Holiday Travels

I know this is a little delayed...but I feel as if we just recovered from our travels.

Despite three planes, three timezones, three states and three separate Christmas celebrations in seven days...our holiday travels were relatively relaxing. There were some big moments, like when Ellie met her new cousin Tristan for the first time and gave him hugs and kisses. But mostly, we were able to see lots of relatives and friends in a short period of time. Isn't that what the holidays are about?

In Santa Barbara we went climbing on dolphins...

 Hunting for turtles...

 Ellie became a princess when she found a tiara in Aunt Susie's room...

Ellie with Great-Grandma Dolly

 Ellie shared her new toys with her great-grandparents...

Ellie with Great-Grandma Van

 We had a traditional SB holiday feast of Santa Maria BBQ (tri-tip, baked beans, and garlic bread)...

 We went jumping for oranges in Great-Grandma Dolly's backyard...

 And searched the trees for thousands of Monarch butterflies...

Ellie became the best hugger ever...

Ellie hugging Great-Grandpa Van

 And the best cuddler...

Ellie learned to pose for family portraits and look at the camera...

With great-grandparentals Van

 Even without mommy and daddy in the photos...



With Grandma Pam and Grandpa Pam or Papa or Grandpa Mike

I appologize for the lack of photos from Chicago. It seems that we forgot to take our camera everywhere. Or have it at the ready. However, this photo pretty much sums up that we had a great time, relaxing nd hanging out with family and friends.

Coloring with Grandma and Grandpa Harrer

Ellie is an expert traveller now and although she didn't sleep on any of the flights (including the one where we landed in CA at 10pm pacific time which was 1am her time) she was terrific on all the flights. And she has a sense of geography now. She understands we can walk to school, have to drive to Aunt Susie's and have to take a plane to see the grandparents because they live, "very very far away". Although our trip seemed short and our visit brief...every moment was quality time.