Vacation Photo Dump

We wrapped up our trip to SunRiver with lots more playing around. You can tell the camera got a lot of work during our vacation – this may be the biggest post yet – but there are even more pictures here if this isn’t enough:

More walks

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Sledding (on what little snow we could find)

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Snowy playgrounds (something us Californians are NOT used to)

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Night Train!

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Mucking around inside, enjoying hot chocolate and “mushrooms”

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And on the way home, a brief stop at a train hotel!

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Skiing

We took the family skiing on our vacation. Nicky had great success learning to snowplow and Superman, but he still prefers relying on mommy to keep him safe with the leash while he goes straight down the hill as fast as he can. Kate had plastic skis to get the feel of sliding around. She wasn’t terribly interested in her fake skis but really wanted to try Nicky’s real skis. Maybe next year! As always, the hot chocolate in the lodge was the biggest hit. Nicky especially liked getting to take off all his ski clothes at the end of the day – everyone in the lodge got a nice chuckle to see him parading around shirtless in his bibs and ski boots.

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20131222_115251 20131222_115212 Nicky, modeling his après-ski look.

Christmas Day

We had a fun and festive Christmas. The kids didn’t wake up too early…Kate tried to get up at 5:48 but I heard Nicky whispering to her, “shh, Kate, you’re going to scare away the reindeer.” Luckily, the reindeer weren’t scared off and it turned out both kids were on Santa’s good list. Santa brought Nicky his “big present”: a remote control monster truck, which turned out to be exactly what Nicky had wanted! Kate got a stroller, which has been in high use ever since. We opened a HUGE pile of presents in the morning and then spent the rest of the day playing with our new toys, spending good family time and eating.

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Excited on Christmas Eve, right before bed.

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Santa

Between our vacation and some technical difficulties, I’m WAY behind on Christmas posts. More to come over the next couple of days…

Nicky was brave enough to sit on Santa’s lap this year. He jumped right up there while Kate was cowering in the corner and asked for a “big present”. Santa was a little desperate for some additional details but Nicky refused to be any more specific. We’ll see what Santa ends up making of the open-ended request. What Nicky really wanted to talk to Santa about was where he had parked his sleigh. I have to say that I like my little man’s priorities.

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