Holiday Round-Up

The last part of 2007 has been filled with friends, fun, food, and even a bit of sun. We left for Palm Desert, California the week before Christmas for a family vacation. We stayed at Casa Roberta, Greg's grandparents' former house on a golf course. Clara enjoyed swimming, eating dates, and watching the older crowd drive by the house in golf carts. Greg and I enjoyed doing a little hiking in Joshua Tree National Park, reading and indulging in fruity drinks on the patio, and soaking in the hot tub after a long day of chasing after Clara.

We returned home for Christmas Eve at our house. I lucked out and found an awesome Christmas tree being given away on Craig's list, which Greg and I set up and decorated while Clara was napping. She came downstairs, took one look at it, and began to "oooh" excitedly. She calls it her "iss-iss tree". Doug and Kathy came over for a Christmas Eve dinner of roasted pumpkin soup, shrimp and crab salads, and Columbia City Bakery rolls and chocolate chip cookies. I was impressed that we pulled it all off with just a day to prepare.

On Christmas Day we went to Kurt and Amy's house to open presents. It took quite a while to get through all the gifts with Clara's limited attention span, but after spending *all day* opening gifts, eating, napping, opening gifts, eating, etc., we did it. Truth be told, Clara was really excited about the lights and decorations this year, but the Santa/gift-thing didn't really register. I supposed we should be grateful and will need to recall how unaffected she was this year when next year she begs for a Barbie dream house or a pony or some such thing.

The rest of our "holiday" has entailed looking at cars and being harrassed by slimy car salesman trying to make their year-end bonus. We are getting closer on narrowing in on a new car, but the process has consumed most of our free time. I'm looking forward to a 2008 of *owning* a new car rather than shopping for it. We hope to have a deal done in time for our annual ski trip to Whistler, BC with friends. Clara, of course, would like nothing better to spend all her time driving new cars. Her new favorite thing to do is sit in her car seat, give a hearty "vroom" and "steer" while we're driving. Perhaps she'll grow up to be a car dealer, so we can buy all our cars through her and avoid the ridiculous salesmen.

Happy 2008 to everyone!