Happy Holidays!

For Christmas we headed back to DC to see family and friends for the holiday season.  Riley was awesome on the flight out, although she did not sleep at all.  She just climbed on us, put the window shade up and down, watched sesame street on the ipad and colored in her coloring books.  It was exhausting for us but she was quite content.  Our flight got in to BWI 30 minutes early...kind of unreal so I thought I would mention it.  It only too 4 hours and 15 minutes to fly across the country!  That still is so unreal to me. 

 Before leaving for DC, Riley spoke her first identifiable word! Car!  Check it out.  Now, she has said other words but none on command so I had to post!

Riley loved opening presents.  She had quite a job ahead of her at Grandpa and Grandma Emery's.  We also went to Christmas Eve Mass.  It was super packed and the only seats available were the front row and basically the furthest spot from the cry room so it was going to be a special feat for Riley to make it through an hour of mass without acting up especially since mass was right around her bed time.  Well, she lasted 20 minutes...and then Matt had to take her outside.  We left early too.  But she looked adorable in her Christmas dress.  Such a cutie!

 It was so nice to see Callie back to her old self again!  Callie has been going on hunger strikes since we moved away.  She just stops eating.  Luckily Aunt Cathy is a vet and takes excellent care of her.  There is nothing physically wrong with Callie and so we think its psychological but who knows.  Acupuncture seemed to help but the Pet Psychic seems to think that Callie has been a cat for many lives and just doesn't want to be a cat anymore.  Hmm....so your guess is as good as mine.  But while we were there, she was just the sweetest even sleeping with us again and sitting in our laps.  I miss her!!!

Matt and I got to see so many friends that we miss so much.  Thanks to all for making time for us during the crazy busy holiday season.  It was so fun to have all the babies meet each other over at the Cox's house.  Riley loved on some Baby Stu which was super adorable. 

Baby Bobby!

Baby Stu!

Our trip was pretty quick; only six days and we were back in SD for some relaxation.  Riley did really good on the flight back but of course she doesn't fall asleep until we landed in SD. 

 First stop, Oscars!  We missed fish tacos!!!!  This place is absolutely incredible.  It's definitely the best fish taco place in the entire area.  Check out our fave; surf and turf taco:

So this year, we had a very calm and uneventful New Years Eve.  I have to say that this was the first NYE spent at home without any festivities since probably Middle School, but we did get out to a very nice dinner at one our favorite places in La Jolla; Herringbone.  We went promptly at 5:30pm, and were out of there before 7:00pm.  Riley was incredible.  She was flirting with the server and loved the olive trees in the restaurant.  This was definitely the best she has ever been at a restaurant.  Such a trooper!

For New Years I made delicious Black Eyed Peas (southern tradition) and some cornbread.  Here's to a wonderful 2013!!!