Happy New Year!

The last few weeks have been wonderful and hectic. Let's see ... where should I begin? We made it through 4 Christmas celebrations. Sage's favorite gifts so far: Soaky Dokie (a large my little pony that can go in the shower) and a small stuffed animal penguin (it's a "baby" penguin, of course). Then Ryan left the day after Christmas for a youth snowboard trip to Utah. He was gone for 5 days (felt like eternity, of course). The highlight of those 5 days ... going to Boccalli's with my dad and the girls. He came and picked us up in his truck, treated us to fabulous Italian food and then drove us home. Ryan came back just in time for us to celebrate the new year (don't even think we stayed up past 10pm). We watched a little bit of the Rose Parade on New Year's Day and then packed up the kids in the car and headed up to some local mountains for a hike. We were surprised to see snow all over the trees and ground. As soon as Sage got out of the car she ran over to the snow, scooped some in her hand and took a bite! The following day we packed up the kids again and went to Pismo beach with my dad. I caught a cold the first night of the trip and Aspen didn't sleep that well at night, but besides that, we had a great time. Ryan and I got to take the quads out in the dunes ... that was worth every bit of sniffle and lack of Zzzzzz that comes with camping with kids under the age of 3. We got home on Thursday night, just in time for my dad to rush off and meet Jorgia, our new baby niece who was born on Wednesday night. Hopefully my Rudolf nose is gone by tomorrow so we can go and meet her too : ) Here are some photos from our adventures.