Christmas Trip Part 2!

We went back to Tory's mom's house and got ready for the "Maine" event: Christmas!  Skyla was so excited that she kept checking the window to see if Santa's sleigh would appear (at least it was fun pretending that's what she was doing).

That night we did one of the King family traditions: scratcher tickets!  We all got in on the fun and most of us won a little something -- but Grandpa won close to $100!  We promised to put all the money towards even more tickets so the fun could continue.

One more step on Christmas Eve: making cookies for Santa!  We took a couple of nibbles out of them and they were delicious.  Then it was off to bed to watch a bit of "A Christmas Carol" before we excitedly went to sleep.

The next morning Skyla got up bright and early ready for her second Christmas.  We showed her the cookies Santa had eaten and she enjoyed tasting them as well.  After that we got all dressed up for church and then Skyla and Natalie opened their stockings.  It was so much fun watching them open their presents and get all excited!

The church service was in Camden, and it was really long -- at least it felt that way because the girls were SO loud!  We tried to keep them in the sanctuary for a while but eventually Kristin and I just brought them into a little side room.  

When we got back it was finally time to open the presents.  One of the traditions in Tory's family that I really love is that they pass out all the presents to everyone and they we go around in a circle taking turns opening them so everyone gets to see what they received.  A few of the big hits for Skyla: a bunch of new Elmer books from me and a new wooden toy from Tory.  I also got Tory tickets to see Local Natives and he made a very special gift for me and Skyla: he bought a nice hard-cover copy of The Night Before Christmas and translated every page into Italian so we can both read it with her!  Buon Natale a tutti!

 

 

 

Before our trip was over, we squeezed in a few more fun things.  We got to have a play date with Jen and her adorable little boy Evan at her mom's house.  They had fun playing side by side and a little bit together, and we had a nice time catching up with Jen and her husband.  

Then, FINALLY on our last day in Maine it snowed!  I was so excited that Skyla could finally experience it, especially the pretty country snow that they get there.  While it was coming down we stayed warm inside and Skyla bounced around in her snowsuit, clearly loving it since of course she'd never warn it before!  She touched the snow a little bit but I think it just confused her.  We hope some day she'll be a little snow bunny but this was a nice first experience!

 

We got up bright and early the next day so we could make the trek to Boston for our flight.  When we got to the airport we realized that we didn't have the Ergo!  Oh no!  We thought we might have left it at Tory's mom's house, but she looked everywhere and couldn't find it.  (Eventually Tory remembered leaving it in the coat closet at Brendan's parents' house but since it's a vacation home, we had to wait until they returned so they could check).  Anyway we knew we were in for a LONG flight and boy were we right!  Luckily the flight wasn't full and the woman next to us was nice enough to get a seat change to give us some extra room. Without the Ergo though we could've had the whole plane to ourselves and it wouldn't have mattered -- she didn't sleep for the entire 7+ hour trip!  We did our best to entertain her and keep her reasonably quiet while taking turns sleeping for a few minutes here and there.  Thank God we don't have to fly again for a long time!

 

Other than the last part of travel, overall the trip was wonderful and we had a great time.  Here's to a fabulous 2013!