christmas vacation

we spent nine days traveling down and then up the california coast. the first half our trip we spent christmas down in santa barbara because my sister couldn't get the time off to come home. so my parents, her boyfriend, the boy and i all met at her place to spend christmas together in her two bedroom rental that usually houses five girls...{yikes} her college neighborhood was a ghost town because every was gone for winter break..it was peaceful and gorgeous. christmas eve the kids taught our parents the art of beer pong..or as my dad calls it the pong. which as you could imagine, was pretty amusing.

the second half of our tip we went home and it was a little more fast paced. i ended up making a schedule for the boy and myself to just keep up with it all {yes and i love being organized} ...we had a wedding, coffee dates, dinner dates, friend time, visiting different sets of family, then there were more lunch dates...think you get the picture. pretty hectic but i enjoyed being able to squeeze everyone in and catch up with old friends. due to the craziness i didn't take as many pictures as i wanted...but i have a few that represent that section of our trip.

this picture pretty much sums up the first half of our vacation

relaxing.

lots of goofing off and playing with the sister's new fish eye lens

new profile picture..yes??

christmas afternoon we took our family photo..lovely bunch we are.

it was an awful five minute walk to the beach from her house
hard life huh?
as a fam we watched the sunset on christmas evening.

mom being the spunky and always prepared woman she is
brought a bottle of champagne and cups for toasting.

 we sipped and watched the perfect sunset.

christmas dinner was homemade chicken pot pies and dumplings

accompanied by a salad that had everything amazing in it.

a picture from one of our evening walks. 

................................

now for the less documented half of our trip

celebrating new years eve eve with some amazing friends

{because we spent the real new years eve at a wedding}

and yes we did the whole countdown and everything :)

the boy quickly traded in his pea coat for a sweatshirt that night

but i managed to get at least one picture with him :)

welcome 2012

we spent the real new years eve with the in~laws at a family wedding.

...and we drove home the next afternoon...

our relaxing.busy.perfect. vacation