Tucson Trip 2009

Since it's almost Easter (can you believe it?), it's only fitting that I finally finish updating about our Christmas trip. For Christmas this year we again went down by my in-laws in Tucson. This year we didn't have any snow to deal with (which was nice) and took every opportunity to enjoy the nice weather.

We boarded Bud at our vet (which went really well) on Christmas Eve and took off a few hours later to Phoenix where my father-in-law picked us up. We didn't do too much other than unpack and relax for a little before heading to bed.

On Christmas morning, Erik and I made breakfast and then we headed to the park before letting Timmy open his presents. We knew that he'd need to eat first because otherwise he wouldn't have paid any attention to his food at all. That pretty much sums up our Christmas day. It was nice and relaxing. It was great to be able to take Timmy to the park and let him run off some energy. Here's a bunch of pictures from our time at the park. Enjoy!

Erik pushing me on the swings while Timmy runs away

Erik and Timmy on the swings

Erik trying to do some balance/coordination thing

Timmy and Grandma Mozolik on the dinosaur thingy

Going down the slide with me

Going down the slide with Grandma Mozolik

Erik hanging out with his parents

Us enjoying a moment to ourselves

Erik on the swings again

Timmy and I on the dinosaur thingy

Erik and Timmy on the slide

More of the dinosaur thingy

My happy, smiling little boy!

A Christmas Story

We saw this house while driving around one day during December. For those of you who like A Christmas Story, I thought you'd appreciate it.

Timmy's Christmas Pageant

Well, better late than never! Here are a few pictures from Timmy's first Christmas Pageant. His class were angels (as you can see by their halos and wings). I think he had a lot of fun, especially enjoying the cookies and sugary punch at the end.

Here's Timmy's class walking into the gym at Pilgrim Lutheran School (former school? what do you say when the school has been closed?). This picture was taken about 2 seconds before Timmy saw me and tried to come sit by us instead of with his class.

After the program, all the kids sat and waited for their families to come over and get them. Have you ever taken pictures in a gym? It's pretty hard for lighting and flash and all of that stuff. The members of his class are: Lucas (with his head turned away), Anthony (who cried during the little pageant), Timmy, Dane, and little girl whose name I don't remember.

A typical picture of Timmy and I...

A nice picture of Timmy and Erik. We have a similar one from Dave's wedding.

Uncle Paul and Auntie Katie came fresh from picking out their Christmas tree to see Timmy's performance.

Uncle Jake came up for the weekend all the way from Indiana just to see Timmy in his first pageant. Auntie Amy would have come but she was hanging out with her other nieces and nephews up in Alaska that weekend.

Cheese!

Christmas 2009ish

This past weekend (February 6th) we finally finished celebrating Christmas and exchanging presents with people. Woo! At least we finished before Lent!

While there are some pictures that were taken of us getting presents, Timmy was the main focus and so here are the pictures of Timmy getting presents starting on December 23 with presents from my parents.

Timmy was intrigued to get the little conductor outfit from my parents. He loves it! He especially loved wearing the hat on vacation in Tucson (which really came in handy). He also got a little train and some clothes.

In Tucson, on December 25, Timmy was able to open presents with his Mozolik grandparents. Here he is opening a Leap Frog letter tablet (you play games to figure out the letter and then trace it).
He also got the Thomas Christmas Special, a sure fire hit.
And his first remote control car. He hasn't quite mastered using the remote with it, but he really enjoys playing with the car itself.
When we got back we decided to give him his presents from Erik and I. Here he is with his new Matchbox cars (originally bought for his Christmas exchange at school but he got sick and couldn't go).
He also got two new Thomas DVDs and 3 new cars (they came in the DVD set).
Using his play mat like a telescope at Uncle Paul and Auntie Katie's on January 16th.
Ooo, Play-doh to play with on the mat.
Unwrapping his Lego Duplo fire station with the help of Auntie Katie.
Daddy helping him unwrap his gift from Uncle Jake and Auntie Amy on February 5th.
A little plush Thomas! Awesome!
He also got a Hiro train (seen on Erik's lap).
So that's our Christmas in a nutshell. It took over a month to fully celebrate it, but we really enjoyed being able to spend time with everyone as we opened presents (sorry we couldn't actually be down by you, Mom and Dad).

Happy Epiphany!

Happy Epiphany! It's the last day of Christmas! Yesterday we talked to Timmy about Epiphany and what it meant. Although I'm not quite sure he understood everything, he did have a good time trying to say it. This means the Christmas decorations are coming down tomorrow though (I just don't have the time today).

Tomorrow we are supposed to get some more snow. I am hoping that we get enough that Timmy can finally build the snowman he's been wanting to build for a while now.

Christmas Prep

With Christmas Eve only a few days away (and Christmas too), you would think that I've got all of my Christmas shopping done, or at least started. That would be a false assumption. We are going out of town so you might think that I've started on packing and getting everything all squared away. This would also be a false assumption.

This attitude comes for several reasons: 1) we have not decided with siblings how/when we are going to do Christmas. It's clearly not before Christmas, so why should I stress myself out? 2) we are boarding Bud for our trip and I don't want to stress him out anymore than is necessary.

Now this isn't to say that I haven't done some planning for everything, just that I haven't actually, physically DONE it yet. Eh, I'm not worried.

So, are all of your Christmas gifts bought and all the preparations made?

Christmas with Paul and Katie

Yesterday we were able to spend some time with my brother and sister-in-law and have our Christmas with them.  I don't mind going over to Paul and Katie's place because it is a little bigger than ours and Timmy really enjoys "tap dancing" on the floor there (they have wooden floors and he likes the noise his steps makes).

Before we ate dinner, I tried out Paul and Katie's Wii, and actually had a lot of fun.  Well, I had fun until I completely clocked Timmy in the head while bowling.  He came up to see what I was doing and I didn't notice him and yeah...I felt horrible.  Timmy did try to help me bowl a little bit and later helped me drive my car off the track in Mario Cart.  It did help me realize that Timmy really wants to know what we are doing and so perhaps a Wii is still not a possibility for us at this point.  That's fine though, not like we have a lot of time to play it or anything either. 

We ate Balistreri's pizza (delicious) first and I was surprised by the amount of pizza that Timmy ate.  He normally eats pizza but kinda leaves the crust alone.  This time he ate the toppings and the crust.  I wonder how much of that has to do with how thin the crust is at Balistreri's.  We don't eat Balistreri's too often (probably because none of us are looking for a heart attack) but it is good pizza.  

After pizza, we opened presents.  Timmy got a train by the company Melissa and Doug (we've got two chunky puzzles by them that Timmy loves) and a popoid (I think that's what it's called).  We had similar things when we were little and it's nice to see them making a comeback.  Timmy really enjoys it and played with it so much that it was about a half hour before we even needed to open the train for him to look at.  Erik got the mini-series John Adams which was on HBO and we only got to see part of the first episode.  Erik had read the book and was really looking forward to the mini-series and now we can see the whole thing.  Nice!  I received the new Lego Batman game (sweet!) and a customized planner.  

We had a really great time and enjoy being able to spend time with Paul and Katie.  It's nice to see Timmy interact with them as well.  Katie has an exercise ball and no matter what else happens, eventually he'll find the ball and ask to play with it.  It's funny to have that routine.  It's just nice to be able to spend some time with family, even if it's only for a few hours. 

Here are a few pictures from our last Christmas of 2008.

Christmas Day

On Christmas Day we got up early (I mean, I was up and showered by 3:45) and drove to the airport for our 6-something flight.  We were delayed for an hour (yeah, after we already boarded) because of some frozen fuel issues (or at least that's what we were told) before heading off to Denver.  Because of the delay, our flight to Tucson was held for us (yea!) but others with connections were not so lucky.  The flight to Denver ended with some turbulence and Timmy got a little scared (totally understandable).  He's a little scared of take-offs and landings now but handles it well by just gripping your hand as tight as he can.  I'm hoping this is something that fades with time.  Overall though, he did really well with being up early and the flights and everything.  

Erik's parents met us at the airport and took us for a mini-tour of the area on the way home.  I would say that Tucson is like any other area of the Southwest that I have visited.  I didn't know what to expect but I think Tucson is a fine town.  I've already lived in Nevada so the Southwest isn't that strange to me, which I think really helps.  We got to their house, opened some presents, chilled, ate dinner, and pretty much called it a night.  It was a long day but in the end was totally worth it.

More Christmas pictures here.

Christmas with Jake and Amy and Christmas Eve

On December 23, we decided that Timmy could open one of his presents from us.  Since he had watched me take the toys from his closet and then wrap them (wow...he was okay until I wrapped the one he really wanted), we thought he should be rewarded for not busting into them because he had eyed them all day but didn't touch them.  He did a lot better this year opening presents and really got the hang of it Christmas Eve.  Practice makes perfect!

So, he opened the Sodor Power Station, which he loves.  His aunt and uncle came upstairs a little later to have Christmas.  Timmy got some Thomas pajamas and a book of animals.  It is truly amazing to see how much he has learned over the past year.  If he had received the book last year he probably would have been able to say maybe a dozen or so animals.  This year he was able to say one or two a page with just a quick glance.  I simply cannot believe how much he's learned and how much he has grown.

Erik received a Cobra shirt from Jake and Amy.  If you knew how much these guys had liked G.I. Joe when they were little you would understand.

Timmy watched me wrap Amy and Jake's presents and did a good job handing them out too.  He's such a helpful little Timmy!  =)  The funny thing was, that apparently he identified the wrapping paper type with whose presents were whose and so he didn't want to open some of his presents the next day because he thought they belonged to his aunt and uncle.  What a funny guy!

Because we were leaving early on Christmas Day to head down to Tucson, we decided to open our presents after lunch and before Timmy took a nap.  Needless to say, it was a very Thomas Christmas at our house.  He got a few Thomas DVD sets from his Grandma and Grandpa Mech and his Uncle TJ, a really cool scanimation book from Uncle TJ (you'd kinda have to see it to truly understand), a t-shirt and sweatshirt that his Grandma Mech had embroidered with Thomas, and his ornament.

We were also surprised at Christmas by having gifts not only from my brother (the only gift we were even expecting) but also additional gifts from my parents (we had already figured out and discussed the gift from them over a month ago).  My brother got us Season Two of Heroes which is a TV show we watch weekly.  This actually came at a really good time because we just finished Season One about a week before we left.  We also received Season One and Season Two of Robin Hood a show on the BBC.  It's a different take on the traditional Robin Hood story but we like it and really like how the people playing Robin Hood, his crew, and Maid Marian are closer to our age (which is what I would have imagined they would have been anyway).  

Of course there are pictures and they can be found here.

Late Christmas and New Year

I've been out of town and just too tired to blog but I just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone who reads this a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  2009 is another year and another chance for wishes and dreams to come true.  I can't wait to see what 2009 has in store for me and all of my friends and family.