Christmas in OK (and CO, NM, and TX)

Caleb's first Christmas was an adventure to say the least. The trip started off meeting the immediate Houston family in CO at our condo. It was the first time I had all my family together in the mountains at our condo. My sister Lacy, her husband Brian, my brother Mitchell and his wife Krista, my cousin Staci, Tara and I took advantage of the grandparents and babysitting and skied at Copper Mountain!
We also had a day to take Caleb and his cousin Cole (who is 5 months and a day younger) sledding. Cole went down the hill once with his dad and then slept the rest of the time. Caleb enjoyed a few rides down the hill but then liked sitting in the snow and playing with it. At one point, he bent over and with mouth opened wide, put his whole face in the white stuff. He was trying to figure it out and came up face covered in fresh powder, and LOVING it!

Tuesday came time for the family to leave, but we didn't have a flight until Wednesday. Well, Wednesday, as many of you know, brought one of the top 3 blizzards to Denver. Needless to say, we barely got to our friends, Niall and Jen's house before the roads closed at noon and proceeded to spend the next 30 hours snowed in with 2-3 feet of snow falling before the roads opened again. Because the airport was closed we couldn't get a flight out until Sunday. >The problem with that was that we were supposed to be in Texas on Friday night. Thus, as soon as the roads opened south, we drove to Oklahoma, through New Mexico. Because the hotels were all full in NM and TX we drove 12 hours through the night arriving Friday morning on the farm in OK.

Mom and dad went in and handed Caleb to the grandparents and got 4 hours of sleep before jumping back in the car and heading down to Texas for an early Christmas with the Houston's! Yes it was 16 hours in the car that day and needless to say, Caleb didn't want to be in a car the rest of the trip.

The newly uploaded pictures in the photo album on the left show some of the TX pics. It was great having the whole family together in TX. 35 plus were there, all but two. We had a nice brunch and gift exchange before hanging out on Saturday. It was then back to OK for Christmas on the farm.

Caleb loved the farm house. He learned how to walk around corners of tables, and staying on the farm wouldn't be complete without getting his first gun :) It of course is a Red Rider bee bee gun but grandpa Houston already has two: one for Caleb and one for Cole.

The rest of the time was spent hanging out in OK city with family and friends. All in all it was a super trip. Caleb traveled great, even the 16 hours in the car was as good as possible. Of course he was a hit with the flight attendants on the plane and the other passengers because he is just so social. We returned to Cali on New Years day just in time to watch the amazing Boise St. vs. OU game. Now life is back to 'normal', whatever that is. Caleb turned nine months earlier in January. We are now preparing for next week's second annual ski vacation to CO with our friends from all over, Malibu, San Jose, CA, and Baltimore, MD. It will be a great time!