in a shamelessly pink, ruffly snowsuit. I want him to like me when he is sixteen.

- Snow ice cream. Holly taught us how to make snow ice cream out of snow, sugar, vanilla and milk.

- Just Dance. Jenny and Don brought their wii with 4 remotes and the just dance game. We had a great time trying to beat Joseph (who informed us that he can beat the whole cheerleading team). Holly beat him once. Go Holly! Even better than seeing Joseph get beat was watching Papa dance!

- The Family Olympics. The events this year in the family olympics were pool, ping pong, and twister. Mike was the overall winner. Josh, who is ten, is a pretty amazing pool and ping pong player. Ten or not, you can't underestimate him!

- Movies. We watched alot of fun new shows that we have never seen before.

- Laptop City. In one house we had 8 laptop computers and one desktop computer. Nobody fought over the computer this year.

- Santa Clause- Oh yeah, Santa Clause came, too. We had a fabulous Christmas morning. The girls got real digital cameras. They took and have taken all kinds of great pictures. I love to look at the things they find exciting enough to take pictures of. Ridge loves his ball popper. It was the perfect gift for him. Thanks Santa!

New Years Eve- Appetizers and a movie rounded out the New Year. It was low key with shrimp, my kind of new year.

What a great holiday. It was so thoughtful of everyone to get us such nice gifts. I have to say even better than the gifts was the hospitality and the time that we got to spend together. We had a great time. Thanks to everyone!

On to the polar express...

The girls made a dent in their suckers on our 6 hour drive.

Welcome to Bearizona.

On the polar express.

Our super fun chef.

Santa on the polar express.

Snow angels.

Ridge thinking about tasting snow.

He'll try anything.

Ridge's reaction.

Our snowman with features made from fruit loops from the hotel continental breakfast.

We left California behind, hoping to leave the rain with it. Too bad for us, the storm is chasing us. It rained like crazy for 5/6 hours on our drive. It stopped for one glorious hour, then we came around a bend and there it was, waiting for us. What can you do? We went to Bearizona. It is a drive through zoo featuring bison, wolves, dall sheep, mountain goats, and black bear. It was really cool. The wolves came right up to the front of the car. We noticed our brakes grinding on our way to Bearizona so when we went to a gas station on the way back to the hotel we had the mechanics there take a look at it. They told us the brake pads were completely gone and the brakes were rubbing on the rotor. A very nice lady found me and the girls a place to sit, gave us hot chocolate, and offered us cake (which immediately set Katelyn off on "I'm hungry). Rusty called the rental car company and they brought us a new car. It is significantly smaller but is all wheel drive. The polar express was great. We boarded the train in the poring rain. Once we got on it was toasty warm. We were served hot chocolate and a cookie while we listened to the story of the polar express. We made our way on the train to the North Pole where Santa and an elf were waving to us. When we turned around to head back to the depot Santa was gone. We sang Christmas carols, led by a hilariously lanky, uncoordinated, off key "chef" who kept pointing wildly at the kids to involve them in his polar express choir. The mystery of the missing Santa was solved when he burst through the door of the train car and greeted all the children and gave them a bell. When we got back to the depot we were excited to find 2 inches of fresh snow. The girls had a heyday. They went crazy with a snowball fight, a mini snowman, snow angels, and snow tasting. Katelyn kept grabbing snow and running after Kyleigh screaming, "hey KyKy I've got something for you." We had to pull Katelyn from the snow kicking and screaming. She was sure the snow would be melted by morning. She woke up at about 6 a.m. the next morning and ran to the window. It had snowed about 6 more inches during the night. It took a lot of talking to convince her she could sleep for a few more hours and play in the snow when she woke up. We played for about an hour and a half before we couldn't stand the cold anymore. We are so glad we got a little bit of snow time. There is a 0% chance of snow in Silver City until January 8th. No white Christmas for us. Even though we waited to leave, the all-wheel drive car was helpful on the roads for the first half hour. Then the roads cleared and we had smooth sailing to Silver City, a 6.5 hour drive. We arrived in Silver at about 6 p.m. on the 23rd. We are excited to spend time with everyone.

Disneyland Days 5 and 6.

Entering the park on the first day (no rain jackets on Day 1).

Katelyn's first glance at the Disneyland magic.

Our first ride, Peter Pan.

Me and Ridge on the carousel.

Playing with Gpa.

Playing with GG.

We played till we couldn't play one second longer.

We only saw one princess, Jasmine.

Pluto and the gang.

Daddy and Ridge in 3-D glasses, about to shoot targets on the toy story ride.

It's a bug's world 3-D glasses.

Our drawings of Mickey Mouse after our lesson in the animation studio.

The hotel only had 2 dryers so Rusty made do.

Donald and Daisy together.

Chip (or Dale) and the girls.

Minnie and the girls.

Minnie got a kiss from our prince.

Everyone with the big guy himself.

We took it easy on Day 5. Still a little water logged from the day before. I knew there was a reason we got the 6 day pass. We watched it's a bugs world again, so Dad could see it. We then went back to the animation studio with the intention of talking with Crush and learning to draw in the animation studio again. We got sidetracked by the myriad of characters that we were able to visit with. Donald, Daisy, Mickey, Minnie, Chip, Dale, and Goofy were all available for autographs and pictures. The girls had a great time and were so excited to get more signatures in their autograph books. We also did some shopping with Mom so she could get a few things before we left. One of the things she got were some suckers for the girls. They have been eyeing these suckers since the day we got here. They are bigger than their heads. GG got one for each of them. It will probably take weeks to eat them. It conjurs up memories of the fist sized jaw breakers we used to get at West Yellowstone. We took Mom and Dad to the airport and ordered pizza to the hotel for dinner.



Day six was our last hurrah. We took a survey and had a top one and two ride that each of us wanted to go on for our last day. We still had our "magic morning" so we got into the park at 7 a.m. We hit our first and second choice rides more than once plus a few extras and had a leisurely lunch before getting back to the hotel by 4:30. We had a few glorious hours of no rain. The girls finished spending all of the money they brought to spend. Over the course of the week Kyleigh bought Disney Christmas silly bands, a disney build a bear outfit, a whale necklace, and a tinkerbell polly pocket like set. Katelyn bought a duck necklace, a tinkerbell doll, and a Mickey safari build a bear outfit. We bought the girls some princess Christmas tree ornaments and Ridge a buzz lightyear ornament. We waved good-bye to the park on our way out and talked about our next trip to Disneyland. We decided we will have to go back in about 3 years so Ridge will be 40 inches tall. Here's to three years from now!