Mark and I had two Christmases this year! Last year we went home to my house in Texas for Christmas because Mark's parents were still serving their mission in Finland but this year they came back so for the first time in my entire life I wasn't at home on Christmas Day! BUT Mark is the sweetest husband ever and he knew I would be homesick and miss my family if I didn't have Christmas with them so he surprised me for my birthday and took me home for a week to have an early Christmas! My parents knew (so they could have presents for us ready) but my siblings were surprised!
Wish we had a picture of Steph's face. My mom told her the missionaries were coming for dinner (even though it was 9 and I'm pretty sure that's their bedtime but Steph didn't seem to notice) and she told her it was one of the missionaries' birthday because she had bought birthday balloons and confetti! Hahaha, my sister didn't even second guess it. But like most teenage girls (or maybe just in our family) entertaining the missionaries by yourself while mom gets dinner ready is pretty awkward so when we got there, mom said the missionaries were here and Steph grabbed a slice of pizza and beelined for her room. What she didn't know is Mark and I were hiding at the end of the hallway before you get to the stairs and when she walked by we both jumped out and screamed. She shrieked, nearly dropping her pizza and then started laughing saying, "OMG I thought you were the missionaries scaring me!" Hahahaha, we should have gone with our original plan and hidden in her closet wearing a clown costume! Or I was going to knock on the door with a ski mask on and a fake gun...okay that one might have been a little extreme but I LOVE scaring people!! One of my simple pleasures in life...
We had a great time at home, did lots of shopping, went to a gourmet Chinese restaurant for my birthday dinner, watched horror movies and Christmas movies, I forced everyone to play games with me (no one in my family likes games for some reason! Well they do, but they never feel like getting up to play one but once I finally convince them all to or just bring the game wherever they all are sitting on the couch on their phones, then everyone has a good time), and Mark and I took sweet Xela on lots of walks and she LOVED it! She got so spoiled she began demanding walks by the end of our stay and hanging outside our bedroom door every morning before we got up, ready for her walk.
For Christmas my parents got us so much stuff but our biggest gift was money towards Annual Disneyland Passports!!! We are soooo excited!!! I can't believe I've lived in southern California for over 4 years without one! I love that place so much. Mark and I have only ever been to Disney World together, not Disneyland so I'm super excited to go with him!!! My sister is coming to stay with us for two weeks in early January while my father travels to South America and my mother goes to Guatemala to visit her family for the first time in 25 years! So we are taking Steph to Disneyland and it's going to be so fun!!!
Steph wants to be a photographer and she's really good! She took Christmas pictures for Mark and me and they turned out so beautiful! She is so talented and I am so lucky that I have my very own family photographer! :)
I will blog about Christmas in California in another post. Hope everyone had as wonderful of a Christmas as we did!
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