Christmas

It's not too late to post about our Christmas, right? Our Christmas was pretty good. It started off with a train ride to Utah to spend time with family. Actually it started out with Tracy's dad coming to visit us for a few days, December 11th - 15th, before we headed to Utah. I don't remember everything thing we did and we didn't get many pictures. The day Tracy 1 arrived there was a huge rain storm. It took us a little longer than it normally would have to get to Oakland to pick him up because of flooding on the freeway. We took him to San Francisco for lunch at Boudin. The city was pretty much shut down. Lots of businesses weren't even open and several sections of the city were without electricity. It was weird seeing SF so lifeless. It took us I want to say 3 hours to get home because of flooded roads.
We also spent one of the days with Tracy's step grandma, Rosalee, who lives about an hour away from us. We took her to Bodega Bay for some beach time. She's in her 90's and doesn't get out much so she really loved her time at the beach with us. It was also fun for James to get to know one of his few great-grandparents still alive. As well as spend time with his grandpa.

James sleeping after a fun day at the beach.

On December 17th we started our journey to Utah.

At the station waiting for the train to arrive.

James did most of this during the trip.

Looking out the window some more.

We packed a lunch and ate it in the lounge car.
Then had dinner in the dinning car.

The train ride was nice and James did great. He even fell asleep and slept till we arrived in Salt Lake. The only downside of the train is your at the mercy of their schedule which means it arrives in Salt Lake at 3 a.m. James was pretty much the only one who got a full nights sleep that night.

The next day after some sleep. Tracy had a meeting with the State Paleontologist to discuss the project he wants to do for his dissertation and to see the bones, though we didn't actually see them since they are still wrapped in plaster waiting to get prepped out.

We spent a lot of time with Tracy's family. We watched a couple of college football bowl games. James discovered Micro-machines and he and I spent a lot of time playing with them. He also enjoyed the many other toys at Grandma and Grandpa's house.

Playing with the Micro-machines.

A couple of nights we spent up in Salt Lake. We didn't actually spend a ton of time in Salt Lake though. The first night we had dinner at Blue Lemon.

Blurry picture of Tracy at Blue Lemon

 The 23rd I met up with some childhood friends for lunch and a play date. It was fun to get together again and that the 3 of us happened to be in the same state at the same time. Then we picked up some last minute gifts.
Tracy's mom had decided to start a tradition of taking Christmas cards with some cash and giving them to someone who looks like they may need a little extra help while we're out shopping. We each had a card to deliver and James had a present to give to a kid. Then on Christmas eve we share our experience of giving the card. So we had a mission to accomplish as well as our last minute gifts. It will be a great tradition to continue on.
After shopping we visited with Tracy's cousin and family for a bit before we went to my family party. Tracy's cousin had made smoked salmon. It was soooo good. At my family party we enjoyed some more good food and company. Just about everyone was there, so it was pretty chaotic.

Christmas Eve, we said good bye to Salt Lake and went back to Tracy's parents' house. James was very happy to be back to play with Grandpa, but he still wanted me to do a lot of the playing with cars.

Christmas Day! We opened gifts. James got some fun new toys.

He was also very, very excited that it had snowed. He had been talking about seeing snow at Christmas time for months, so it was nice that he actually got to see some and play in it. We didn't last long since we're wimps now and use to warm sunny days with a few rainy days year round.

James loved throwing snow balls at everyone.

The 26th we packed up to head back home. Had dinner at The Pie with Tracy's brother Sam before getting on the train. I had come down with the flu, so I didn't get to enjoy any Pizza or really any of our last day in Utah.

James' face after he told me he didn't want to go home
but that he wanted to stay at Grandma's and Grandpa's.
With that face I didn't take him too seriously.

The ride home went about the same as our first ride.
James watching out the window most of the time.

Over all we had a good Christmas. I love all the new connections James made with his extended family. I loved especially the one his made with his uncle Sam. It was cute seeing them sitting on the couch together as Sam worked on his animation and James watching. Wish I had snapped a picture and now I wish even more that I had taken a picture. Glad we have memories of a fun Christmas week with mostly Tracy's family.