Wow, the holidays just flew by this year. It went so fast I feel like something monumental should have been accomplished, but no, not really, just a wonderful low key holiday season spent with our wonderful friends and family.
We started off the holiday season on December 19th with a trip to Olympia to celebrate with Chris's family. We opened gifts and celebrated Chris's birthday with a yummy chocolate cake that Angie made (way to go Angie!). We were spoiled, as usual, and Jet received many wonderful gifts including his very own quilt!
On the 21st, Chris and I celebrated his actual birthday with a quiet dinner at Jak's in West Seattle. Super yummy as usual.
Then it was the 23rd and we celebrated the end of the Christmas Ship season with a huge group of our Argosy family on the Goodtime III parade boat! It was a beautiful, calm evening and the choir was amazing. We had such an amazing time.
The 24th was spent in the kitchen getting ready for Christmas dinner with my parents. They showed up in the afternoon and we enjoyed a wonderful Prime Rib dinner. Jetty was so excited to see his grandparents I thought he was going to wiggle out of his skin. Percy was in love with the presents and the tree and slept in front of it all day and night:
Christmas day we lounged around and opened gifts. We were again spoiled and so were the pets. Here is Jetty and Grandpa on Christmas morning watching Chris open a gift.
Once we'd powered through our pile of gifts we decided that it would be fun to go downtown and catch a showing of Sherlock Holmes. It didn't dawn on us that everyone else in Seattle would have the same idea. We arrived at around 1:30pm only to find that the next available showing was at 7pm. Needless to say we didn't feel like hanging around that long so we stopped in at Starbucks and enjoyed a holiday latte and headed back to West Seattle. On the way back we decided to drive along Alki, and on a whim pulled into Jack Block Park. The sun was out, the wind was calm and the view of Seattle was incredible. We explored the park for a bit, walking off some of our holiday calories, and finally headed back home happy and refreshed. Turned out much better than sitting in a dark movie theater!
Saturday the 26th we all took a trip south to Portland to continue the celebrating with Jeff, Sara, Ella, Sadie and Esme. It is such a treat to be able to spend even just one night with the entire Jones family. Jeff and Sara spoiled us with an amazing dinner, as usual, and some great wine. And the girls were quite entertaining.
Sadie, Aunt Courtney, Ella
Love these girls!
I just had to break out my new Cabin Cozy and display my
Gossamer impression for the girls. They LOVED it.
Sadie had to try it out.
Jet and Ezzy were fast friends, they are just about the same size!
She's got the Jones hair for sure.
Sunday we returned to Seattle to attend the Wedding reception of Kat & Kevin at West Seattle Bowl. What a fun idea for a wedding reception. We had a blast, and oddly the only picture I snapped was this one of Chris and James.
On Monday we decided to hit the road again and spend a night at the Anderson Island Cabin before we had to return to work. It was cold, very cold, but oh so beautiful. No fish to be found so we spent most of the time watching DVDs and playing card games. Jetty LOVES the cabin.
We had to keep reminding him not to swim.
After we returned from the island it was back to work. Chris worked on New Years Eve so I stayed home and watched TV and turned in around 9pm. Pretty standard. Now we're finishing off the holiday weeks with a couple quite days at home, cleaning, organizing, game playing, and relaxing. Tomorrow it is back to the grind. Another year of celebrations come and gone. I can't say enough how lucky I am to have been able to spend it surounded but our amazing friends and family.
