Christmas was, as usual, a whirlwind. We had to travel into the city (about an hour away) to go Christmas shopping THREE times. Ugh. The mall there was just as crowded as it would have been anywhere else that close to Christmas, so I was unable to escape my least favorite part of the holiday season.
After spending about a week in the country, and enjoying the peaceful lifestyle, we returned back to Southern California, and back to work. Due to the sheer volume of pictures for this post, I'm going to minimize my captions and allow you all to enjoy the photos!
I thought I'd start us off trying to be artistic, but really, here's just a plank of wood. Wahoo.
Guineas! They're all grown up! Remember them back in July?
I like the way these fungi look.
This guinea was a bit slow. He was always far away from the rest of the flock, and he was the only one who didn't really mind my flash.
I like the little details that were found around Tony's parent's property.
Sweet LT. He's a napper just like me.
Here's the one and only Rob. He hates cameras and always has to be held by Tony's dad in order for me to get a picture of him. Then, he punishes all of us by staying outside too long right when it's time to go to bed.
The guineas like getting up close to the dining room window and scaring the hell out of me. Demon birds.
This is our old-fashioned Christmas tree! We spent one night stringing popcorn (not as easy done as said), and making homemade tin-foil ornaments.
Tony's mom had a good idea to use some old cinnamon sticks and bundle them into an ornament.
The night before Christmas eve we all got together at Tony's Aunt's new home to have a big dinner. The picture below describes Terry's feelings about me taking photos of him :).
Tony's Grandma and Grandpa were there! They're so sweet. Tony's Grandma totally has a sweet tooth, and she's not ashamed of it!
Tony's cousin's toddler, Malachi, was also there. Tony's uncle managed to convince that the wooden reindeer was a cow. He liked playing with the "cow's" ears, and I told him he made the cow go deaf. He just laughed.
He played pirates with Tony, and used the spoon as an eye patch. They kept saying "arrrgh matey" and "give me your buried treasure" until everyone had about enough of that.
This is my favorite picture of Tony's dad.
We spent Christmas morning at Tony's paternal grandparents' house. Malachi got a drum set from his Grandma.
We were all saying "Gentle, Malachi!" and he was like, "Um, What? You've bought me drums and you want me to play them gently?! Heck no! Excuse me while I rock out now."
This was his "charming" smile with his momma :). He's so precious!
In the afternoon we drove to see Tony's grandma and the other side of the family for Christmas dinner. She was very lively and so sweet, as always.
Oh, and did I mention that we had a WHITE CHRISTMAS!! I didn't realize how exciting that was until I found out that the roads out that far in the country don't really get plowed as often (um, or at all in some cases) as they did in my suburban Ohio. There was a dirt and gravel (and snow and ice) road involved to get to one of the Christmas festivities, but thankfully Tony's dad was an excellent driver, and we were in a kajillion ton Dodge pickup truck.
Snow pictures:
One of the last photos I took (while freezing in 10F) was of this windmill. I really like these photos, because I've never taken many photos of moving objects (well, other than 2 year olds and a few animals).
While in many ways I was sad to leave Missouri and return to California, I did have a part of my heart back here.
I was so happy to see this pretty face! Thanks to good friends taking care of her, she was not resentful that we were away for a week. We've snuggled all day.
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