I can't believe Christmas is only 1 week away. Since we came back from our holiday to California in November it's been a bit hectic, hence the lack of blog posts. Sitting here in the freezing cold it's mad to think we were in the lovely California sunshine only 6 weeks ago. Here is a slide show of our trip, bear in mind we broke our camera 3 days in so we are missing photos of many people we saw.
The holiday itself was magic. It gave all of us a huge boost and we have been on a high ever since. It was really a holiday to connect in with people including some special little ones we had never met before, cousin Claire and Alexis and Tom's baby Luca. Thanks to Jessie's very generous Aunt and Uncle we got to stay in an lovely Condo right on the beach in Watsonville (south of Santa Cruz). Meeting baby Claire, and seeing Joe and Jessie as parents was the main event of the holiday. We couldn't get over our beautiful new niece (and cousin) Claire. My heart was melted by this precious, peaceful creature. She was very popular with James and Lily as well. Lily was very curious and immediately fond of her while James thought she was "so cute" and by the end of the trip had developed a lovely friendship with her. And to witness Joe and Jessie as the most loving, attentive and mellow new parents was a pleasure.
This is a little clip of the cousins together.
The other big highlight of our trip was hanging out with Auntie Alicia. The bond formed between Alicia and James on this holiday was a most beautiful thing. She spent endless hours making Halloween decorations and "beaching" with him. He completely claimed her as his own, not really letting anyone else near her, only riding in her car, and trying to wake her at unreasonable hours to play. She was the whole reason the holiday went so well. Her organising and care-taking during the 10 days was phenomenal. We packed in loads on this trip but it all felt so easy thanks to her. She even organised a wonderful BBQ up at my Dad's place for all our old family friends from Pope Valley. It was such a bonus to see all these people including another couple of new arrivals I hadn't met before.
Although our trip was short I still managed to get in quality visits with my much-missed best friends from California Alexis, Jenny, Emily and Chanda. This was a bit of a miracle especially since Emily and Alexis both live on the other side of the US. For them to meet James and Lily meant a lot to me and getting to meet the main man, Luca was amazing. What a gorgeous, friendly boy. After hanging out with him for a couple of days we are taking out bets on him being a world famous pitcher. What a throw this boy has!
For me it's been the season of meeting close friend's babies. Since I started ahead of the gang having James I feel I have waited a long time for this pleasure. But over the last few months I have had this three fold with Amy and Paul's Sam, Alexis and Tom's Luca and most recently Naomi and Adam's Luke! We got to meet little Luke a couple of weeks ago as they had come home from LA for a visit! What a treat.
Well I am off to do some preparing for Christmas. Santa has had some unusual requests this year from James including: a bucket of mud, the roof of a house and a 'make-your-own-gun' kit! These were the ongoing requests until he suddenly re-decided to go with a more manageable request which of course is for another Lego set. Is there anything that exists besides Lego in this boy's head?
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