Christmas Vacation 2012
This year we had a wonderful and long Christmas vacation: 11 days! Amazing! And even more amazing was the fact that we were all home for the whole time, since Matt took some time off. We considered going somewhere, since it is such a rare occasion we all have time off, but then we thought the most relaxing way to spend these days was staying at home, so we took a “stay-cation’. After all, many people choose to spend their vacation here, so we played tourists in our own town.
Matt planned a lot of activities, and we improvised too, resulting in a fun time for all. We started up with Keegan’s last gym class. He is now too old for that class, so it was a little bittersweet. Lucky for him, though, he got to do his favorite activities on the last day: trampoline and marshmallows pits. Everyone was super nice and said goodbye. He even got to pick an extra stamp.
After class we played outside with Alyce and Betty and we went home in time for lunch. After nap, we went to the zoo, for Jungle Bells, the nighttime Christmas celebration. It was definitely different to be at the zoo after dark, and there were many beautiful lights and music, but Keegan did not really want to do many holiday oriented activities, so we watched his favorite, reptiles, and strolled around…and of course we had to take the skyfari. Keegan posed with the Christmas Koala, and then we headed home.
The following day we took it easy. We first stopped by IKEA (the first of our three trips to complete our entertainment center…finally) and Keegan played in the play area…with some resistance, even if he did make some friends. We bought some pieces and went home. I had lunch with Lina and Matt and Keegan napped and put together IKEA pieces. We finally put the new TV together, and it looks good. It finally starting to look like a real living room, not some temporary frat house room.
On Christmas Eve we went to Balboa park, at the Natural History Museum. It was raining, so the museum was pretty crowded, but we still enjoyed our visit. As always, we checked out the dinosaurs’ models and skeletons.
Keegan posing with a model of a Oviraptor
There was also a special exhibit on Chocolate: how it is made, its history, where it comes from, etc. It was great, and the wonderful chocolate smell pumped into the exhibits really enhanced it. Keegan rushed through it, but he really enjoyed the video showing the whole process, from cocoa beans to chocolate. I loved the over-sized chocolate box.
We got home pretty late, and Keegan was too excited to sleep long, but he was pretty good, and played on his own as we were cleaning up and preparing dinner. Matt cooked an amazing Christmas Eve dinner and we all ate together…well, Keegan did not try any of the delicious things Matt cooked, but that meant more for us: pork chops, asparagus, scalloped potatoes, spinach appetizers…yum.
Keegan was even able to stay still long enough to pose for a group shot.
After dinner, we got ready for Santa: we read books and prepared the cookies and milk, without forgetting the carrots for the reindeer.
Despite all his excitement, Keegan went to bed with not too much effort…nothing comparing with last year! Matt and I relaxed a little, and when we were sure Keegan was fast asleep we started the wrapping fest. No Christmas Story movie this time, but we played the Pandora Christmas Station, which was quite good. It was really fun, and as always, it felt we had way too much, between our gifts, my family’s and the neighbors’. However, when it was all done, it did looked beautiful.
We even made it to bed before 12…I guess not having to build anything, such a bicycle helped. Keegan woke up at the usual time and he still did his usual routine. When he got to the living room, though, boy was he excited!
Santa came!
As always, the opening was a blur, and we barely had time to stop and take pictures. I was surprised we convinced him to wait to open the Italian gifts, especially because they were the biggest ones, so we could do it “live” via Skype.
Keegan was also happy to see Santa tasted his cookies and left him a letter, commending him on being mostly good and reminding him to be a good listener in the next year.
I think this year we all got what we wanted, or most of it (Keegan is still pining after a McQueen with wings, a huge chunk of expensive plastic I refused to buy).
check out my creative wrapping…
After all the opening was done, including the stockings, I went back to sleep — my favorite present— and when I got up we had a wonderful video call with my parents, my sister and her family. Keegan was very excited to see his cousins, aunt and uncle and his nonni, of course, and he was even more excited he could finally open their gifts. Nonni sent him a huge box, which contained a very cool Palymobil boat. I felt a little guilty about it as I selected it when I was in Italy from a catalog, hoping I could bring it back to US with me. Unfortunately it was not available yet, and my poor parents had to go multiple times to the store till it finally arrived, only to discover it was HUGE. I did not pay attention to size, and thought it would have been much smaller…they did ship it anyway, and I am very grateful. Keegan really liked it. It took us a little bit to build it and place all its stickers on, but the end result was worth the wait.
The afternoon was mellow: Keegan took a nice nap, and I started organize my new closet. Then we all played with our new toys, and Matt cooked another wonderful dinner: his famous cream cheese and pepper appetizers, steak, creamed potatoes, squash, corn bread…He is such a great cook: I am so lucky.
After Keegan went to bed, Matt tried out one of his Christmas gifts: an Atari system that can be connected to the TV. It included 75 games, even if we all know the only ones that matter are: Asteroids, Centipede and Space Invaders. It even came with a wireless joystick. Pretty cool, and quite hard to find…I guess it was THE popular toy this season, and I had to run around to finally find it.
Even Keegan wanted to give it a shot, but quickly gave up, realizing it is still not as easy as it seems.
The following day was a busy one. The weather was changing, so we figured that Birch Aquarium would be a safe bet. It was quite busy, as probably many other had the same idea, but we we had a good time watching all the different tanks and playing in the tide pool area.
As we were going through the Climate Change exhibit, we run into Julia, his friend from school. What a happy coincidence! The kids were happy to see each other and they played together in the kids area.
We had lunch together, dodging the drizzling rain, and at 2 we saw the tide pool feeding, including the elusive gigantic lobster that only gets out at feeding time. It was fun.
We went home to take a nap and then we headed downtown for Betty’s birthday party at the Downtown Bowl and Tavern, just as a beautiful sunset was paining San Diego skies, and the full moon was rising.
It felt really weird to go downtown after dark with Keegan, and even weirder to go into a bar with him, but the bowling area was very nice and kid friendly. The lane had bumpers for the kids and a special stand to help them roll the ball. There were colorful lights and a full bar. There were only a few kids and Keegan felt comfortable and had fun trying to bowl, if you can call drop the ball on the lane bowling.
The adults bowled too, and it reminded me why I don’t do it more often: I really suck at it. Of course, my best hands were when we were leaving, and I scored a strike and a spare in a row. It did not compensate for all the other horrible hands I had, but I really did not care. It was a fun evening.
The next day was the Annual San Diego Big Bay Balloon Parade, an annual warm up for the college bowl game. I only been there once, more than 10 years ago, and at that time I walked to it from work, so we were not well prepared for what expected us. Despite our plans, we ended up leaving later than we wanted to, so when we got downtown we realized that parking would have not been easy to find. After a few rounds, Matt dropped Keegan and me off, so we could meet Jennifer, Dave, Hannah and Natalie. They settled in a nice open space, and we could have a great view of the parade. It was great for the kids to be together, so they entertained each other before the parade started. It was really cold, so the running around helped. It took Matt more than an hour between parking and physically being able to reach us, but fortunately the parade was long and he got to see most if it. There were tens of large balloons, marching bands and other groups parading around.
shamu was my one of my favorites
Keegan loved the T-rex…
…and the Storm Troopers
The weather was quite windy, so it was difficult for the handlers to keep the balloon in the air.
Once the parade was over, we took a walk by the bay, and saw the dueling bands. We had a quick lunch and headed home. Keegan did not want to go to nap and was stalling, but I had errand to run, so I left and told him to put himself to sleep, since Matt was napping too. I was really surprised to see he really did that, and he was soundly asleep when I got back.
The following day we decided to go to Legoland. I had a nasty sinus cold, but nothing some good drug can take care of. Obviously we picked the worse day ever: I have never seen Legoland so packed. However, we got a discount coupon we needed to use that gave us access to the park and the Legoland aquarium, and also a free ticket to use before March…so we will be back in slower season. The aquarium turned out to be a great idea, since it was basically empty, and Keegan enjoyed watching the fish interacting with the Lego features.
peeking out from the underwater bubble with daddy…
and alone…
one of my favorite sea creatures
Legoland itself, though, was a mad house. We only made it to one ride, the Fairy Tales Brook, as Keegan did not want to wait in line…good luck at Disneyland! He did not even want to go in the snow area. He “raced” in the cars area though…
… and we watched the Star Wars replicas (this is the cantina, completed with music)…
…and posed next to the tourist caricature, since that was exactly how we felt.
It was a long morning, so we stayed home after nap, and tried to figured out the living room arrangement, which brought us to two more trips to IKEA in the next two days, but we finally got a workable solution.
On December 30 we went to Seaworld. The weather was again hard to predict, forecasting rain, but we brought our rain jacket, and it only drizzled for a few minutes. The real storm broke loose after we got back home. It was not too crowded, at least not compared to Legoland, so we got to enjoy the Dolphin Show, and the Sea Lions show. We played in the play area, and finally Keegan got a chance to play with snow. Seaworld’s snow zone is a lot better than Legoland’s: no lines to play, and the line for the sleds is quite short. Keegan was finally old enough for sledding, and he went up and down many, many times.
We also built a mini snowman and enjoyed a snowballs fight.
Ready…
set…
go…
On the way out, we checked out the Christmas decorations: the Christmas tree, the giant sleight, the real reindeer enclosure.
We even got the chance to see some of the “animal ambassadors”: an Eurasian Eagle Owl, and a sloth, which, to my surprise, was very active. Keegan really enjoyed seeing the animals and asking questions about them. I loved seeing the sloth, and Keegan got to feed her a carrot, after a couple of failed attempts.
December 31 was a beautiful, clear day, so we decided to celebrate the end of the year by taking a hike at Torrey Pines. Keegan was not too keen at the idea, and did a good amount of whining, but we tried not be bothered by it. It was beautiful, and we tried a couple of short paths we never hiked before. The views were unbeatable.
This photo capture his whole attitude during the hike
We had lunch overlooking the ocean and headed home. Keegan napped and when he woke up, we decided to say goodbye to 2012 by watching the last sunset of the year at the beach. So, we headed to Pacific Beach, and made it just in time, as the sun was plunging into the ocean.
We walked to the tide pools, but it was getting too dark, so we just played around, run and enjoyed the beautiful colors of a San Diego sunset.
We left when it was already dark.it was the prefect way to close a perfect vacation. We really enjoyed playing tourists and having so much time to spend together was a real gift.
After Keegan went to bed, we had a nice dinner, and waited the end of the year watching Blade Runners, a movie we both love…even thought it may have been a little too slow for the occasion: we were both so tired, it was hard to wait till midnight. But waited we did, and we were able to cheer the beginning of a new year.
Goodbye 2012!
