Sunday, January 23, 2011

While the Cat's Away

I think when Rick and I went away, the kids probably had as much, if not more, fun as we did.  My mom came with lots of fun things for them to do.  Before we had even left, they started decorating mini-trees for the house.  My mom even documented all the fun for us to see.






This snowman was a hit.  The neighbors even commented on it.  It was just made from Chinese paper lanterns.


Like Grandma, like grandson.


Building forts



Our new terra cotta nativity.  Piper created the "sheep."





Playing pbskids.org



Simon signing "siren"







Gingerbread house masterpiece




Simon loves to cuddle Piper, if you couldn't tell.


What a grin!


My mom made this plaster snowman out of balloons and a KFC bucket.  Ingenious.


Weekend Away

To celebrate our tenth anniversary, we took our first no-kids vacation together since becoming parents.  My mom was so kind enough to come and watch the kids for the long weekend.  Rick had booked us into the St. Regis at Monarch Beach and planned lots of fun activities.  We left on Friday afternoon and came home Monday afternoon.  It was such a good time.  The resort was lovely and though the weather was a little iffy, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  

Rick's anniversary present to me was a couples holiday getaway at the spa.  We had hour-long massages followed by 30-minute hand and foot sugar scrubs.  Finally we had a 30-minute chardonnay bubble bath.  So, so relaxing.

The Sunday brunch was pricey but so worth it.  I've never seen quite so many interesting and delectable things on a buffet.  I got a migraine on Sunday but brunch was still awesome.  Huge chilled prawn cocktails, made-to-order pancake/french toast bar, omelette station, pastries galore, gelato, crepes, prime rib.  Yum!





I loved this!  It's an actual sand sculpture made in the lobby.  They do it every year for Christmas apparently.



These shots are the view from our junior suite.  Love those Starwood points, and Platinum status.



Sunrise


Brunch with Santa and Mrs. Claus



Chocolate Christmas tree and fireplace made by the hotel's pastry chef and team


Dale Chihuly sculpture.  They had four of these in the lobby.  And they featured a nightly exhibit and auction of Chagall and Rembrandt works in the hallways.


Rick and I went shopping and I saw this it "nut tree" at Brooks Brothers.  It looked like something my mom would make, but she probably would have made a topper too.


It was a great weekend and I hope that we can make get-aways together a more frequent occurrence.


Random

Here comes the beginning of the photo dump.

Rick took this picture of Piper on Thanksgiving.  They walked/biked to Le Pain Quotidien for breakfast. Piper has a fear of her bike strap pinching her so she chose to keep it on.


This is what it came down to while we were at the DMV.  They were both so tolerant of the wait.



Simon thought it was funny to smell Piper's stinky socks.




These pics were my feeble attempt at a Christmas card photo at the temple visitor's center.


Piper's lovely black eye.  She got this not long before Christmas.  It just got blacker and blacker.  She was running in the house (a big no-no), slipped, and landed face first into the corner of a kid's chair.  That's our best explanation; I was out with Simon and Rick was distracted by the Jayhawks game.


Two cuddly bunnies


Visiting Santa at the church Christmas party, black eye and all.  As friendly as he normally is Simon would not go near Santa.