Merrick-ristmas! 2008

My mom and dad with Santas little helper. They promised that Santa would come and visit me if I stayed Christmas night at thier house. And he DID! He brought me a Melissa and Doug musical set. I love Melissa and Doug's toys. They're wooden, old fashioned, and awesome. I asked if it was from Santa to Merrick. My mom smiled and reassured me that, although it says for ages 3+, 25 is still under that umbrella. I love my parents so much and was so glad that, even if we couldn't have Eddy around for Christmas, we had them! It even snowed on our last morning there before we headed back to the valley.

Every year, my aunt and uncle, Mariann and Kevin Pike host a Christmas get together. Everyone brings goodies to share, we play games, and gather around the piano to sing Christmas songs and party. I was excited to bring Merrick along as my hot date, and to have the chance to see Michayle and Ginny there, too. We decided to bring a delicious veggie tray to offset the Christmas junk food usually found (and usually too tempting to resist). I went with Tiffani and Chad and they helped me bring Merrick in. Tiffani followed behind with my veggie tray. All I heard was screaming and rushed in to see who dropped my kid. To my joy, he had be set down safely. It was the veggie tray that didn't have such a soft landing. It looked like an explosion of veggies and dip, and Merrick was the innocent bystander who was caught in the blast. He smiled all the while and enjoyed watching us clean up the aftermath.

I love this picture of Mooster. He looks like a little elf all dressed in green. He's getting ready for one of our morning walks that he loves so much.

Here we are right before Eddy was leaving for his vacation without us. He really wanted to buy me a ticket to go with them, and I was tempted. But for the same price of 1 ticket, we both could go in the spring... plus it would be fun for them to have the guys only trip. I reassured him that Merrick would never know that he abandoned us for his first Christmas. Except he will now that I've preserved that information for posterity on the family blog. But we have the token shot in front of the Christmas tree before Eddy found himself here:

Being the generous wife that I am, here is how my lovely husband spent Christmas this year, on the beach, in Puerto Rico. His brother, Sean and his wife, Heather (yes, the other Heather Torriente) moved there earlier this year. Sean works as a federal prosecutor. They live right by the beach and Eddy misses him so much. Not to mention the fact that he is increidibly jealous of the fact that his brother surfs nearly every day of the week. After finding out that my father in law was going for Christmas by himself (it was his only time off of work to be able to go), I decided to surprise Eddy with a trip, too. They had so much fun, were shown great hospitality by the Torrientes and he loved every second of it. We missed him so much at home, but I was busy keeping company with family and friends for the week he was gone.