Christmas Day

This year, instead of heading out to my family's house, my brother and his family decided to drive out to our house. My sister and her family took my mom to China for Christmas this year so we won't be able to see them. They got together earlier this month, but we were not able to make it as Christian was frantically finishing his paper while helping Emily finish her science fair project.

We decided to be a bit more adventurous for our Christmas dinner this year. My brother and I wanted to try to roast some meat in the ground. We have lots of space and wood for it out here, so a couple of weeks before Christmas, I started looking into how to make our fire pit. Christian suggested that we just do it in our existing fire pit. I had to clean it up as we have not used it in quite a while and the stupid gophers have been excavating their tunnels into my fire pit. It is a big mess. It took several days of back breaking labor to clear out the excess dirt, and trying to expand the hole to line with bricks. It seemed pretty deep but when I lined it with bricks, it looked like it was too shallow again. Plus, the bottom was uneven, so I could not fit the side bricks in at one side so I had to pull out all the bricks to level it but I wasn't going to attempt to make it any deeper as the ground was as hard as cement the farther down you went. We will have to build up if we need more space.

Christmas morning, while Marian was packing up, Christian went out to split firewood and get the fire going. We figured it would take at least a couple of hours of burning to get enough coals in the pit.

My brother and I decided to have a Puerto Rican Christmas meal. We were going to shove a Pernil style pork into the ground to roast. The pork he bought came in a two pack, so he decide to make it all. I think there were 13 pound of it in all! We wrapped them separately to cook though because we didn't want it to take any longer. We already estimated that it would take about 6 hours to roast it.

Norman and his family arrived shortly after Marian departed. We had a quick lunch and Christian and Norman set about getting the roast ready to go in the ground.

The fire was super hot. Christian singed a lot of the hair on his arms and stuff maintaining the fire. Actually, the heat of the fire actually split our fire ring that we've had since the Fig Street house. I think we over did the coals as we could barely get the meat in the pit; it was so full of coals. We ended up stacking one extra layer of bricks on top of the ring of the pit to make room.

Meanwhile, the girls got to play together with their cousins. They had an ugly sweater cookie decorating contest from a cookie decorating set that Christian got from our white elephant gift exchange the other night.

All the parents voted and Emily and Collin won. Caitlyn and Lauren's cookies were too cute still.

We had the kids open their last presents from their uncle and aunt. Aunt Wendy also sent along some gift cards to the girls before she left.

Emily got nice new soccer shin guards that actually fit her properly and Caitlyn got some cute panda slippers she had her eye on. Caitlyn pretty much got everything that she wanted for Christmas this year. She was pretty ecstatic. Not that she wanted a ton of stuff. Most of it was pretty practical. Emily couldn't really think up much of anything except stuff for soccer.

My brother also made arroz con grandules. I made some sofrito black beans and a green salad. We made two kinds of Puerto Rican desserts, drinks and an appetizer to go with the meal. We went all out with our theme. It was really fun and tasty. We could barely get a taste of everything. It was so good. Needless to say, we had a bunch of leftovers as well. 

We wanted to take a walk before dessert but my sister-in-law had to go home to rest as she still had work in the morning so we plunged ahead and brought out the desserts even though we were pretty full already.

After all the cooking and cleaning for the past few days and making treats and things to bring to neighbors and friends, I was pretty wiped out by the time Christmas was over. Hopefully the rest of the break will be a bit quieter around here.

Christmas Eve and Morning

The girls waited impatiently for Marian to arrive on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, by now, Emily was also sick. After she arrived, they helped her unload her car and gave her car a wash that they promised her from another Christmas a year or two ago. She also put them to work helping her wrap presents. Basically, she had Emily wrap Caitlyn's and vice versa.

We feasted that night on prime rib, courtesy of Marian, of course. As usual, we all had too much and decide to take a walk around the neighborhood. We attempted to watch a movie, but Marian fell asleep. We sent the kids to bed afterwards but they were pretty tired. I turned in early myself. Christian stayed up a bit to study and since Marian had a nap during the movie, stayed up to fill the stockings and chat with Christian.

On Christmas morning, we got to open presents.

Emily got a lot of clothes and a number of slippers. Christian got the girls these electronic kits. Emily didn't quite know what the heck they were.

Caitlyn recognized what most of things in her electronics kit was. She also got a bunch of computer pieces she will need for her Raspberry Pi next year when she has to return her Chromebook back to school. She got a lot of shoes and other bits and pieces as well. She's been growing so much during the last half of this year, she is outgrowing a lot of her stuff in the past few months. She is nearly as tall as I am now.

We still had quite a hall this Christmas, mostly thanks to Marian. 

We had our usual Belgian Waffle breakfast before Marian packed up to move on.

December

We set up the Christmas Tree right after Thanksgiving to take the girls' annual Christmas picture and get a head start on this year's Christmas card.

We had our ward Christmas party at the beginning of the month.

We didn't get to do much else. Christian worked with Emily to help her get her science fair project done while finishing up his second session of classes. It was pretty hectic.

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The JV team for North is doing fairly well so far in their pre-season. They have won most of their games. The games they didn't win, they tied with their competitor. 

We went to a couple of their home games to see Emily play.

North vs Ramona

North vs San Jacinto

Emily normally plays defense. Halfway through the Ramona game, he switched her to play forward. For the San Jacinto game, her coach put her in as a forward for the entire game. During practice and previous games, she normally plays defense so that is what she is used to so she gets a bit discombobulated when he switches her.

Unfortunately, practice and games take a lot of Emily's time and she has not made much improvement in her grades so I don't know how long she will get to play. She really enjoys it and the opportunity to do something with her friends but it doesn't seem to be enough to put much of a flame under her to improve her grades. We only see an occasional flicker and it isn't enough.

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Christian did really great in his second session of school. He got an A in both classes. He got full points again in one of the classes but the teacher in the other class knocked a couple of points off on his final assignment for something she wanted but did not specify in her requirements. He was pretty ticked. 

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Caitlyn's history teacher had her TA's make a wish list for Christmas. She didn't give the kids any guidelines, so they all picked mostly little things. Instead choosing one of the things on their list, she pretty much got them almost everything on their list and a bunch of extra stocking stuffers to boot. Caitlyn was pretty excited.

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Christian and I went to a adults only dinner party and white elephant gift exchange on the kids last day of school. We told the kids that they were on their own for dinner that night and wanted to see if they would cook for themselves and what they would do, but they were lazy. They ended up just reheating some leftovers. It was either that or they would just make themselves some ramen noodles, so the leftovers were probably a better option anyway.

When we got home, we were shocked that they put themselves to bed. We got home about an hour later than we had expected anyway. Caitlyn had been sick for over a week and apparently and Emily was exhausted from practice.