If we took a holiday...

HOL-I-DAY

Here's some advice for you: next time you start a new job, try to do it in December. Then, if you're lucky like me, you can take three days of vacation and end up with nearly two weeks off. Work three weeks, get two free.

Anyhow, we had a very long holiday season filled with family.

We started with a foggy drive to Spokane during which I sang Christmas songs outloud, culminating in a surprise performance of "To Grandmother's House We Go" when we actually made a detour to drive to Bryan's grandmother's house and drove over a river and through some woods. That was totally worth the extra driving.

Spokane was snowy but sunny. We spent lots of time catching up with the family and fighting for the baby's attention. It's funny how baby love is worth more than all the gifts under the tree. But we also got nice gifts too! And we ate more than you can imagine, managing to walk off about two cookies worth on one particularly sunny day.

I stupidly had two dead batteries for my camera and only managed to get three shots. That's okay, these are two of the shots, and Bryan's uncle easily took 1,000 more.

Filled to the brim with Pictionary (family games!) and hugs, we headed back to Portland. A missed turn provided us with the long, scenic drive home. Needless to say, not really all that scenic.

And the next day we my parents arrived for a delayed Christmas and a rousing New Year. No irony there, it was rousing!

Portland was showing off with uncharacteristically beautiful sunny weather. But it forgot to turn on the heater so it was also uncharacteristically cold. We froze our toes admiring lights outside, walking around the neighborhood, hiking through the park, and shopping downtown.

We warmed up a bit on New Years Eve when we celebrated Peruvian style at one of our favorite restaurants. By all accounts, 2011 should be the best year yet with all the fabulous food we ate, the yellow we wore, the grapes we gobbled, and the good cheer.

Peruvian tradition calls for New Year revelers to run around the block with an empty suitcase to bring travel for the upcoming year. We love to travel. So we ran. And my parents ran.

Definitely a holiday season for the memory books!