happy holidays

its a temp post right now,more a placeholder for me to come back to soon.

It was an amazing christmas this year, my baby's first that she could really understand and be excited about..saying ho ho ho every time the word Santa was said. My family-Dad and his wife K and her daughter E- came to Austin this year to celebrate with us. Our first christmas as a new family.

there are lots of funny things and good stories of cooking, walking and baby crazyness that I will want to fill in later when I am not sick and tired but I wanted to start the post so I would have to finish it later.

I love my Dad and I am so proud of him for stoping smokeing!! That is so huge for some one and he has been doing great, its alot of work for him to not smoke. So my family gets here to town and is going to check in to their hotel and then I don't hear from him for a little bit, then finaly he calls and says they have a problem with their room and have to move hotels>@ what ok, so I drive down to meet them and it turns out that the stupid hotel is letting people smoke in the non-smoking rooms because the smokeing rooms are underconstruction. Well for a ex-smoker to stay in a room that smells like smoke is just not going to work and any non-smoker its not so great either. After way to much work we finaly get them checked in to a hotel just a min or two form our house and it turned out to be much better to have them so close since it can be a production to get two seperate familys of 3 going some days:)
So yay, its almost Christmas and I am so happy and relaxed and excited to see my Dad and new step-mom and sister. That first day we ran out to dinner at Chez Zee and every one had great food and it was a very nice ending to a crazy long day for every one.
Friday my Dad came over early and I cooked him breakfast and I just had so much fun sitting with him and my baby girl and just hanging out in the morning. K and E both slept in at the hotel and then were going shoping so we kind of just hung out with my dad the first half of the day, while this was lots of fun I wanted to see and spend time with the girls also but they had not gotten to spend much time with each other so they went to the mall.
They finaly got here to the house about 2 and we all packed up in my truck and drove down town to the new Whole foods world HQ-yes it really is so cool its a tourist destination:)- and we had a great time walking around and shoping in downtown austin. It was also the last night for trail of lights and it was getting late, we were planing on getting their early but had left our coats and needed to get our baby girl (1) dinner so we drive the half hour home, eat, and packup and drive back down town or try... we get to the exit for zilker park where the lights are and are stuck in a line of cars for abou 25 more min.. only to finlay get close to the park entrance and be turned away by the cops(thanks for telling people 60 cars back that the parking is full) and so we drive downtown to the parking garage where busses are running to the park...ok so the line does not look so bad, we pay for parking and run up to the line-only to see that the line we saw from the parking lot was only for each buss, the line to get tickets to the bus was goofy long, like hundreds of people long, so long that you could not see the end untill you get to the end.. and we walked for ever to get to the end of the line or start of the line I should say. Lucky for us the line went fast and we got on the bus, got the park, walked-talked-looked-had fun-had cider-and finaly got to the big giant Light Tree at the park that every one stands in the middle of and spins, spins alone or with a friend or a big group of friends, as you look up and you spin the whole tree spirals and you get dizzy and stumble and every one has a great time. Well you do untill some one is just standing in the center of the tree talking on their cell phone!@@@@ My wife and sister were spinning and runs in to a lady that is on a phone just standing there. She got all pissed off and was like " Oh my golly I just got slamed in to, my shoulder oww" so I am standing there with my baby in my arms and see her start saying this and yelling at Jen and I just go off... "Look lady, sorry it was an accident but give me a break, your on your cell phone just standing in the way, get out of the way next time, people come to spin under the tree, that is what they do they spin and run in to each other. Sorry you got run in to but shutup and get out of the way" at this point she is yealling at me but as a description to the person on the phone....her husband trys to get her to move and calm down and by this point my cowboy dad is ready to jumpin and kick some ass if needed but really there is nothing that gets me more steeming mad than some one acting like they are on some other personal planet when they are on a cell phone in the middle of a giant gathering of people and then acting like you killed their dog when something happens to pull them back from their planet. Well if you go to a place where every one is spinning around you and you stop and decide to act like your standing in your kitchen talking to your buddy on the phone, don't be supprised when some one bumps in to you, you crazy gooftarded cellphone planet head. So that ended the fun a bit and we got back in another giant line to get on the bus to go home. Finaly home we all parted ways, got the kid to bed and my family went to the hotel and all of us tried to get rest for the next day when were were suposed to figure out how to make Tamales!
Christmas eve day, tamale day and time to start the weekend of cooking and hanging out at home with my family. The best part of this vacation with my family so far has been getting to just be a DAD and a Son at the same time and also a Brother and Husband. Its kind of strange to be so many roles/titles all at once and I think the Husband tag was the one to suffer the most since I some times did not pay enough attention to my wonderfull wife. I love my Brother title because I love my sister, I think she is an amazing girl and once she got to know us and opened up to be her self more I loved her more, she has this great beautiful laugh that I got to hear and we talked about things like what kind of movies we liked and just got to be closer and it was really nice. The really nice thing about her as well is that E is amazing with my baby girl, they took to each other right away and it was just such a cute thing to see, my baby for one never sits still for any one and on the day of tamales- they both sat and played on the couch for what seemed like an hour and my daughter was having so much fun. E just knew how to play with her and let my daughter play the way she wanted to and it was such a wonderfull break for me to know some one else besides my wife and I could just hang out with her and she would like it. I do wish family lived closer for a few reasons -for my daughter to get more time with her pappy and new grandma and aunt, for me- to get more time to just relax and get to know my new family better and also just to get closer to my dad...I see this story is getting a bit off track from where I started but I think its kind of strange to get a new family and then not have to live with them or spend weekends with them like I did with my old step fam and I am missing not having that time to know them but that is how it goes. I have to just feel happy that I had such a strong conection and feeling of love for them from the frist time I met them that I don't need all the extra time to get close to them since I am there all ready? The time I spent with my sister this past several days, the more I am convinced that we were always connected in the universe and just did not know where that feeling was going untill we both met for the first time..at least for me it felt that way. I have had this happen in my life before but it felt diffrent when I first knew I was in love with my wife....I can not describe it right, some day I will find or learn the words I need-gahhh,stupid lack of mastery of the english language:)
Anway back to the day of tamales, lots of masa, meat, hot suce and a huge table of bowls and corn husks and mess, it was a huge amout of work but fun and worth the experaince of doing once... ours turned out very well and we all ate untill we were stuffed that night, we also watched "The Christmas Story" since my sister never saw it and Jenn and I watch it every year as part of the holiday tradition (thanks tbs and 24 hours of christmas story) and its always funny.
Later I could not sleep cause I was excited about getting up and opening gifts!!! weeee I love christmas morning but had to sleep...well a bit I seemed to be getting sick or haveing horible alergies..suck!

I almost forgot, to start the fact that Santa comes and eats cokies and drinks milk(egg nog in this case) we-wife/baby/me- set out cookies and egg nog on the fireplace and after we put the kid to bed.. jingle-bell rattle, raindeer landing on the roof (my fingers thumping the wall) and my best deep HOOO HOOO HOOO Merry Christmas and more bells ----yeah she belives in santa now.
Christmas morning she woke up and we open her door and my wife askes her, do you know who came last night for Christmas? and with exciment and jumping up and down in her crib our girl says.. ho ho ho ho. I think it worked and where she expected to still see cookies where wraped gifts for her from santa.
Christmas was a great day, lots of gifts and fun and sillyness and just wraping paper everywhere. My dad filming on his camcorder, me filming on my camcorder, digital cameras going off, cell phone cameras going off it was well documented fun that is for sure.
We all took naps after all the excitemnet of opening gifts and just relaxed the rest of the day while waiting for pots of food to cook/ cornedbeef cababge and potatoes.

The next three days were really nice. We all just hung out and got to have some relaxed fun, shoping and eating and playing with my kid and just having a real good vacation minus the being sick part (both K and I were not doing so well and causing every one else to not sleep much).
One thing I realized that was diffrent about being around my dad was that because of our talk last time I was home(see my other post ) there was a calm or just a happy feeling being around him. In the past I had the same feeling but on top of it were feelings of him not being happy, of me not being happy with him and just an overall quiet sadness that was between us both, that was all gone now and it was wonderfull. The funny thing is that my baby girl has been a bit shy around other guys the past month and so was kind of afraid of my dad, but by the end she had warmed up to him and on the last day they were here she was playing with him and giving him kisses and hopefully the next time she sees him she will be over her fears.
The other thing my dad had been wanting to do while he was here was get to go eat some good texas catfish and down home cooking he has not had in AZ..well I think I made my Dads trip when I took every one to Hoovers Fire and Ice House where he got to have fried catfish and fried okra and it was all really really good food:) To finish off the day after christmas we shopped a bit and then for dinner we had Amy's Icecream and my Dad and the rest of the family just had a look of joy and icecream high smiles... what a day.

I miss them all and I know my baby is missing the constant attention and her new fun aunt who let her take all the makup out of her purse or play with her cell phone to keep her happy:)
I am so blessed that I have such a large family in my life.. blood related or friends or through my wife and her family... every one is amazing and gets along and likes each other and that is rare these days. I love them all
Happy Holidays and a wonderfull New Year- looking forward to 2006