Christmas

I had a fever of 102 Christmas eve, so I didn't attend Christmas mass this year. I spent Christmas eve in bed, and my mother-in-law, Louise, came up to visit for Christmas and part of the weekend.

I cooked part of a Christmas meal - I made green bean casserole, balsamic vinegar marinated vegetables, garlic rosemary mashed potatoes - all made with ingredients I had purchased a few days before - before I had gotten sick. My plan was to buy the ham or bird the day before so it would be fresh, and also because I hadn't decided what to serve yet, but when I discovered that I had a fever on Christmas eve, I just got a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken instead. Actually, I asked Oliver to pick up "the ham" at the store, and he went to the store and brought home ham, in lunch meat form (he doesn't usually do any of the cooking or shopping you see) - so, sick as I was, I ventured out to the store again and bought the pre-cooked rotisserie chicken - thinking, at least we could eat that if I was too sick to manage anything else - luckily Nyquil is a wonder drug, and I was feeling much better the next day.

I hadn't eaten anything but toast for two days before, but I sure made up for it in the next 24 hours! Lots of food and cider, and chocolate, and cookies... lots of food.

The obligatory photo op by the river shot:

Toby, making himself at home on the bed linens Louise brought with her.

We ate, walked along the bike path by our house, went to the park, opened presents, ate some more, drove around and looked at the Christmas lights, played Scrabble and watched a Saturday Night Live Christmas special on TV. Oliver's mom watched Toby for an hour the day after Christmas and Oliver and went out for a "date night" breakfast. We had eggs benedict at this funky little Asian cafe across the street from us - decorated with Asian art and Chicago Cubs fan memorabilia - an odd little breakfast spot, but nice to get out of the house as a couple nonetheless. After breakfast we all headed out to the Sacramento Train Museum in Old Town Sacramento.

The park

Christmas lights (not ours)

The Train Museum

We topped off the weekend by visiting with Oliver's Dad, his sister Amanda, brother Nikolas and his girlfriend Veronica, on the computer via Skype. It was fun watching them all play "peek-a-boo" with Toby via web cam.

When we turned it off Toby said, "That was a good show!" It was pretty cool.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Lots of love from the Greene family.

Wild about the Sacramento Zoo!

Laurie and James (my brother and my sister-in-law) gave us a family membership to the zoo for Christmas!

How cool is that?!

Best present ever.

Toby and I put it to good use right away.

The Coolest Museum Ever!

We went to the Railroad Museum in Old Town Sacramento, and it was fantastic! Toby had so much fun - we all did, actually! It's a pretty amazing place, and we will be going back again soon. Maybe tomorrow. ;o)

Suzanne & Phillip Visit Sacramento

And, believe it or not, these were the best pictures I managed to get of them!

My camera doesn't do well indoors. Or outdoors. Or... at all.

Suzanne and Phillip gave me a gift certificate to Macy's for Christmas this year. Initially, I thought, with potty training Toby and everything that goes along with that, a carpet cleaner would be the obvious choice - but seeing these pictures makes me think, maybe I should get a new camera. The one I have is old and crappy. Oliver bought me an upgraded camera four years ago that broke last year, and now I'm back to using this one.

Clean carpets - better camera? Sanitation now, versus the preservation of memories for later?

It's a tough decision to make.

Suzanne (Oliver's stepmother has the same name as I do) modeling the lace shawl that I knit for her for Christmas:

12 Days of Christmas

My aunt called to tell me that we have less than 12 days to go until Christmas, so if I wanted, I could open Toby's Christmas present because it was 12 days of Christmas related.

It's a 12 days of Christmas pop-up book! Toby loves it. He opens it up and play gasps at every page even though he's just opened the same page five times in a row. He's also wearing the "Someone who loves me went to Greece and got this t-shirt for me" t-shirt that my mom got him in Greece. So this post is a shout out to both my aunt Jolene, and my mom, all in one. Thanks for the gifts you guys! Toby loves 'em.

So 12 days of Christmas means I have a knitting deadline coming up! I started my Christmas knitting in June so I'm in pretty good shape. I have knit 15 presents so far - each taking a minimum of 4 hours to complete. My friend Holly says that she's sure everyone will be thrilled with my handiwork, but either way, it means that I get to avoid going Christmas shopping at the mall again this year, which is like a Christmas present to myself.

Sneaky Snow

It's been snowing here, but only in the middle of the night and not enough to stick to the ground. Mostly, it's just been raining a lot - but it's been chilly.

The heater is on all the time it seems, and I caught Oliver the other night on the computer, with almost everything I have ever knit for him on - inside of the house.

So I had to take a picture:

My cutie. Looks like I need to knit him some fingerless gloves too, though, don't you think?

Yarn Shop Christmas Party & Roseville

I went to the Christmas party at Knitique last night.

It was nice to get out of the house for a while, but I also felt really awkward and insecure - I think most everyone does when they move to a new city and start branching out socially - but it made me miss Fresno, and the friends I met there, something fierce. I remember going through the same thing in Fresno a year ago, so I have to keep reminding myself that these things take time.

Oliver had to work again yesterday, but he skipped out on his new D&D group so he could spend some time with us yesterday afternoon. It was really nice. He worked the last two Saturdays and late nights too, so we've been seeing a lot less of him these days. We drove to the library. Toby feel asleep in the car - and I ran in and got a library card while Oliver stayed with him in the car and then we explored Roseville:

It's also kind of hard to get to know a new place when it's cold, and dark, and raining cats and dogs - but we are doing our best to explore our area anyway, and every day is a new adventure -so that part's fun. I get lost a lot - but we have cell phones and a map, so that's part of the adventure too. Luckily we've never run out of gas when we've discovered we were on the wrong freeway. Sacramento has a lot of freeways running through it, and you have to change lanes to stay on the one that you are on a lot of times, but with all the traffic, and the rain obscuring visibility, and the fact that we are new and don't know what we are doing, it's hard to get around.

But it's an adventure, right?

And, these things take time.