How do I even begin to describe how beautiful our first Christmas was in Arizona? It was nothing short of amazing, blessed and joyous. It was, in short,
perfect. Perfect because not only did my Mom and Dad make the trip to Arizona, so did my brother and his wife and my two adorable nieces. What a lucky girl I am. I think I had a permanent glow inside of me the entire week they were here, and I think I still do.
Despite all of the adventures and activities we packed into eight days, I didn't take too many photos, and the photos I do have are mostly from our phones. Sebastian recently mentioned to me that he read an article about the importance of actually being and experiencing the moment rather than standing behind the lens, and I feel like I did that this holiday. I may not have as many photos to show for it, but I have the memories--and this blog--so later on Aliyah can read about how much fun she and her parents had during her first Christmas in Arizona. Besides, I have a serious back-up of photos just sitting on a card in my camera that I still have to edit and post to
flickr from before the holidays. Maybe it's a good thing I didn't add to that mountain of photos.
So let's start this trip down memory lane, while it's still fresh in my mind, shall we? (This will no doubt be quite a long post.)
To begin the Christmas week, my mom called me moments after they were in their car driving to their hotel on Friday the 23rd. There was so much excitement in her voice when she greeted me with, "Mart, we're in Arizona!", and I felt it too. It was so nice to be able to speak to her and know she was in my area, rather than many states away. It may sound like I rarely get to see my parents, which isn't true. We usually see each other at least 3 times a year, for which I am very grateful for. I know many people aren't able to see their out-of-state family nearly that often, but I have a very deep attachment to my parents and I often ache to see them more. But I guess absence makes the heart grow fonder, and the times we do spend together are that much more meaningful. I'm learning as a grow older and have a family, that both Sebastian and I are extremely lucky to have such wonderful families. Visiting Oma and PawPaw in Georgia or Grandma and Grandpa Peters in Minnesota always leaves me with such a sweet, loving feeling.
But I digress. After we met up and they saw Aliyah, the rest of the day was pretty relaxing. Nick and Emily and the girls also arrived that day, but anyone who has kids knows that flying takes a lot of you, so they stayed at their place and met up with us at a park the next morning.
After that, it was on to the Carden family's acting debut! We were the stars. We had our own trailer. Our own agents. Oh, wait, that didn't actually happen. We weren't really stars, but we did get our 15 seconds of fame by--wait for it--being the Holy Family at the children's mass on Christmas Eve.
We were a little nervous, only because we weren't sure how Aliyah was going to behave. That girl is a wild child sometimes, so basically we were taking chances on if she would get stage fright of have the time of her life. Turns out she did pretty well depicting baby Jesus. Though I'm pretty sure baby Jesus did not have a sucker in his mouth to keep him quiet on that blessed night. But seriously, it was an honor it was to be able to be chosen to represent the Holy Family. They are the reason for Christmas, after all.
My aunt and uncle and one of their friends also made it for mass and dinner afterwards. Christmas Eve dinner is a Peters family tradition that was fun to keep even away from Minnesota. (I have very fond childhood memories of going to Christmas Eve mass, then eating at the Happy Chef and the trying to catch a glimpse of Santa in the sky on the way home--or at least my Dad would see him. I never did.)
Aliyah had a grand old time being in the midst of her cousins from the get-go. They even taught her how to play ring-around-the-rosy, which she loved.
You can see in the photo above that Aliyah is wearing a very special dress. It's the dress that I came to the United States in when I was adopted at 2.5. Hard to believe that she can fit into it already at 16 months!
The next day my Mom and Dad and I decided to volunteer at the Salvation Army's Christmas dinner. (Sebastian stayed back because Aliyah was sleeping in and he had a nine person meal to cook.) Originally we had only planned on staying for the first few hours where they have the beginning festivities before the meal, but in the end
we were pretty much there from start to finish. This is probably mostly due to the fact that we seemed to be the only people who didn't know which area we should volunteer in, so we all got pulled in different directions. I think I started out at the coloring table for the kids, my Mom handed out stuffed animals (and poinsettias even though she wasn't supposed to. That's how caring my Mom is...she took a chance and made two women very happy that day.) And somehow my Dad was asked to actually serve the meal, which my Mom and I later joined in on. It was quite the experience. We learned that they were expected to serve about 5,000 meals that day. Wow. In addition to that, there was an area where the guests could get free haircuts from professional stylists, another area where they could call anywhere to wish a family member or friend a Merry Christmas and yet another area had professional photographers and printers donated by HP so that families could get portraits done. This was a big event, not to mention eye-opening one.
While we were away, Sebastian started our new tradition of watching "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" with Aliyah. A true Seuss classic.
After that we made our way back to our place where we opened presents up with the entire family. Aliyah received some sweet gifts and has had a lot of fun playing with her new toys. It was even hard to get her out the door to daycare this week because she just wanted to play at home.
When gift-opening was done we were treated to an amazing Christmas dinner made by Sebastian. It was absolutely delicious. I don't know how he does it and how he makes it look so easy, and never complains, but every time he in charge of a big holiday meal, he never disappoints. This year's meal consisted of a tender rosemary pork, rosemary beef roast, seasoned potato reels and more.
To round out our Christmas day, we all hopped into the car and went to the Mesa Arizona Temple. I had read about their Christmas light display and night Christmas concerts online and decided since it was Christmas we needed to see some Christmas lights. It was incredible! I honestly have never seen so many lights in one concentrated area. Stunning. And the Temple itself is quite a landmark too.
The rest of the week were were busy spending time with family and one another. We ate out at a lot of really good restaurants thanks to Sebastian and his ability to find five star places on Yelp. We toured Sebastian's office one day as well after we had lunch to see what really goes on behind the scenes at Yelp. (Little known, useless fact: Jeremy Stoppleman, one of the founders of Yelp is also one of the core group of people who fund's
Pinterest. I know, I keep telling Sebastian he needs to give me his office number so I can personally call and thank him for all the joy that he has brought me.)
We went to the Phoenix zoo, which was so much fun. I haven't been to too many zoos, but this one would be one of my favorites. Aliyah's favorite animal was the giraffe. And she surprised me with showing me that she learned how to identify a rhino. In passing I had pointed to the rhinoceros, and a little while later we were grabbing lunch and she saw a cutout of one and yelled, "Rhino!". Maybe she'll be a zoologist when she's older.
We visited some of my mom's siblings in Casa Grande and went to a sky-diving area where we sat and watched these large group of skydivers land into a grassy field. (Sounds odd, I know, but it was actually pretty neat.) This was also the afternoon where Aliyah fell asleep in my Mom's lap. A priceless moment, which is captured, but it on my Dad's phone.
Another night we had dinner with a bazillionaire. Well, maybe not a bazillionaire, but he definitely was a millionaire. And his house was gorgeous. I felt like I knew a celebrity.
The cousins had their first sleepover and it turned out to be a success. We baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (and Gracie says they were really good because she stirred the batter extra well!) And the next morning watched a little Dora and my heart exploded from the happiness all three girls bring into our lives.
We also had family photos taken and I am at the edge of my seat to see how they turned out. It was my Christmas gift to my Mom because she loves to have photos of her family, so since we were all together, it seemed like the thing to do. I haven't seen them yet, but I'll be sure to post a few when I do.
We did quite a few other things as well, but I think I covered the most memorable ones in this post. It's already pretty long, so I'll stop here. All in all, it was a perfect holiday. Can't wait to do it again...wherever it may be.
