Christmas time

If I were more on top of things, this post would have been multiple posts. Since I am not, it's going to be one really long post of Christmas photos! This year we visted Dan's family and had a fabulous time. Before we left, Dan and I exchanged Christmas gifts at our own place. We thought it would be easier than packing all of our gifts and taking them to CA.

Here is Dan with his gifts. I got him Boggle because he loves word games- we have played it several times and I already know it's a game I will never beat him at. I also gave him a movie to go along with his large tv.

Here I am! Dan got me perfume & a camera... where is the camera, you might ask? Taking the photo :) The camera is the gift he got up at 4 am to go get. I love it.

And here we are at the airport waiting for our flight to San Jose. We had to do something to keep us entertained!

Once we got to San Jose, one of the first things we did was cut down a christmas tree! It's a Deceuster tradition- one I have never done before. Dan's parents were kind enough to wait until the 23rd of December to get a tree so that I could take part in the festivities. In CA they have Christmas tree farms where you go cut down your tree. So here we are at the farm. I'm sure at this point you are thinking "what the heck is Dan wearing?" I thought the exact same thing- apparently it's his outfit he always wears to get a christmas tree.

To the tree! haha

And here it is- the chosen one!

Then I helped cut the tree.

Time to take it home and decorate!

We did a lot of other fun things, but I forgot to take pictures!!! I went to Stanford Mall with Dan's sister and Dan's dad. On Christmas we had fun opening presents and eating a delicious meal (actually all the meals while we were there, were delicious). The day after Christmas I went to the scrapbook store and spent the giftcard I got for Christmas- and I found that scrapbook supplies add up fast! After that Dan, Anna, and I all went to the Winchester Mystery House. It is this huge mansion and it has all these weird things in it- staircases that lead to nowhere, windows with walls behind them, windows in the middle of the floor, crazy architecture. It was great fun! And I remembered to take photos of the event:

Anna and mom and I also made a gingerbread house:

A few other fun things we did were played our new favorite game Bohnanza every night, watched lots of movies, tried to go see Princess and the Frog- it was sold out, so we went to Cheesecake Factory instead.

Another fun thing, on the last day we were there, Dan's mom gave me tons of children's books she had collected- most of which were signed by the authors! She used to go meet the authors all the time at a local bookstore and get books signed for her kids. They are a great treasure and something we can one day share with our children.

We always have such a fun time in California. It was a very merry christmas! And see, I told ya it'd be a long post! :)