Christmas in TX - Dec 2012

Shawna and Keith at Christmas Dinner

Because we were heading to Australia for Christmas, we went to Texas for an early Christmas with Keith's family.  Shawna worked from home on the Friday, so Keith went home from work early to pick her up and head to the airport.  Luckily, we were on American out of terminal A so we could grab a Schlotskys and split it before the flight.  Once we got to Keith's parents' house, we were treated to a couple of bottles of wine and the cheese from Zabars that Keith had sent as a Christmas gift (oddly timed to arrive right before we did!).

Josie, Owen, Boone, Lily

We were exhausted, so actually slept in until past 8am on Saturday (with the blackout curtains helping things).  After a quick breakfast of Stollen and honey from Graham's local purveyor Empire Bakery, we headed out for a walk/run around White Rock Lake.  Shawna made it in 1 hour and 45 minutes, one of her best times recently.  We grabbed a quick lunch at Starbucks and then went to the Galleria to do some Christmas shopping for Keith.  It really just took one stop at Banana Republic to get Keith some clothes more suited to his Marketing career!  We also tried to get some work out clothes from REI but they were not stocked up on the type of clothes that we need in Colorado.

Keith and Graham at Lucia's

We headed home to clean up and relax before going out to celebrate Graham's birthday.  After stopping to pick up Margaret, we drove over to Graham and Marissa's to open presents and see baby Boone, now ~9 months old.  We then all drove over to Lucia's, Graham's favorite local restaurant.  There was a bit of a wait before our table was ready so we spent some time at Dude, Sweet - the chocolate shop next door, owned by another friend of Graham's.  The owners of Lucia brought us a bottle of champagne as we were waiting - it really is great to have a brother tapped in to the local restaurant scene.  We shared several appetizers for the table and then we shared an entree - all the food was quite yummy!

Keith and Boone

Graham and Marissa at Lucia

Josie Not Scared of Keith!

On Sunday, we celebrated Christmas with the family.  We had the best of intentions to get up early and work out but getting up late again killed that idea.  So instead, we had another leisurely breakfast and then got ready for Graham & Margaret and the family to come over at 11am.  This was the first time that Josie was not scared of Keith!  It was fun to see Owen/Josie/Lily/Boone.  We had the kids open their presents first, then all had our Christmas lunch, with a home-cooked ham courtesy of Graham as the main course - delicious.  We ended the meal with Steamed Pudding.  Following that, we opened the rest of the gifts.  The final gift was for Keith's mother's 70th birthday next year: Keith, Graham, Margaret, and Dick are arranging a family trip to Seattle and the Herb Farm in the fall of '13 as the birthday gift, similar to the Napa trip that we took Keith's dad for his 70th birthday gift.  Frank Rixen stopped by a few minutes before we had to leave: we were off to the airport at 5:30pm for our flight back to Denver after a whirlwind weekend.