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| Jake's Baby Claire Rose |
What a wonderful Christmas we’ve had! It was the very best of both worlds – Josh and I got to visit family in Oregon during Mario’s finals, and the three of us got to spend a quiet Christmas together.
I packed the refrigerator full of food for my studying sweetheart and Josh and I took off for Oregon. The little man did great and we got there with no problems. We spent a wonderful 9 days visiting family. Josh absolutely loved the time with grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. We got to meet Jake and Heather’s new little darling, Claire Rose, and catch up with lots of loved ones. We missed Suzie and little Max and Scotita, though! Josh had a riot of a time chasing around his cousins as well as all the dogs and cats he met at the grandparents’ houses! When we got to Oregon, he was fascinated and terrified of dogs. By the time we left Oregon, his favorite thing to do was to chase down the nearest furry creature, stick his hand in its mouth, and squeal in delight. In fact, this comfort with dogs has held up after coming home – just the other day he was sitting on a lap that was also occupied by our friends’ little poodle, Gigi. He proceeded to grip Gigi on both sides of her cute little head, pull her in close, and the two shared a kiss. With tongue.
Anyway, Oregon was great! Josh had his first real experience with Christmas presents. He got some great gifts, although he doesn’t seem to enjoy opening presents very much. He made the same disgusted face every time he ripped the paper, including Christmas morning here in Boston. He sure does like the presents, though!
Our flight home was not terribly pleasant. On the second leg, Josh fell asleep (miraculously) as we took off. About an hour into the 3 hour flight, one of the flight attendants told me I needed to move him since his head was resting on the arm rest and hung out about an inch into the aisle. So I tried very carefully to move him. He woke up and cried so hard he made himself vomit. After that he was okay, though! Fun stuff!
Mario was studying for and taking finals while we were gone. He thought he had finals Monday and Thursday. He found out on Sunday that his Thursday final had been moved to Tuesday morning. Although that was pretty unpleasant, he thinks he did okay and is glad the term is over.
The day after I got home was our 6th anniversary. Mario got me a beautiful, huge, hardwood cutting board and a delightful box of Belgian truffles. What a dear! We went out to dinner at a little restaurant (little as in it only had seating for about 20 people) in East Boston called Rino’s Place. It was absolutely amazing. Mario had chicken saltimbocca and I got the lobster ravioli. That’s right, I said lobster ravioli. And it was every bit as lovely as it sounds. It was a wonderful anniversary and it’s been an even more wonderful 6 years!
Josh and I have been relishing all the time we’ve been able to spend with Mario this past week. Usually all his time off is spent traveling to visit family and trying to make sure we spend time with everyone. This holiday, though, we’ve been taking walks, going shopping, reading, and spending lots and lots of time playing with Josh. It’s been so relaxing and fulfilling and, although we do miss parts of being with our families at Christmas, this has been a most excellent vacation! We had the chance to do a bunch of things we haven’t been able to the last few Christmases, like put up a Christmas tree! We also decorated sugar cookies, which the monkey really enjoyed.
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| Yum! |
We spent Christmas Eve with some friends who host an annual Christmas Eve dinner for those few families in our church group who don’t go “home” for Christmas. This is the first year we’ve attended and it was a really fun evening. The Gentrys had a delicious Italian dinner prepared. It just so happened that their guest list included vegans, vegetarians, and celiacs (allergic to gluten). Lots of credit to Laci and Christian for putting together a feast for such a challenging group of eaters! Mario and I turned out to be the only omnivore couple in attendance. After dinner we had a rousing game of Christmas Pictionary (the boys won by 4 points), we sang Christmas carols, and finished by decorating sugar cookies for Santa.
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| Disgusted present-opening face |
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| Christmas Camping |
One aspect of being by ourselves at Christmas has been the opportunity to establish some of our own family traditions. Mario thought a fun tradition would be to sleep under the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve, so we did! I think we’ll call it Christmas Camping. We decided after a particularly rough night with Josh (the day before Christmas Eve he woke up at midnight and didn’t go back to sleep until 3am. What am I going to do when I eventually have a
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| Breaking in the new truck |
newborn again?! One sleepless night and I was thrown all out of whack!) that only kids who are capable of falling asleep and staying asleep outside of their cribs are allowed to participate in Christmas Camping, so it was just the two of us. When Josh woke up, he opened his presents (Mario and I both got our presents early – Photoshop Elements for me and a nice overcoat for him . . . and sushi, but that’s later!), which included a train, a dump truck, and a Leapfrog book. Anyway, after exploring those options for a while, he found his snow boots and brought them to us, indicating he would like to play in the snow for a while and freeze his little paws off. He had a great time filling up his new dump truck with snow using one of my kitchen spoons.
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| Maki rolls |
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| Tuna sashimi |
Mario and I spent the rest of the day (and parts of the previous days) working on Christmas dinner. Our friends, Sophie and Jose, bought a beautiful prime rib roast for dinner which we prepared, and Mario loves sushi, so we had prime rib and sushi for Christmas dinner. It was epic. I dried the rib, uncovered in the refrigerator, for two days. Then I dry rubbed it and roasted it. The sushi was lots of fun – a throwback from my days as a ski bum working at the Seafood Buffet at Deer Valley Ski Resort in Park City, Utah. I made bluefin tuna, salmon, and shrimp nigiri as well as crispy shrimp and spicy tuna maki rolls. We even had flying fish roe (those are the shiny little orange balls on top – fish eggs!) for garnish. They were beautiful and delicious.
But the prime rib defied description. Hands down the best piece of meat I’ve ever eaten, although Dave and Aurica’s steak and tri-tip sure could give it a run for its money! It had a beautiful dark, salty, crispy crust but the inside was a perfectly seasoned and tender masterpiece. It was like eating delicious little bites of prime-rib-flavored butter. It was unbelievable. I can’t wait for our next big occasion so I can make another one! For dessert, we had homemade dark chocolate truffles, triple chocolate coconut cookies, and pumpkin spice cake. As one who often measures a celebration by its food, this Christmas was out of this world! And it was definitely better because it was shared with our good friends Josh & Whitney (and their little Gigi, with whom our Josh shared a passionate kiss on Christmas night as discussed above) and Jose & Sophie and their little Mirabel.
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| From left - Jose, Mirabel, Sophie, Whitney, Gigi, and Josh |
In all, it was a lovely Christmas that was spent quietly with our little family and with wonderful friends. We missed our families, but this was exactly what we needed!
You may have heard about the big snow storm currently blowing through the East Coast. Snow storms are lovely when you don’t need to leave the house unless you want to, and this one has been fun! Josh has finally learned that if he lets me put his mittens on right (i.e. lets me get his thumbs in their place), he can play and put his hands in the snow and they won’t even get cold! He and Mario have been having fun playing in snow drifts when the wind isn’t going like mad.
Today we braved the elements and the un-shoveled sidewalks to go to the library for a little while. Our library is seriously the best library ever. The entire top floor is just for kids, and it’s separated from the rest of the library so the little tykes don’t have to be quiet or anything. It’s huge and awesome and we spend a lot of time there.
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| The Cambridge Public Library |
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| Eating bubbles |
When we got home, Josh found the bubbles and politely asked us to blow some for him. He was content for a while just to watch and pop them, and then he got this idea!
Some great shots Mario took, huh?
Josh is a great little guy still, and learning a lot. Just this week he learned how to spin in circles (while watching the Backyardigans, his most favorite show EVER) and spit mouthfuls of water in the bathtub, both of which he is very impressed with. He also thinks he can jump, but he really just bends down and then stands up really fast, which is hilarious and adorable. He still hasn’t used any new words besides his three (hi, daddy, eye), but you can see him figuring out stuff. He’s a whole lot of fun these days!
You can see more photos on my Facebook account. If you're not on Facebook and would like to see them, let me know and I'll send you a link!
First, we have some breakfast. Sometimes that requires the use of utensils slightly more interesting than plain old spoons.
Then, most mornings we have a playgroup of some kind. Sometimes we have our playgroup friends come over to our house, or we meet them somewhere fun, like the Aquarium.
Josh usually gets to play outside at some point in the morning. He especially loves to find birds and chase the cat that lives in our apartment complex. When it’s raining, we suit up and see what kind of puddles we can find.
When we don’t have playgroup, we make some kind of outing in the morning. We often go to the library, and sometimes we get special free library passes to visit one of the museums or the aquarium in the area. 
After that, most evenings we play with Mario for a while and then take a bath.
