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.

Tree Decorating

We picked out our Christmas tree the Monday after Thanksgiving.  It's the first time Piper has ever had a real tree at home.  Our first year in Ohio we borrowed our landlord's four-foot artificial tree so that's doesn't really count.  Piper just went crazy at the Christmas tree lot.  The lot even delivered and positioned it in the house.  How nice!  It's the first tree we've had (this is our fourth, if you count that fake one) with a true tree topper.  We're all grown up.

The next day Piper and I decorated the tree while Simon napped.  I made sure to get some new extra ornaments that Piper could put on the lower half of the tree that Simon could remove/mangle without injury.  She did an awesome job decorating.  Her favorites were all of the ones with our pictures on them.  We have quite the collection of personalized ornaments.  Surprisingly Simon has been really good with the tree so far.  He's only removed a few ornaments and he doesn't really seem to notice it any more.

I still need to take a picture of the full tree and our house decorations.  That'll have to be another post.  My mom came and did some wonderful Christmas crafts with Piper.  I'll feature those later too.

Trip to Nan and Chad's

The day after Thanksgiving Rick took off to Vegas with some of his brothers to watch the Jayhawks play in a tournament.  My mom suggested that we take a little road trip to see my sister.  What a great idea!  Crazy enough, the last time I was at Nan and Chad's house was also my first visit and I was five months pregnant with Piper.  

Despite a slight hiccup at the beginning of the trip (read: drove over a screw and got a flat tire), we had a blast.  Piper AND Simon were equally enamored with their cousins.  Simon really loved Chad too - can't you tell?  It was like having built-in babysitters.  We decorated gingerbread houses, ate amazing food, were serenaded by Emma and Claudia, toured the Jelly Belly factory and just laughed and laughed.  Such a fun time.  Glad we could do it.

Park Day

Sad as it may sound but this particular park day was only our second since moving to our new digs.  Most parks around here only have sand which I'm not fond of.  Give me wood chips or mats any day.  We joined some friends this time and had lots of fun.  We even broke out Piper's old jacket for Simon.  Too cute!  

Piper just loved having all these playmates to play with.  Simon liked the steering wheel, and the snacks too, of course.

Beach Trip

Here is Simon's true first trip to the beach.  We went once in Ohio but it was more of a short, impromptu visit.  This time we did it up right.

As usual when it comes to swimming, Simon is more interested in the graham crackers, or any food for that matter.  We saw a sandpiper which was fun.  The water was cold but it was a beautiful day.  

I caught a crab for Piper which she proceeded to completely bury in her bucket.  I couldn't believe how daring the seagulls were.  At one point, they were trying to get the crackers out of my bag.  I had to close things up good after that.

Don't be hatin' all my cold-weather friends but we could probably do another beach visit now if we wanted to.  It's been that warm lately.  That's SoCal for ya.

He's demonstrating how to properly eat a graham cracker.