Christmas in Orange County

This year we spent Christmas in Orange County with Matthew's family.  We enjoyed the good memories we were able to have this year with family and friends.  Some of the fun things we did included:

• Family dinner at the Filling Station in old town Orange
• Christmas gifts on Christmas and Christmas Eve
• Home cooked turkey dinner with the family
• Les Miserables - such an incredible film
• Dinner w/ Brian, Melissa, Peter & Shannon at Houston's in Orange County
• A day at Disneyland with Craig & Diane (can't wait to go back again)

NYC Christmas

We started our Christmas celebration with a quick trip to New York City. We first went to New York together when we were dating during the holidays and have always loved the big city this time of year.  We went back and rekindled many memories from that trip now so many years ago as well as creating new memories in the city.  We spent a day shopping in SOHO where I had to go see the Landmark J.Crew and Anthropologie stores, I am a nerd I know.  We also found lots of fun art galleries, spent way too long drooling at Tiffany & Co, visited my new favorite shop Joie (coming to SF soon!) and picked up some unique gifts from some local shops.  We also went up and down the shops on 5th avenue, visited Macy's which was insanely crowded and ate at Shake Shack twice.  We ate dinner at Wolfgang's (one of our favorites) and Rimi (a delicious Italian restaurant).  To get in the holiday spirit, we saw the Christmas Spectacular show with the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall, visited the large Christmas tree at Rockefeller center, took in the night view from Top of the Rock. We also went ice skating in Central Park (Wollman Rink) and even went on a carriage ride. New York was a great way to begin our 2012 Christmas celebration.

Christmas Festivities

Christmas Festivities for December via iphone....

• Decorating the Christmas Tree
• Making my grandma's chef mix
• Sequoia Holiday Party at Terra Gallery (our first work holiday party since we have been married)
• We hosted a Christmas Party at our new place. We had a great turn out and the kids were fun to play with. Thanks for all who came! 
• Photo Booth at our Church Christmas Party
• Favorite Things Party

2011 welcomes 2012.

2011 might have started with this big hard bang but that doesn't mean we didn't have some good times along the way. We went to Hawaii and Matthew loved exploring Maui for the first time. I got a job as a Surgical Technologist! Uncle Mark and Diane beat their cancer. Little Z turned one and continues to grow up way to fast. We got to spend the holidays with both our families which was a huge blessing and felt like a miracle.

New Years Eve Megan and Dave came up to the city. We went to dinner, walked around Pier 39, went to Union Square to go ice skating and learned it was all sold out, watched the fireworks go off at midnight and toasted the new year back at the apartment. It was a great way to end such a roller coaster year and welcome in a new year with a clean slate. 

2012 is here and looking great. It's definitely going to be the year of change and adventure!!

Here are a few pictures of us bringing in the new year....

A Big Texas Christmas.

It's March. I know.

Our Christmas was filled with a lot of family time and delicious Texas food (blue bell ice cream, various smoked meats, and texmex)! We had a big family dinner Christmas Eve, a wonderful Christmas Sunday, saw a couple great movies, took a carriage ride through Highland Park to view the Christmas lights, and spent quality time with cute little Z.  It was a happy Christmas and we feel lucky to have spent the day together with family.