The reality of life

The reality is, I have more pictures of Maya on my phone than anything else.

With our regular routine back in full swing, I've squeezed in a few runs down by the water.  Because the reality is, while the rest of the country is freezing, it's still sunny and warm here.

Here's a peak of Colin's football game, right after he made a touch down!

Hot Air Balloon Ride

For my Christmas present, I told Ben I wanted to do something fun.  So, he got us a hot air balloon ride! 

It was an early morning, but also pretty cool that we could just drive up to Temecula to ride one.  The weather was being difficult and we ended up driving around for almost an hour looking for just the right launch spot.  At one of the 'check the wind' spots, we got in a conversation with the pilot.  Long story short, he asks us what part of Lawrence we're from and I ask him how in the world he knows Lawrence Kansas and he pulls up his hoodie to reveal a Sunflower Bike Shop t-shirt!  Come to find out, he grew up in Lawrence in the 70's and learned to drive hot air balloons in Kansas City!  

We watched the sunrise and the crew set up the balloon in the wine country of Temecula.

The first few moments of going up were slightly scary, but I had to just not think about the fact that some whicker was holding me up in the air.  Also, I really could have used a taller basket...but no one fell out :)

There was another balloon up with us that morning.

Our pilot talked our ear off the whole time about the mountains we could see, all the different wineries and their owners and then would throw in flashbacks to his life in Kansas.  The other two girls in our basket didn't say a word the whole time.

They gave us mimosas at the end, which was fun in theory but I really needed coffee at 8:30am, not champagne.

We certainly had an adventure we will not forget!  We went to get breakfast afterwards and then ran the Santa Margarita trail.

 

Christmas!

We don't quite fit on our bed anymore ;)

{the Lego set in Eli's stocking almost got thrown away with the recycling before Christmas...thanks to Colin, it was rescued}

Egg casserole and coffee

There were a few bigger presents, thanks to Ben's homecoming and his love for gift giving.  Eli got a new desk chair.

And Colin a new electric guitar

The one he's always dreamed of

All the presents were wonderful, but the best gift was being together.

The rest of the day was spent playing and eating

It's not Christmas if there isn't a Lego set to build.

Ben made the fluffiest zweibach we have ever had.

The two guitar players have a little jam sesh:

Alison basically finished the puzzle herself and jumped into games here and there.  I lost track of how many games we played, but it was a lot and we had lot of fun.

It was a absolutely fantastic Christmas!

 

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve morning, Alison and I went to get coffee.

I was fighting a cold and a peppermint mocha really hit the spot.

It was a perfectly rainy day to set a cozy mood.  We turned on Polar Express and finished the puzzle...and learned a big lesson: don't eat on top of a puzzle!  We were missing 14 pieces!  I found them later, stuck to the bottom of a cutting board I had served bread on the night before.

Ben and Eli played some chess

And we read our advent book and opened sacks.

We went over to the Schulte's for dinner and unfortunately, no pictures were taken.

 

This is how we winter break

This is how you do winter break in SoCal: Farmer's Markets by the water and acai bowls at the harbor.

We made gingerbread cookies

and worked on a couple of puzzles with Christmas movies.

 

Happy 22 to us!

This is the first year of my life that I've had to stop and really think how old I am and how long we've been married.  We tried to gather pictures of us from every year we've been together and I found that some years we only had ONE picture...so thank you Alison for taking a picture of us that isn't a selfie.  And mostly, I'm just thankful that we can take a picture together this year.  I made a reservation at a restaurant we've been talking about for a long time, on the off chance that Ben actually made it home.  I'm so glad I did and it that it actually worked out for us to go!

We went to dinner at Campfire in Carlsbad.  They knew it was our anniversary and gave us a card and champagne from the restaurant.