Christmas evening

The kids are alseep.

I'm blogging.

Eric is playing Wii.

I thought we got Wii for the kids....

I may now be a Wii widow.

This afternoon consisted of playing Wii - until the power went out (again....

we were Santa in the dark last night... stuffing stockings, wrapping presents, preparing food and washing dishes - by candlelight).

Then we worked on a puzzle.

And then played Wii again.

And worked on yo-yo skills.

For lunch we went for Eric's traditional Christmas Eve meal from childhood:

Bratwurst and Potato Salad

(potato salad was a lot more like egg salad with some potatoes thrown in....

all in the family like egg, few like potatoes)

Glamorous Christmas meal, I know...

Notice the fine china, silverware and crystal?

And check out the serving platter for dessert....

We had chocolate log roll - taken from my childhood family tradition.

To me, it would not seem like Christmas if we did not have chocolate log roll.

Eric accidently put his pepsi bottle on top of it so it got a little smushed.

It wasn't the best ever....

a little tough this year instead of light and spongy.

I blame the altitude once again.

At 4:00 we went over to some friends for dinner.

They had a whole whack of people over.

We were just about to leave when José Luis, William and Ricardo showed up.

(We had sort of debated inviting them to go with us, but felt a little shy about it - after all, it wasn't our party.)

We called our friends and they said - with a little hesitation about possibly not having enough food - they should definitely come too.

So we packed up our leftover turkey and stuffing from last night, threw in a bunch of leftover sausage from this afternoon, and hauled the boys along.

Apparently we also made them carry everything, too!

It was an absolutely beautiful day.

It would have been considered nice normally, but since it has been so stinking cold and raining for so long, the blue sky and warm air was a very welcome Christmas surprise.

The kids got to enjoy the weather by playing on the trampoline!

Cade was, of course, doing flips all over the place.

Yep, it looks like he is going to snap his neck...

but he didn't

(otherwise I most assuredly would not be sitting here writing this).

There was one issue with the trampoline....

Nice feet, Lucy!

It has been a great Christmas.