Twas four nights before Christmas…..

Sunday
We left bright and early on Sunday morning.  Actually, it wasn’t bright, it was still dark outside.    Anyways, Stu took us to the airport, and as always, he’s chipper at 5:30AM.  We managed to leave on the coldest day that week; -2 outside, -24 windchill.  We made it to Dallas on time, and we made it to our gate with plenty of time to spare.  Our flight to Denver went well.  I had thought that we were going to put Sean down for a nap after we got to Dillon, but he was getting fussy on the plane, so he took a nap on our way to Denver.

Nat’s parents greeted us like paparazzi at Denver; flashing pictures and everything! While we were waiting for Ethan, we had lunch.  Ethan finally made it in, but unfortunately his luggage didn’t.  After filing a claim, we were on our way to Dillon.

When we arrived, Sean was a little apprehensive and clingy.  At 5PM Mountain time, he was getting sleepy.  Poor little guy was walking around in circles confused for an hour.  At 6:30PM, we put him down and had a nice dinner with the family.

Monday
I don’t remember what happened on Monday, but according to Nat, we just hung out.    Oh, I remember.  We headed to the store to get some groceries, and I think we rented my skiis in the morning.
Tuesday
Nat’s parents graciously offered to babysit as we headed to Copper to ski.  It was beautiful at Copper, and we just got some nice powder, so skiing was nice.  There were no lines at the lift, so it was great!  The only downsides were hiking up to the lift at the base and the cold.  After riding the lift a few times, I started loosing feelings to my hands, so I had to go to the cafeteria to warmup.  All in all, I had a great time skiing; I even went down a “harder” green without crying. 

Wednesday
Ethan, Nat, and I decided that we were way too tired to go skiing again.    We spent most of the day relaxing, and in the afternoon, the Thompson men (minus Grandpa T and Sean) and I went snowshoeing.  Let me say, snowshoeing is a lot of work and my body wasn’t quite used to the altitude yet.    I think we hiked about 3-4 miles.  It’s a good thing too, because we were eating quite a bit of food the previous nights (and of course, the nights to come!).

We made dumplings on Christmas Eve for dinner, so that was lots of fun. 
Thursday
Christmas day.  The traditional Thompson Christmas day began with (Nat’s) mom preparing a chili rellenos egg casserole dish while (Nat’s) dad prepared the bacon.  When everyone was up, we opened our stocking stuffers.  Everyone oohhed and ahhed at what they got.  Sean had a good time just walking around.

For breakfast, we had the chili rellenos, bacon, fruit salad, coffee cake, and champagne.  After everyone had their fill, we began opening our presents one by one.  Of course, Sean had the most presents, and of course, he had more fun with the wrapping paper than the toys.  Everyone got lots of nice gifts, and it was just nice to spend the morning with the family.  Nat and Ethan got a few games each, so we spent the afternoon learning how to play them both.  I tied and won both games, so I thought it was pretty fun.

In the evening, we had a lovely meal of steak, blue cheese potatoes, rolls, and Caesar salad.  I forgot what we had for dessert–it must had been either the Christmas cookie spread (of which mom supposedly made 24 different kinds), grasshopper pie, or cheesecake.  In any case, we definitely had our fill of food!

Friday
Nat’s parents were kind enough (yet again) to babysit (or what I call grandparent) Sean while we went out skiing again.  I bundled up much more and made sure I brought handwarmers so that I wouldn’t get as cold.  Unfortunately, I still got cold and needed to warm up in the cafeteria, but I had a good time.    Again, no crying this time around. 

Saturday
I don’t remember what we did. 

Sunday
Ethan left on Sunday morning, so Nat and I had some time to hang out with Sean.  I had a craving for Thai food, so we headed to Breck.  It was kinda disconcerting to me that we were eating at a Thai place where everyone that worked there was Caucasian.    The food was good nonetheless.  When we got home, Sean went down for a nap, and I believe we just spent the rest of the day hanging out.

We had a fun day with Team D (Damon and Diana) yesterday.  They came out from Louisville, CO to visit us.  I was surprised how early they left (8:30AM ish), but I guess they were excited about seeing us.    When they arrived, we had a good time just catching up a little bit.  Diana has recently passed her defense for her PhD and is hoping to finish her thesis at the beginning of this month.  Go Diana!

After some time of chit-chat, we taught them how to play Pillars of the Earth, which is a game that Nat got for Christmas.  After Pillars of the Earth, we went out to the Dillon Dam Brewery for lunch.  I thought it was funny that Damon suggested that we have a light lunch in light of a heavier dinner, but everyone ordered a burger or brat except me.    We had a good time talking about where we might end up and where we would like to be if we had a choice.  As soon as we find out where we’re going, we’ll let y’all (including Team D) know so that we might have friends as neighbors.    It would be nice to have some close friends that live nearby like Team D.    Anyways, after lunch, we played Canasta.  Sean woke up and was pretty cranky for all of the afternoon.  I don’t know if it’s because Nat and I weren’t playing with Sean, he was teething, or a combination of both.  It was quite hard to play the game, but we managed.  Then, we moved on to play Power Grid, another boardgame Nat got for Christmas.  I think I soured the mood a little bit when I won all the games we had played so far.    We took a nice intermission from games to have a lovely dinner.  I told Team D to save room for the 20+ cookies that Nat’s mom made for Christmas.  I think each member of Team D had 5-6 cookies, and I made them pick their favorite.  Damon liked the almond crescents, like (Nat’s) dad; Diana liked the orange cream cookies, like (Nat’s) mom.  After dinner, we played a game of Spades (which Team D always kills us) and a couple rounds of Sevens.  Then, they were off to Louisville.    I hope the shims were able to keep the window up on their trip home and it wasn’t too windy!

Yesterday, Nat and I tried our hand at snowboarding. We took a whole day lesson at Breck. I must say, I had a lot of fun, especially before lunch. Nat with his extraordinary balance did fabulous, and I think I did fairly well in our practice area. At the end of the day, we skiied down the hill where everyone was going, and I must say, I had a harder time! I fell a lot, and I wasn’t going where I wanted to go. I basically forgot all about what the teacher taught me, and I was frustrated that it was taking me so long to get to catch up to the class; I was always the last one down. Nat, the go-getter, did fabulous and looked great going down the hill. He said he did better out on the run rather than the class setting.

I don’t know if we’ll snowboard again, but it was fun. They say it’s a steep learning curve, so maybe we’ll give it a go later. I think for now, we’re happy to rest our stiff, sore bodies.

I know all you grandparents and great grandparents have been deprived of pictures of Sean.  Here are some pictures from the end of November (bottom of the page) and December!

This post is very delayed. When I was at Mobicom back in September, a couple of people from my research group wanted to play Settlers of Catan. Unfortunately, we did not have the game with us. We would not be deterred, however! Instead we created our own board and pieces. I finally got a picture of our creation uploaded, which you can see below. I called my friend Joe and he gave me the default, recommended board layout. I drew all of the tiles on a piece of paper, illustrating each resource type and port (that is tumbleweed for the desert). Each of us had a different colored marker so we drew all of our game pieces directly onto the board. A thick line was a road, a dot a settlement, and a ring around a dot was a city. We used the pads of paper from the hotel to make the resource and development cards. The cardboard backing was used to make the longest road, largest army, and building costs. The coup de grace was the C program that Mehedi wrote to roll the dice. It ended up being a fun game although the set-up time was especially long, and I probably enjoyed the real game a little bit more.

(or here)

As Ramona already posted, we had a nice Thanksgiving in Houston. The weather was very nice, so we were rudely awakened this morning by this:
It’s not so bad, but quite a change from being in Houston.

We headed down to Houston for Thanksgiving break this year.  Fortunately, Nat’s still in school so we get a whole week off.   We were in sunny warm Houston (the coldest day was still in the 60s) from Friday to Saturday.  We had a great time with family and friends.  I can’t believe it went by so fast and with so many things to do!  I wish we could take a vacation from our vacation for a couple of days before we get back into “real life”.    Here’s a recap:

Friday (11/21)
We were awake by 5:45AM (all of us) and made our way down to Houston via DFW.  Sean was pretty good, albeit squirmy.  One of our friend was on our first leg down, so that was a nice surprise.    We were definitely glad to get Sean off the plane when we arrived at IAH.  My mom came to pick me up, and we drove to my parents house while Sean had lunch in the car.

My dad greeted us at home, and we put Sean down for a little bit to get familiar with the place.  He was very clingy and didn’t really want to be put down.  We put him down for a nap, and he cried for 30 minutes*.  We had lunch, and then my dad and Nat went to play golf.  When Sean woke up, my mom and I went to get some stuff for Amy’s baby shower.

Saturday
I went over to Amy’s house to help prepare for her baby shower that afternoon.  A bunch of my friends were hosting the shower, and we were preparing for 50+ people.  We spent all morning cleaning and cooking.  The shower went well with more than enough food.  Nat brought Sean over after his nap, and we had a good time with my friends and Amy.

Sunday
We headed to the Chinese grocery store after breakfast.  We had lunch in the plaza of the grocery store (yummy Vietnamese broken rice!).  We headed home, Sean took a nap.  My dad played golf in the afternoon.  Nat went for a jog, and then watched the MLS final.  After Sean woke up from his nap, we headed to the mall to look for some shoes for Sean.  We were unsuccessful. 

After dinner, we opened our Christmas gifts early so that Sean could have some toys to play with and we (Nat and I) could exchange/return the gifts (mostly clothes).

Monday
We headed out to the Galleria after breakfast in search of Sean’s shoes.  We were successful this time!   We ate out at a Cajun restaurant for lunch, and then headed home to put Sean down for a nap.  While Sean was asleep, Nat and I headed out to a nearby mall to return/exchange my clothes and search for Nat’s shoes.  I was successful in finding some clothes, but Nat couldn’t find a pair that he liked.  He remembered seeing a pair at the Galleria, so we planned on going back the next day.

Tuesday
My uncle and his wife came to visit us in the morning.  They wanted to see Sean because my uncle hadn’t seen him before.  We headed out to lunch at an Italian restaurant where Sean ate half of a Kid’s order of spheghetti.    While Sean was sleeping, we headed back to the Galleria to find Nat’s shoes.  He ended up getting a different pair than he liked before, but I was glad that he got a pair of “everyday” shoes.  After Sean woke up we went out to Whole Foods to buy some things for Thanksgiving dinner.  My aunt and uncle met us at my parents house; they had driven down from Dallas to spend time with us for Thanksgiving dinner.  My cousin and his girlfriend came over to have dinner with us (his parents were the ones that came down from Dallas).  After dinner, my friends came over to hang out with us.

Wednesday
I headed up to Amy’s on Wednesday morning to help her cook her turkey.  She needed help since she’s 37 weeks pregnant and couldn’t really bend over and lift the turkey out to baste it.  We had a great time of hanging out and talking.    After that, I drove back to my parents, picking up some “banh mi” (Vietnamese sandwhiches) for lunch for everyone.  Nat and I got ready for golf in the afternoon with my dad.  Nat and I played 9 holes and came home; we were both playing pretty poorly at the end because we were tired.    My dad continued to play with his friend Joe.  After a nice relaxing bubble bath (to work out the sore muscles) I headed to the airport with my mom to pick up my brother and his girlfriend.  We got back (after some delay in waiting for my brother’s luggage), and had dinner.
Thursday
In the morning, my brother, dad, Nat, and my brother’s girlfriend headed out to play golf.  I went to go workout, and my mom picked me up later.  After my mom picked me up, we (including Sean) headed to the grocery store to pick up some last minute things for Thanksgiving dinner.  We headed back, and I started preparing the food I was planning to make.  Fortunately, I had made the chocolate cake, the crust for the pie, and half of the rolls the previous day, so I had less to do.  I made another batch of rolls, mashed potatoes, kalbi (Korean ribs) and apple pie.  My mom, aunt, and uncle were busy prepping and cooking the rest of the meal.  My family started coming in around 4PM while we were cooking.  It was pretty hectic in the kitchen from about 4:30PM until dinner time.  All in all, we had 23 people at dinner.  I had 3 sets of aunts and uncles, 5 cousins and one of my cousin’s girlfriend, two of my dad’s friends and their family, and our immediate family.  Most of the “kids” were playing Rock Band 2 (which we got for my brother for Christmas; he had opened the gift earlier that day) before and after dinner.  The adults had a lot of fun just hanging out and talking.  Nat and I were pooped by 11PM, so we headed to bed.

Friday
We actually had a relaxing morning with nothing to do.    My immediate family (plus my brother’s girlfriend) just hung out.  We each made our own lunch and while my brother, his girlfriend, Nat and I played Rock Band, my parents, aunt, and uncle watched Sean.  In the afternoon, we played 9 holes of golf.  We came home for dinner, and the “kids” played Settlers and headed to bed.

Saturday
We packed in the morning and had a leisurely breakfast.  We managed to play one quick game of Settlers, where Nat won, and headed to the airport.  We stopped at the Vietnamese sandwhich place to pick up lunch on the go.  We had a smooth flight into ORD (which we can’t believe given ORD’s unpredictability when it’s winter) where Sean actually napped.  We had a longer lay over in ORD because we arrived early (another surprise) so Nat and I took turns chasing Sean around the terminal.  He was really intrigued by the people and the escalator.  He was getting antsy on the flight home, but he wasn’t too whiny.  We made a quick stop at Panera to eat dinner, and then Sean went to bed.  Nat and I slowly unpacked and then headed to bed at 9:30!

We had quite the busy week.  Each night it seemed that we went to bed at 11PM.  Unfortunately, Sean was waking up between 5-6:30AM each morning, so we took turns on who would get Sean up and who would sleep in.  Nat, being the sweetie that he is, was the one that let me sleep in more often.    Despite the tiredness, I really enjoyed my time with my parents and the kindness and generosity they showed.  It was nice to have so many people who were willing to watch Sean. 
*  Now that he’s older, we found that it takes a couple of days for him to adjust to the new place.  He realizes it’s not home, so he cries louder, harder, and longer for the first day and a half.  He also tends to wake up earlier too. 

It’s finally getting cool here in Champaign.  We had gorgeous weather at the beginning last week (with high’s in the 70s!), and then it got cooler as the week progressed.  Luckily, we were able to rake our leaves on a nice day!  Unfortunately, there have been more leaves falling, so it doesn’t really look like we raked. 

Our household has been busy hosting a variety of guests–from dinner to game nights.  It feels like it’s been nonstop since the end of September.  After next week, we’ll get a break until we come back from Thanksgiving at my parents house!  Now, I can understand how tired you can get from hosting so many events.

Sean is now looking more and more like a little boy.  He’s now down to one nap, completely weaned, and walking around like a pro!  They do grow up so fast, don’t they?  He’s been doing great overall, but he’s had his cranky days.  I believe he has four molars coming through and perhaps two of his incisors.  Ouch!  We pretty much have a good routine down everyday, and I’m glad that life is pretty predictable*!  He wakes up, gets fed breakfast by Nat, plays with Nat while I go workout, plays by himself in the hallway while we shower, eats lunch, naps (I usually take a break, nap or clean when he naps), wakes up, eats a snack, goes out on an errand with me, eats dinner, and then goes to bed.  He is quite the precious boy and is very content playing by himself.  I still have to keep an eye out for him because he still gets into mischief every once and awhile. 

* I remember when Sean was a newborn that I thought this day would never come.