Christmas & New Year 2009

So Christmas 2009 was very quiet for us – some of the time. On Christmas eve we took the two youngest Billings kids with us to the Shedd Aquarium. We have a membership and thought it would be fun to go there with kids. We had a blast! Cameron and Kristen were so excited to go and that made it a ton of fun for Jason and I. They would pull us from place to place thrilled to death to see everything. We went to see the Polar Express 4-D movie. That was pretty cool – the 4-D experience is a 3-d movie that adds senses to the experience. When they show hot chocolate you can actually smell it in the theater. When the snow is falling you feel light water drops hit you. You can smell, see, hear, and touch during the movie and so it feels as if you are actually there. That was pretty awesome!
Then we went and saw the new Fantasea oceanarium show. Jason had seen it before so he knew the perfect place to sit. The seats were fantastic! In addition to seeing everything perfectly the handler with the Falcons walked right by us with the Falcons so we got to see them up close. Then even better – they brought the penguins up by us and let the kids pet them. I’ve never been that close to a penguin. It was great! We had so much fun with the kids and it made Christmas right – Christmas is for perfect when kids are around.
That night we were supposed to go to a few parties but I got confused about the times and we missed them. So Jason and I went out for Chinese – it was fun and a quiet night. We woke up bright and early Christmas morning. We were both so excited – even though it is just the two of us. Jason totally won on the Christmas presents this year. We have a friend who works for a jeweler and he got Jason a great deal on some jewelry for me. Jason got me 2 gorgeous necklaces – one was an infinity pendant on a sterling silver. The other necklace was a pearl – but not the regular white pearl but one that was grayish. It was gorgeous! I couldn’t get enough of it. Then he surprised me even more and I found out that he bought me some musical DVD’s and the Charles Dickens Christmas treasury of 5 Dickens Christmas stories.
My favorite gift to Jason was a rather strange one. He loves chalula hot sauce and so I ordered him a half gallon pump dispenser of it. It was hilarious and he loved it. Then I got him the new Settlers of Catan expansion just to find out that his brother bought it for us too. And then because I had a lame gift giving year I got him a home depot gift card. Luckily that turned out good. He returned the game I got him and bought a cool tool at home depot. So all-together it was a good Christmas.
Then we got to work on Christmas dinner. We had 15 people for Christmas dinner. It was crazy busy!!! There were 8 adults and 7 kids. The food was great – Jason makes the most amazing smoked turkey. And we even survived that many people in our small home. We had a really good time and it was totally worth it. We had the Chatfields, Curtis’s, and Walters all over. By the time they left we were totally exhausted.
We had the chance to talk to our families and that made Christmas complete.

Decorating the tree with Rob and Tiff
For New Years eve – for the first time we didn’t throw a party but instead we went to one. We went over to the Kimberlings home and had a fun time. There were a lot of other families there and so it was nice to visit with others. The Kimberlings are a fun family – he is from England and she is from Austria. They had some fun traditions that we got to celebrate. One that was pretty cool was an Austrian tradition. You melt metal over a candle and then drop it into a pot of cold water. It will immediately take a shape and then you have to decide what it looks like. There is a list that says what that shape means for the next year. So my piece looked like a flower – which predicted that we will have new friendships for the new year. I really liked that tradition. Then we watched a short film called “Dinner for One” – it is a british short comedy play that made it huge in Austria and now it’s an Austrian tradition to watch it every New Year. We played some games and had a wonderful evening.

Diana's homemade treats
The next day David and Rachel spent the day with us – and their beautiful little girl Daphne. We had a lot of fun! Rachel helped me sew some things and we just had a good time. It was a nice holiday season altogether!