Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut !, Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.

So I'm now back into the mix with work after a lovely Christmas holiday. Starting the Monday before Christmas we had carols over at Andrew's parents house which meant snacks, drinks and off key singing. They even did an Australian version of "Jingle all the way". Judy had bought some egg nog from the store and was delighted when we all enjoyed a glass, with a touch of brandy of course. It was a really fun evening and could have only been better if there was a chill in the air instead of the heat.

Our funky looking Christmas tree

We were released from work on Christmas Eve at 11:30am which was great because then I got to spend the rest of the day with Andrew who was off from work. We decided to be french for the day and headed down to the river with a picnic of bread, cheese and fruit. We got a whole stretch of beach just to ourselves, sadly it was an overcast day so we only stayed for half an hour before heading home to switch for our bikes and food for a bbq. We sat down by the lake with our delicious meal and drinks watching the wind blow people all over the lake before joining Bonnie and Damen, plus baby Connor on the other side of the lake.

Our empty riverside we got all to our self

Christmas day I woke up early, cause really, who sleeps in on Christmas. Since Andrew's one Christmas request was to get to sleep in I left him alone and went to begin making the traditional eggs benedict and skype with my parents who were at home with Jess and Nana and Papa before heading off to the Christmas Eve service.

The eggs turned out alright but I can imagine it will only get better over time, I accidentally overcooked the eggs, which looked nothing like the perfect orbs my father comes out with, and the sauce was a little to thin, but it still tasted delicious.

After breakfast we did presents here for the two of us (I got really swank Gucci perfume, the only Gucci anything I've ever owned) and presents from my family. Then we headed over to Andrew's parents house for our stockings and more presents, I got this awesome picnic basket that comes with 4 settings of plates, flatware and wine glasses. It even has toothpicks and salt and pepper shakes, plus a waterproof blanket inside. We haven't gotten a chance to use it yet but next weekend we probably will. Oh, and Andrew got a big George Forman grill, we've used it heaps already, it makes cooking and cleaning so much easier.

So at Andrew's parents we did all the presents and had dinner, Andrew's aunt and his cousins came over so I got to meet more family members, I've almost met them all now. After dinner we played this cute Christmas game about Lefty the Elf, everyone had a present and everytime Judy said "left" or "right" in the story we had to pass the present in that direction. At the end of the story we got the present and if it was something you could wear you had to put it on (Andrew got a baseball cap covered in silver glitter). We made the rounds to see a few friends before ending our Christmas night back at home.

Boxing Day we decided to relax and not do too much. We skyped with my family for a while, the video was delayed by about a minute and a half so we couldn't see what was going on with what we heard. Everyone had a great time walking behind the person talking and pulling faces that we wouldn't see until long after the culpurate was gone. I spent most of the rest of Boxing Day off shopping with Kate and Judy. Boxing Day in Australia is big on shopping like Black Friday in the states, which they, for obvious reasons, don't celebrate.

The day after Boxing Day, we've got no name for it, we drove down to Jindabyne where Andrew's parents have a townhouse. Jindabyne is on a lake and close to the ski fields so during the summer they take the boat out and swim and during the winter hit the slopes. We took a walk around the lake and through part of town on the first night and spent more time relaxing. Monday we were taken by boat to this secluded stretch of beach that we had all to ourselves. We set up our towels, tent and portable grill. The water felt great so we spent the morning and afternoon relaxing and swimming.

Our private beach for the day

Austin decided my leg was the perfect place to lie down and wouldn't move

We were trying to teach Jessie how to swim, this is the closest she got while we were there
but apparently a few days later she was swimming all over the place

We didn't do too much else until New Years Eve, we decided that we should take advantage of not doing anything before we had to go back to work. For New Years we started out with Kate at the parents house since they were still down at the lake and then Damen picked us up for us all to head into the city with Bonnie and Connor for a drink before going back to their place. We kept harassing them about what irresponsable parents they were bringing their baby out to the bar so Bonnie made Andrew push the pram back to the car so he'd get the funny looks and they walked behind us complaining like we had about them. It was a fairly quite evening back at their place, they have two other friends who just had babies so they came over with the kids. Even still I figure it was nice of us to not make them sit at home just them and the kid on their first New Years Eve with him. It was good fun.

The day after New Years we went back to being bums. Saturday we went with Will, Pip, his brothers and sister plus their partners to a water park called Jamberoo. It wasn't nearly as big as the one we used to go to back in Texas but it was so much fun. It kept pouring down rain so we were absolutely soaked before we even went on our first ride, and let me tell you, playing mini golf in the rain is so much fun. We went on the rides heaps of times until we were all just a little battered and bruised.

This past Monday we had to head back to work but it's been a slow week because most people are still out on holiday, I don't think I would make it back to work if I took an extra week off, it was hard enough to go back after just two weeks off. Now it's back to the grindstone although we should have some good events on the horizon.