We had a wonderful Christmas with my parents visiting us from Wisconsin :) My mom and Randy arrived on the 22nd and stayed through the 29th. We had a wonderful time together! Randy got to tour EA, we visited two local Harley Davidson shops so Mom and Randy could get some attire there, and we spent the day on Pier 39 the day before they left.
The day after they arrived we went to the mall to exchange a gift we received and decided to try seeing Santa while we were there. The line was long but it was moving fairly fast so Kian had a snack while we waited in line. I’m not sure if you remember but last year Kian freaked out seeing Santa so we were prepared for the same this year. Well, you can see the results of our trip in these two videos:
We made a meal on Christmas Eve and opened up some up the gifts under the tree. We figured since Santa was coming with more on Christmas Day we would open on Christmas Eve and let Kian have a calmer Christmas Day opening. He enjoyed opening gifts which was good since most of them under the tree were for him! lol Our living room now looks like Toys R Us threw up in it lol But Kian has really enjoyed his new stuff and has been playing with all the new stuff off and on throughout the day.
He also has a bit of a new wardrobe thanks to Kian’s Grandma and Great-grandma. All I have to say is I Love Caters! That place has the cutest clothes! And he added some more books to his expanding collection. Which is a good thing since I think Cuddly Kittens and Fluffy Bunnies need to go on the shelf for a while lol! Thankfully Grandma took over some reading duties with Kian to give me a break :)
The day after Christmas Kian had some sort of 12 hour stomach thing. Not fun :( We had planned to go to the Wharf the next day and decided to postpone it due to Kian’s stomach thing and the weather forecast of rain. The beginning of the day was bad but after a short nap in the afternoon Kian started to seem like himself and was keeping food down finally.
Our big day on the Pier at Fisherman’s Wharf was a lot of fun! We drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito and parked there. We didn’t look around really at all in Sausalito. It was very cold and some of the shops didn’t really seem like anything we were interested in. There is a Ferry there that takes you across the bay to Fisherman’s Wharf so we did that right away. Luckily it was much better temperature wise over there! We ate at Hard Rock Café for lunch and then ventured down the pier stopping at shops as we wanted. It as a little difficult to maneuver the stroller in some of those areas so one of us would stay out on the Pier most of the time while those that wanted to shop did. They had a cute little Irish shop there and a lot of places that had touristy items at very good prices.
At about 3PM we finally made our way back to the Ferry place to check the times when we could go back to Sausalito. (btw, Jamie had been saying since we arrived that we should get a schedule and we were all so taken in by everything that the task got pushed back until this moment). The ferry attendant told us the last ferry left at 2:45…I think my heart sank to the bottom of my shoes! He did tell us that we could catch a trolley to the next station – it was a 10 min ride. After not quite understanding his directions Randy asked a guy standing on the street and he told us we could walk there. Good thing since every trolley that went by was packed like sardines! (it brought back memories of riding the tram in Vladivostok, Russia lol!)
So, we made a brisk 45 min walk down to Pier 1…yep…a lot more walking that I had planned for. Luckily the weather wasn’t too bad and Kian had was plenty warm. I know he enjoyed the walk as he always loves it when we walk…me on the other hand realized that I need to walk more! Hehe
Anyway, we finally got back to Sausalito at about 6ish and headed toward home. It was a fun day – definitely filled with excitement! But I think we will definitely be doing some more planning the next time we head out to the Wharf lol
Here are some photos of my parents’ time with us:
New Years Eve
We invited our newly married friends Steve and Lisa over for the evening. We had some yummy food that they brought for dinner and then snacked on stuff that I had made for the rest of the evening. It was pretty much like an normal evening spent with them – Lisa and I chatting in the dining room while they guys were in the living room watching a sports game of some kind. It was a good night. We watched the Ball drop in Times Square and shared some champagne to ring in the new year. It was a really great night – I think we all had a lot of fun :)
Jamie had off New Years Day but then it was back to work after a few weeks off! It was hard for me and Kian to see him go – we really enjoyed having him home with us!
Up to Speed
So now it’s back to the grind stone. Things are back to normal in the Durall household. We finally took down our holiday décor this weekend. I realized that our living room is MUCH bigger than I remembered! It was great to have Christmas stuff for a while right now it’s so good to have our house back in its normal state.
This last weekend was not very relaxing. We had a lot of things on our to do list and we got all but one accomplished. I myself have quite a bit of work to catch up on (both housework and work-work) - especially since Jamie’s mom, stepdad and sister will be arriving tomorrow night.
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