Week Off

John's company shut down for the week between Christmas and New Year's to re-carpet his office. We spent the week playing with our new Christmas presents.

 This included 2 Star Wars puzzles and one of Venice

 we broke in the new bread maker. 3 times. 

 John replaced his brake pads. Very exciting.

 He gave me a pasta roller for Christmas and we tried fettucini one night and spaghetti another.

 The cream sauce John made for the pasta was amazing.

We walked to the Redbox almost every day to catch up on movies. We also met up with lots of friends who came into town for the holiday break. It was a perfectly relaxing week.

Elephant Seals

One day John had off from work we met Karen and Terri's family at Ano Nuevo State Park.

 We walked a beautiful trail on an elephant seal tour.

 The timing is perfect because the seals were having pups and we saw a few cute "little" ones (they're born around 65 pounds).

 We also saw a showdown between two alpha males and a few other uncommon sightings, according to the tour guide. (such as seal poop--since they don't eat during their sun-bathing days)

 This is T.S. Elephant. Short for toilet seat, because that's what was stuck around his neck when he was rescued and you can still see the scar ring there.

 The Baldwin family.

 We started cheerfully along our way, but it became windier and chillier the closer we were to the beach.

 Stori liked racing. 

 Terri and Russ probably enjoyed the alone time.

We all had a fun time, exercised and learned a ton about elephant seals. (For example, a grown male can weigh almost 3)

Christmas Eve

John's been taking advantage of our warm weather and worked on the trim outside.

 He also burned the Christmas tree branches that were trimmed off. They sound like Rice Krispies when they burn.

 We're watching a friend's cat while she's on vacation over Christmas.

John has resumed his tormenting ways.

 This is before the Christmas Eve dinner and sing-a-thon at Brian and Annie's.

 John took some videos on Christmas, but this was somehow the only picture:

We're modeling our new blanket and Cardinals jersey. 

Bakefest 2011

We began our baking adventures with toffee and fiddle faddle to send with packages.

Amanda and I made these peanut butter reindeer cookies for my nursery kids.

 Then later in the week Amanda, Emily, Clay and my mom came over to help crank out some Christmas plates. (And watch Elf, of course)

 Clay was an expert spritzer.

 Amanda with all the loot. It took us two nights to deliver all the treats.

The house still smells sweet and we are already making plans of what to try out next year.

Nativity

To enhance the Christmas spirit we bundled up and went to see a live nativity story a local church does each year.

 They also give out hot chocolate.

 We brought Karen and Alan and stayed until the hot chocolate warmth ran out.

2 Year Anniversary

Today is the start of our third year of marriage.

 We celebrated with a princess cake from Aki's bakery, which we served at our wedding. It was as delicious as we remembered.

John also had a follow-up visit with Dr. Freshman up in Walnut Creek. 

Because nothing says romance like gastroenterology.

San Rafael

We had a free night stay from hotels.com and an anniversary to celebrate, so John planned a little getaway to San Rafael. You may be wondering, "What's in San Rafael?" Well we went exploring to find out. 

John's goal for the trip was, naturally, to eat good food. Mine was to take a bath. I know that's weird, but we only have a shower and I love baths. So we went to the Embassy Suites where they have bathtubs and a cook-to-order buffet breakfast. Plus a waterfall and koi pond in the lobby. Fancy! 

 We toured the Civic Center because it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. 

 It's featured in the movie Gattaca.

 And looks like it belongs in Tomorrowland. 

 Next we went to the China Camp state park and walked one of the trails.

 Crepevine was one of the places John found online and they did not disappoint. We tried the tri-berry crepe with nutella. Yum.

 We went up to Point Reyes afterward and it was beautiful.

 I love John's hair. It was windy.

Speaking of windy, we went to see the lighthouse and the higher we climbed the colder it became.

 It was worth the hike, though, because we saw the sunset from the top.

Luckily the stairs to the lighthouse itself were closed, because I'm sure John would have made us go see it and the sign said it's 30 flights' worth and there's no alternative way back but up.

 We found out why it was so cold up there. It's the windiest point on the Pacific Coast.

 It felt like it, too.

 So there you have it. San Rafael is a pretty cool place to visit. 

We had a fun time and made it back home in time to join in Katie's birthday celebration.

Christmastime

John and I babysat these little girls again one day.

 He can't wait to have his own kids to build Legos with.

 Then another afternoon I watched their little sister. I had plans to make these candy cane cookies I saw on Pinterest, but she had other plans. So we made everything pink and cookie cuttered instead.

 On Tuesday we took Karen to Palo Alto to see the Creche exhibit while Alan went to a meeting.

 Today John put some little lights up on the house. (During his lunch break, since it's dark when he gets home. Good man.)

 And while I had the camera out we took a picture with the Christmas tree. We're covering pretty much the whole thing, but we have little patience for the self-timer and didn't want to take more.

We still have lots of fun to have before Christmas, but we've had a successful start.