Christmas in Dallas! We made it! The presents have been opened and the turkey eaten.
Maria of course liked the paper and the gift bags as much as anything, but Olga and I had fun playing with her talking teapot. I don't think we've gotten the hugging Elmo out of the box yet to see how it works.
The major gifts this year were the truck, trailer and the house, so there weren't many gifts to open. Mike scored big as the gift giver with a day at the spa for Olga and Natasha. After all their hard work, it will be appreciated.
I promised photos, so here they are.
Natasha's new house:
Four bedrooms, 3 and a half baths, plenty of room for us all.
The kitchen:
where we made Christmas dinner with no measuring cups or spoons. But since everything mostly disappeared, we did OK. Turkey breast, Aunt Becky's sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans and pasta. Apple and pumpkin pie followed.
Here's the family room decorated for Christmas and baby.
And the view from the family room:
The pool is just big enough to get a little exercise and nicely landscaped.
Here's Maria trying to share a Christmas cookie with Salami. Our friend Melinda made some baby sized Christmas cookies for her. Christmas isn't Christmas without Melinda's cookies.
And Maria enjoying a cookie with Mom's help.
Steve and Maria enjoying each other.
Maria opening presents
And family portraits.
And the trailer Christmas decorations:
For those of you who were on the Robison family cruise many years ago, the tree and the creche are from that trip. Keeping them wasn't the miracle, the miracle was that I remembered them and found them!
We've stayed with Natasha last night and we'll stay again tonight. Tomorrow we'll run some errands and check on the trailer and spend the night there.
We temporarily forgot that everyone else was running around getting Christmas done, so there is no such thing as a quick trip to Walmart. We've been to a grocery store (and went the night before Christmas Eve to avoid some of the crowd), Camping World and Home Depot. The Home Depot is next to a mall so traffic around it has been bad. We'll keep our distance from stores tomorrow, but I'm hoping by Friday things will start to return to normal.
Steve is progressing on his Daddy Do list. I need to dig out my sewing machine and start on the Debbie do list.
We'll be in Dallas for awhile and I'll update periodically.
Hope everyone had a great Christmas!
Deb
