December Photo Dump

What a December we had! Here's some of the highlights:

 Our ward Christmas party was amazing! We had delicious dinner, singing from the primary and a visit from Brother Brand--er...Santa.










It's been years since the Gailans made gingerbread houses; the McCracken family remedied that! Most of the candy went in mouths instead of on houses but the kids still did pretty sweet. They all wanted Dana to help:)

One of our new favorite traditions is the Leonard Rickey Christmas party. For the second year in a row we had it at La Maison. Our chef made authentic seafood paella with mouthwatering scallops, shrimp, cod, and octopus. We got to help out in the kitchen, eat delicious food, and just unwind from a crazy, busy few months.

Dana helping out by getting rid of the octopus innards. Eww



As always we had our white elephant exchange. We brought zombie cookie cutters (which through the luck of the game, we got back! Yay for zombie cookies!) and mini marshmallow guns. Those turned out to be the hit of the party as Matt and Joy took turns trying to shoot marshmallows into each other's mouths from across the room. 

I personally think J came away with the best gift: Duck Dynasty beard and headband. Priceless.

Christmas break our office let us do split shifts so we had Monday off and we spent it at the movies with the Hobbit. Seriously good. Christmas eve we took an eventful (read: long) drive over the mountains. Weather was great. We hit snow at the very tip tip top and five minutes later...

...gone! We had a great dinner with the Saylor's at Brian and Tam's and got to meet a really neat lady from their ward who didn't have family around for Christmas. Again we played with marshmallow shooters. Sadly, there was one fatality. Tracy just didn't realize how hard they shot and he has impeccable aim. Mom Gailan may someday forgive him...her eye probably won't. 

Then we headed north to Bothell (via a few wrong turns and one closed exit) to see Steve and Bella. We got home super late for old people (like 8:30!), just in time to play Santa for some of our friends. We've been hiding their presents at our house all month. It's really the best idea ever and sometimes I would just go in a stare at the Barbie dream house. All you girls out there know what I'm talking about.

Christmas day was maybe the most perfect day ever. We got up early, ate some potato casserole (yummier than it looks); Dana read us the Christmas story. Then we dove into presents. Highlights had to be Matt and Kristen's picture of Jesus overlooking Jerusalem, Dana's many, many socks, shorts, and other assorted clothes to play basketball in. Plus, hey a basketball! I also got a new iphone which I am still figuring out. Are they ever gonna run out of apps? Probably the best gift of them all, though, was from Kristina who surprised me with an online wedding album (you know, that wedding I had 8 years ago) that she put together with all our photos and stories from Dana. She even quizzed me on our engagement story a few months ago and I didn't figure it out. All I have to do now is print it out and finally FINALLY have my wedding book. Best. Present. Ever! 

Mom Kitchen hit it out of the park with a golf ornament. How did she guess?


Oh yes and I got myself a new hair straightener which sadly cannot be used on my eyelashes. They take the fun out of everything.

We literally stayed in our pjs all day. Dana watched two full basketball games while I read two entire books. Then we had a fondu picnic on the floor and watched our all time favorite Christmas movie - Elf. So classic. 

We worked Thursday so I'll skip that day but Friday Dana was up bright and early for basketball (which nobody showed up for...whoops) so with all that extra time on his hands he tried out another Christmas gift--the jerky gun. His lovingly marinated hamburger meat was painstakingly shoved through the gun into thin strips which were carefully laid on our dehydrator to dry and turn into delicious jerky; except that they didn't cause the dehydrator broke five minutes in. Sad day. We took it back to Walmart but Dana isn't quite over it. Please don't bring any dried meats into our house for the next few weeks out of respect.

And that brings us to the new year. We worked New Year's eve and then decided to stay in with a few pizzas: veggie and fruit. Mmmm. New Year's Day we ate out and saw The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It might be the best movie I've seen all year. Clean and very funny. 

So that was our December and kick off to the new year. Everybody have a spectacular 2014!