Well that was fun!

 December really did just fly by.  After the stress of planning our ward Christmas party was over I tried to enjoy the season a bit more.  But there still didn't seem to be time to fit everything in.  I never did make it to Roger's Gardens to oooh and awww at the beauty of their trees and ornaments, nor did we make it to Naples to walk through the canals and enjoy the beautiful lights.  But we did have good times with family and I think I watched just about every Christmas movie that I wanted to, which is rare, so that was a bonus.

We spent Christmas in Santa Cruz with Adam's family.  It was great to get away and take some time off of work to be able to enjoy a little break.  We relaxed a lot, played a lot of games, ate tons of food, bundled up by the fire on the rainy days, and enjoyed being together as family.  We got some great gifts too and feel so grateful to have all that we do.

Blaesser Family Christmas tree photo, a must!

Katie and I made homemade cinnamon rolls Christmas Morning, I'd say they were a hit, although our icing left a little to be desired...

Adam scored another Giant's Jersey for his collection he now has all 4 colors.

The Blaesser's are pretty great at charades

We came home from Santa Cruz ready to party with my side of the family.  My sister and her family came down from northern CA and my little brother and his wife flew out from Tennessee to finish off the holidays with a bang.  The New Years weekend activities included a trip to Pretend City, running around at the beach, climbing trees at the park, going out to the movies, wonderful home cooked meals by my mom, dance parties, kids singing Phantom of the Opera songs,  games, New Years fireworks and feast for all!

No matter how cold it is, these kids wanted to be in the wet sand

Running around at the beach on New Year's Eve, loving the So Cal lifestyle

New Years Eve feast!

Minute to win it games, Angelo won this one!

Billen Family love!

Hot tub time!

Pretend City

More Pretend City

Climbing in Trees on New Years Day

Kai and were rough housing and I knocked his tooth out!  Good times

We sure missed my older brother and his family. I sure am thankful for the amazing family I have and that we were able to spend so much time together with both sides this holiday season!  Amazingly enough I even stayed healthy the whole time!  I think it's probably been five or so years since I haven't come down with some terrible cold or flu during the holidays. 

2012 was a good year.  Kind of a long one, with some stressful moments, and things I would probably change.  But looking back I realized I visited 9 countries -  China, Mexico, Italy, Turkey, Greece, France, Spain, and Viet Nam and Canada, (the Mediterranean cruise, played a big part in that), ran my first marathon, made some pretty significant strides in my career and turned 30.

Not sure what 2013 will  hold, and I'm still not sure what goals to set... hopefully I'll figure that out soon. It did start off with a great Anniversary weekend at the Huntington Beach Hyatt.  We got a great suite, massages, dinner and breakfast, all completely free, thanks to Adam's mystery shopping. 

Adam  had to take surveys during our stay, but it was worth it

View from our room

Happy 5 years!

The room was huge... 2 bathrooms, 2 TVs, 2 balconies, good times!