Now it's time for a smattering of holiday highlights.

We have had an amazing week of Clark home.  I am not sure when the last time was that we spent that many consecutive days with him.  I was so happy that he didn't once step foot on the base, that I allowed the five phone calls a day from the boat asking him this and that.  I really love being with him.  He's a pretty fun guy.
We have seen movies, gone ice skating and sledding and spent entire days in our pajamas, eating and playing games.  The perfect holiday.

 

 

We went ice skating on Christmas Eve day.  Our backs were killing us from basically carrying Mia around the rink but Abby and Haley impressed us, as always, with their knack for picking things up quickly and having fun.

 

 Hazel couldn't stand not being a part of things and kept dashing for the open door to the ice rink.  So I took her for a couple of spins where she would promptly go limp and lean back with her feet straight out in front of her.  She thought it was loads of fun, my back did not find it quite as enjoyable.

(and if you click on that picture above you can see Abby's scrape on her nose from doing a "belly slide" on the driveway...note to self: sledding on the driveway works better before it's been shoveled. She bled on the outside and inside...the first time we have ever had a bloody nose from hitting so hard.  Abby is always leading our family in firsts.)

 

Haley and I tried our hand at a trick or two but decided to call it quits and head home when a woman behind us hit her head on the ice so hard they took her to the hospital.

Christmas Morning.
 

 Can you see the eager anticipation?

  

 Hazel's got it.

 

 The girls were lovely and delightful.  We spent the entire day playing together and it was lovely.  Snow outside.  Fire inside.  New toys.  Yummy Food.

Just lovely.

 Clark had a hard time walking by the funnel cake kit in the store and saw a need for it under the tree.  I was very happy when I opened it.  I love funnel cake, you see.  Now we can have a carnival induced stomach ache right in the comfort of our own home.  So deliciously sickening. (Normally you don't feel so sick after eating these because when you get them at rodeo or a carnival you all share one, see? But when you make a small batch of say, 12, and everyone has to eat at least 2, you end up feeling way more fulfilled and way more disgusting too - in a "oh my goodness I think I just gained 7 pounds and I feel like vomiting" sort of way.)

And to  make the holidays even more fun, our mailbox (that has bitten the dust too many times to count) has no door. For a few days I propped it back into place just so I could watch from the window as the mailman goes to open it and it drops to the ground...kind of like a Tommy Boy moment..."whadyou do?"  But instead of being horrified that he possibly just broke our mailbox, he left the door lying in the wet, dirty snow-filled gutter. 

My husband also got a new netbook for Christmas.  We have taken to skyping with each other from different floors of our house.  Who needs an intercom?  Hey, we've done the long distance thing so long that it works for us sometimes.  Like when I skyped with him a few minutes ago to ask what he was heating up in the microwave that smells so good.  It beats yelling through the house, right?

Thank you everyone for the wonderful Christmas cards!! I love getting them out of the mailbox even though it makes me feel increasingly guilty for giving up on ours this year (refer to several posts ago.) Now I get to hide them all away for good ideas for next year's card.
 

Not quite a lemon yet.

I have been carrying my camera poised and at the ready for several weeks now in anticipation of the good 'ole van hitting quite the milestone (heh heh, I said milestone, that's funny.)

 

Clark happened to be in the car for the big event.  I have to admit, I was half expecting confetti to fall from the ceiling or noise makers...or at the very least, the transmission to fall out or something.  But it didn't.  It just continued on to 100,001 as if nothing had happened at all.  We did kiss across the console as if it were New Year's.  We felt as though some kind of celebration was in order afterall.
The only thing better than driving a minivan to begin with, is driving one that has over 100,000 miles.  Did I mention that it is less than 5 years old?  This trusty automobile has made trips cross country more times than I can count...or rather more times than I want to count (lazy, remember?) It's gone from Texas to Utah and back, Texas to Connecticut and back, Connecticut to Utah and back (that's a lot of public restrooms while we're on the subject) and more.
It's a good car.  We'll hold on to her for a while longer.

In other news, Hazel got her first haircut (at least we're calling it that...my kids have rapid hair growth starting at about 8 months old...the mullet gets out of control.)  I mean, she is my fourth but I am supposed to document that, right?  In any case, she was pretty happy about it...if that's not a happy face, I don't know what is. (In all honesty as her mother who loves her very much, it's not a cute face, but she sure is trying to convince us of her happiness...therefore, it is adorable.)

Before:

 and after:

 

Back to life...

So life has resumed...the morning after I got home from Spain I followed the snow plows out of our little town (a fresh falling of snow threatened our travel to the airport but all was well, especially since I got on the freeway right behind the snow plows) and dropped my wonderful Mother in law off at precisely the same time that I was picking up my lovely sister, Sarah (aka Suzie Petunia.) Her visit was much too short but I enjoyed her company so much, as I have all our company.  I love being with my sisters (and brothers) so much, I miss not being closer to them. 

She was very pleasant company indeed.  She loved my children, taught them to crochet, whipped up a scarf spontaneously and validated all of us regularly.
We didn't do much but she at least got to sight see in Newport, one of the mansions where (sans kids) we actually got to listen to the entire tour and walk slowly and everything. 

She also got a VIP tour of Clark's sub-it's an impressive thing to climb up and down a ladder when you are 8 months pregnant (and bathe someone else's kids too which she did happily.)

Come back Sarah, please come back, my kids are starting to stink and need another bath...because apparently an Aunt bath is wayyy better than a Mom bath.
We also took her to get our Christmas tree...it was very. very. very chilly.  But we found the right one...this is us telling Clark that we found the right one.

Look at all those lovely trees.

 

 But then she had to leave and go home to her own children...and finish making her baby that hopefully will be here soon.  You are missed, at least once a day someone asks if they can go live with you...I keep assuring them that if they keep up the whining and misbehaving, one day they just might.

The snow from last week had all melted away and I was beginning to think that was "it" for the year.  Yesterday we were told all day that a huge storm was headed our way.  They even pre-emptively cancelled church with nary a snowflake to be found.  By the time we went to bed it looked like this...

and when we woke up this morning it looked like this.

and this...

and some of this...

I am so glad I invested in that second snow shovel this week.

Clark and I had gotten almost half the driveway shoveled when a plow pulled up and offered to finish the job for $15...you'd better believe it.  We stood and watched him do it with ease, worth every penny. It was a great way to kick off Clark's Christmas leave, even though the girls still have two and a half days of school before they are off. 
So we are sitting back all cozy like in Connecticut tonight, drinkin' wassail and cuddling on the couch.

Here is what I love this week:

Being surprised one Saturday in December when a fire truck carrying a sucker-throwing Santa spontaneously drives up our street.  Yes, Haley is wearing silver pants and everyone else is still in their pajamas...it's what you do on Saturday.

I love our little town.

Picturas de Espana!

I was a little excited to be going...so much so that I made Spencer take a picture of my enthusiasm.

Breakfast each morning was a croissant and hot chocolate (and sometimes a clementine, a Spanish clementine, naturally.)

 

Spencer preferred the Choco Krispies or Miel Pops.  And sometimes we would take Amy's decor off the wall to take pictures when she wasn't looking.

Amy took us into Madrid a couple of times to look around and shop.  There are lots of big and little plazas with tons of shops and apartments...all very European looking to little 'ole me (including the not so little boy that we witnessed "relieving himself" on a tree on the street...he felt little need to cover up during his little potty break, or the several minutes following apparently as he walked up the street.) I really didn't intend to start with that story, it just happened.

Everywhere we went was very clean (except for the a fore mentioned urine of course, and dog poop from the many many canines.) They have people cleaning the streets at all hours of the day and night and it always looks pristine and tidy, even people in charge of just the dog poop.  I give Madrid an A+ in tidiness.  Clean is my kind of city.

On the one completely free day that we had she drove us about an hour away to a city called Segovia.  It has a real castle.  I've never seen one of those.  It was a smaller country home for Isabella and Ferdinand...and a whole lot of other monarchs throughout the centuries.

The streets were all stone and narrow with very cool doorways and balconies.

 

 There is a huge cathedral in Segovia that was beautiful, and very chilly.  The architecture for their day just astounds me.  Gorgeous.

 

 This is near the castle on the edge of a hill on the outskirts of the town.

 

 Flat Sally came with us and I made sure to take lots of pictures of her for the girls.  She went to the real North Pole earlier this year and is proving to be quite the traveler.  This is her in front of the castle that we went to.

 

 The view out the windows of the castle were of the beautiful countryside.  The color palette alone looked like it was straight out of a painting.

 

 Gorgeous, beautiful, wish you were here.

 

 This was a huge mural inside the castle.  It is a painting of the coronation of Queen Isabella (I believe.) It was such a pretty painting and most interesting because no one has eyes...so a little creepy too.

 

 The old aqueduct in Segovia.

 

 We went exploring one day to scope out the perfect park for the outside photo sessions that Spencer was doing all week.  This park was a winner and Amy and I quite enjoyed ourselves while Spencer took shots to test lighting.

 

 Just know that if you are standing next to me for a picture, 98% of the time, I will probably make a face.

 

 We went to church on Sunday where they brave an all Spanish speaking ward.  Their family is doing amazingly well among the language.  I was amazed at how well the kids understand and how well they can speak (including amazing accents for 8, 6 and 4 year olds) and for Amy jumping right in even though she is still learning.  The kids go to a Spanish school.  We went to primary (the kids' classes) with Amy for the last part of church where she is in charge of music.  I lent them my meager piano playing skills (as they normally have no piano player) and when Amy left to go do music with the younger kids, Spencer and I found ourselves acting out the nativity under the direction of the Spanish speaking women.  Amy came back into the room to see Spencer with  my coat tied around his head and a baby doll under my shirt as Jose and Maria.  Did I mention we don't speak Spanish? I mean, I could find my way to the discotec or biblioteca (most likely spelled completely different from how I have spelled them but you get my high school Spanish drift, right?) but Luke 2 might as well have been in Greek.

Good times.  Good times.

 

 We enjoyed a delicious treat of hot chocolate and churros...that hot chocolate is the consistency of pudding and oh-so yummy.

 

 I found this little contraption to be just about the funnest (I know that aint a word but thats what it was) playground thingy I had ever been on.  I wish you could have seen us in action.  I almost wet my pants laughing.  We made Amy take us back to this park a second time just so we could play on it again...and so her kids could play too, I suppose.

No explanation needed.

Her kiddos, darn cute in their uniforms even though I made them all squint into the sun like that.

This is how Spencer looked the majority of the time we were there.  He took something like 4000 pictures.

What's a trip to Spain without a little Fanta?  My favorite part about drinking Fanta is that it suddenly becomes a verb, as in "Would you like to Fanta Fanta?"

One morning Spenc and I walked into their little downtown area of their city.  We made a few little stops to buy souvenirs and oogle at the pastries.

I must be my mother's daughter because I was tickled by their street signs.

This is a sign of the name of their town.  We rode the train into Madrid and used the metro a bunch...the US seriously underestimates the value of public transportation in most areas of the country.

I don't think I left much out except for the video of Amy's kids all doing the robot and me pulling her daughter's tooth (I even got a bloodied mouth "thank you", only slightly different from the "please stop, no, I hate you" that I get when pulling my own kids' teeth.)  You'll just have to imagine it all in your mind...or pictures of Spencer and my room on the third floor of their amazing casa rojo with private rooftop balconies and courtyards.

It was amazing and I would go back in a heartbeat, especially to stay with our friends and eat yummy food and get private tours of Europe.

Thank you Amy and family!!!

Muchas gracias indeed.

 

 

 

 

(I seriously apologize for Amy's eyes being closed in this picture.  They are normally open and quite lovely...also, we typically ate at an actual table but this particular night was family movie night.)