What we did for Christmas 2009

Here are a few quick pictures of our Christmas 2009. Sorry no cards were sent out...the postage would have taken up our entire budget!

Here I am transporting a gift for Alyas on my bike. I didn't have quite enough room to sit comfortably or wear my backpack. I also had to ride with a bag on my handle bars - as it hit my front tire - and in the process of the whole thing I lost a glove. Mission was accomplished however. Oh, did I mention I also had to ride in the snow?

The clever system I devised to strap in the prized toy.

Wednesday night we had a dinner with some of our friends here...an awesome meal of course took center stage. We stayed at their house as well, as they had an open bed, so we didn't have to cut our evening short or ride home in the cold, wet rain! We were given a gift of a book for Brandon and a whole bunch of Take Five Chocolate Bars from the good ole USA! They are about half gone already!

Kody, Dee, and Cormac.

Christmas Eve morning we had homemade pancakes with the Coopers then headed home. I didn't have a special meal planned so we splurged and went out to eat at a near by Chinese buffet. There was quite a funny story to go along with this. The people there wanted to charge us 8 pounds just for Alyas, so I brought food with us for him to eat. They didn't want to approve of this idea but gave in after we assured them he would not eat ANYTHING. Although the entire dinning room was open we were seated in an odd place, behind the buffet, down some stairs, and by the bathrooms and sound equipment. We weren't horribly offended and decided to laugh it off instead...way to say Merry Christmas!

Here's Brandon getting us ready to leave...see the computer and cords in the background. The dinning room was rather fancy, too bad we didn't have the privilege of sitting there. Right before we left Alyas turned some knob on the stereo and shut off the music...we made our exit in haste. Hee Hee Hee

But we did manage to get this photo taken to document the event.

Alyas opened some gifts Christmas Eve and some the next day (I think we look a lot alike in this picture, don't you?).

He actually managed to open a few himself after he figured out what we were doing.


Christmas day we attended church, ate bisects and gravy for lunch, and then I made an awesome dinner. Turkey and ham are very expensive so I opted for chicken, candied carrots, baked apples, garlic mashed potatoes, and bread.


Our little man in a Union Pacific Railroad hat he got from Grandma Nae and Papa.

Our family photo taken that evening...I think it is hilarious that Brandon is holding our tree in his hand.