Our holidays were chock full this year.\u00a0 Chock full of family, chock full of FOOD and chock full of presents.\u00a0 We were spoiled, as per usual.\u00a0 In order to do a wrap up without A) forgetting anything and B) boring the crap out of you, I have to break it down into chunks.\u00a0 And a lot of it will be in point form because I am so behind it would take 8 Christmases just to catch up.<\/p>\n
Christmas Eve<\/strong> – Spent at my dad and Di’s\u00a0with my brothers, their girlfriends, my neice and, of course, Jaia and Dan.\u00a0 The evening ended next door at my aunt’s where I had a very long overdue visit with my cousins who I had not seen in a short millenia.\u00a0 The gift opening was eventful and Jaia was immediately spoiled.\u00a0 She came home with enough\u00a0Dora and Yo Gabba Gabba\u00a0stuff to fill one full floor of our house and we were just beginning.\u00a0 Little did she know what the days to follow would bring.<\/p>\n Christmas morning<\/strong> –\u00a0 For us this was the December 26th.\u00a0 We pushed the date forward one day to make sure Auntie Lizzie and Uncle Mort could be there with us.\u00a0 Jaia slept in a little, probably for the last Christmas morning ever.\u00a0 She was just starting to ‘get’ Santa and had no idea he actually comes to the house and brings toys but had no idea he’d bring TOYS!<\/p>\n This year, Santa’s big gift to Jaia was a play kitchen.\u00a0 It is the cutest one I’ve ever seen (Shan-ta has amazing taste) and she lit up when she came down to the bottom of the stairs and saw it set up, waiting for her.\u00a0 My mom predicted that it would be her favourite gift, but that she might not get it right away or she may be so overwhelmed by all the Christmas chaos that she wouldn’t play with it until later.\u00a0 Mom was wrong.\u00a0 Jaia ignored all other gifts while she busied herself in her new kitchen for the ENTIRE day…and every day since then.\u00a0 She is contantly asking us to come to her sink, wash our hands and then to sit while she talks on the play phone and whips us up dinner.\u00a0 Last night it was eggplant chicken.<\/p>\n Lisa and Willie’s Reception –<\/strong>\u00a0Two of my favourite people snuck away and got married one day last year.\u00a0 We never got the chance to celebrate them or their awesome marriage and precious (not so) new babe, Pearl.\u00a0 So on December 27th, we took care of that.\u00a0All of us.\u00a0 Friends we see all the time and friends that\u00a0I haven’t seen since high school.\u00a0 And, as per Lisa’s request, we did it up in style.\u00a0 Everyone wore their finest black and white.\u00a0 Everyone looked gorgeous,\u00a0especially my husband – lucky me!<\/p>\n What a night!\u00a0\u00a0It was amazing and it\u00a0passed far too quickly.\u00a0 After far too many martinis, champagne and other frosty beverages, we were piling back into the bus that took us to the Empire Grill.\u00a0 Suddenly the after effects of the open bar took over.\u00a0 Some passengers were louder than usual, some feel asleep (me), some….barfed.\u00a0 Hanging out with the people I’ve known the longest in my life and having the kind of night we’ve had together 1000 times before (but 1000 years ago) was the best gift I got all year.\u00a0<\/p>\n I’m still trying to convince L&W to do it up every time they are in town…and they seem to be warming to the idea.\u00a0 Fingers crossed.<\/p>\n December 30<\/strong> – We woke Jaia up at 4:00 am to drive the airport and hop on a plane heading to province #2 (and Christmas #3) of the four provinces we would spend time in over the holidays.\u00a0\u00a0We landed in Saskatoon\u00a0to find it FREEZING cold.\u00a0 Beyond freezing cold.\u00a0 We were not prepared for the change in temperature from what we had been experiencing back home.\u00a0<\/p>\n In an attempt to gather as much family as possible, we all stayed in a hotel in Saskatoon.\u00a0 5 rooms worth.\u00a0 Dan’s mom and Brett and Annissa (and Dave), his aunt Sue and (soon to be uncle) Mohsen came all the way from Kipling, SK.\u00a0 Aunt Shirley, uncle Kent, Gabe, Karlee and Matt, and Grandma and Grandpa came from Elrose, SK.\u00a0 And last but not least, auntie Jenny and Benny the wonderdog came from Calgary.\u00a0 It was amazing to get the chance to spend to much time with them and considering the temperature outside we spent most of our time indoors catching up.\u00a0<\/p>\n December 31 – <\/strong>The big day.\u00a0 More fun than Christmas.\u00a0 I can’t believe she’s 2!\u00a0 But it’s more amazing to me that we have a 2-year old.\u00a0 Or have far she’s come in just 2 years.\u00a0 We can have full conversations with her now, play games, she has a hilairous sense of humour, she can count to ten and do somersaults – \u00a0and just a year ago she was only just learning to take her first steps.\u00a0 I really am the luckiest mama.\u00a0 She’s my sun and moon and stars.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n (Birthday #1) We started the day by giving jaia her birthday cupcake and got her ready for a full day.\u00a0 We were actually checking out of the Sheraton and into the Delta Bessborough across the street to have her party in a suite rather than a small room.\u00a0 It was a small pain in the butt to re-pack everything and move it for one night, but the rewards were worth it.\u00a0 ‘The Bess’ as it’s affectionately called by everyone but me, the only Ontarian, was absolutely amazing.\u00a0 It is very old but very well maintained\u00a0and STUNNING!\u00a0 I was thrilled with the service, our room and the amount of space we had to work with.\u00a0 The 550 sq. ft was huge – bigger than Dan’s first apartment.<\/p>\n In the afternoon we moved all of our stuff over to the room and began decorating.\u00a0 Pink polka\u00a0dots and balloons were everywhere.\u00a0 And then the cake of\u00a0cakes arrived.\u00a0 Dan’s awesome aunt Sue spoiled the birthday girl rotten with the most beautiful, pinkest cake I’ve ever seen.\u00a0\u00a0After\u00a0eating some pink cake (and having her photo snapped while doing so ) at Dan’s cousin Melanie’s wedding last summer, Jaia talked non-stop about having pink cake.\u00a0 And pink cake she got.\u00a0\u00a0 This one truped some people’s wedding cakes (or wedding pies)!<\/p>\n We ate, drank, played, opened gifts and by 8 pm or so, the bulk of the crowd left.\u00a0 And after jaia passed out from gleeful fatigue, Dan, auntie Jenny and I stayed up chatting and catching up after too much time apart.\u00a0 It was just like the good ol’ days (that I miss dearly) when the three of us were inseperable.\u00a0 Many a New Year’s has passed with just the three of us hanging out and talking.\u00a0 Or drinking too much and suffering for it on too many a January 1st’s.\u00a0 But this year, after a looong day we all hit the hay before the ball was even set to drop.\u00a0 It seems New Year’s Eve has changed drastically for\u00a0Fullertons other than just Dan and I.<\/p>\n Rather than bore you to death (if you’ve actually made it this far), I’ll sum up the last half of our trip in a\u00a0second post.\u00a0 And I’ll add pictures (it’s being a bit finicky at the moment).\u00a0 But for now they are all available at flickr<\/a> (which can always be reached by clicking on the photos along the top of this page).<\/p>\n …to be continued.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Our holidays were chock full this year.\u00a0 Chock full of family, chock full of FOOD and chock full of presents.\u00a0 We were spoiled, as per usual.\u00a0 In order to do a wrap up without A) forgetting anything and B) boring the crap out of you, I have to break it down into chunks.\u00a0 And a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[6,14,24,26],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/forgetful.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}