Christmas Eve

So, I am a bit sad today - nothing too terrible though. You see, traditionally, in the evening, we go to the Christmas Eve Service at our church. That is nice, but the part I will miss the most, the part that IS Christmas Eve to me is what follows the Christmas Eve Service.
Every year (for at least the past 9 years), we go over to my parents' house. Together with my parents and the Jenks', we make our own salads from the famous Fadner salad buffet. Afterwards, we sit around, joking & talking, exchanging & opening gifts.
Not only am I sad because we miss everyone and because we cannot be at the Fadner's house this evening, but I am sad because this is the 1st year that Scott & Lacy (his fiancee) will be at the Fadner/Jenks bash. I would have love to hang out with them more too.

But ... we will have a good time. I think, we will get into our pj's, make lattes and read the Christmas story by the light of the Christmas tree lights.

To all of our family and friends: We love you. We miss you lots. And we love you even more. We look forward to skyping & web-caming you on Christmas Day.
Much love from all of us,
Diana, Lennon, Lydia & Jackson

Stranded in Las Vegas

Early last Sunday morning, our family began an unplanned trip to the East Coast for Lennon's Grandpa's funeral. It was wonderful to be with extended family, even if the reason was to remember Grandpa together.
We left early (again) on Wednesday morning to head back home to Carson City. Our trip back was supposed to consist of two flights - one from Philly to San Fransisco, and one from SF to Reno, and then we'd drive home. The Philly to SF flight had an unadvertised stop in Las Vegas, to drop off people & pick up up others. We didn't know about this stop until after we had booked the tix.
After a tenuous 6-hour flight to Vegas (during which our kids cried for the 1st 5!), we began descending & realized that we had missed our connecting flight in SF, and we weren't even in SF yet! (Don't know exactly what happened.) And it was snowing in Vegas - what?!
Anyways, we landed & got off the plane to stretch our legs for the hour before the plane took off again for SF. Not even 10 minutes after getting off the plane, and a flight attendant comes over the loudspeaker saying that all of the planes needed to be de-iced. In Vegas, they only have 1 de-icing plane & that they were running low on de-icer fluid. Our plane was 11th in line - fabulous!
L-o-n-g story short: We waited for over 1 hour to find out that we were stuck in Las Vegas. We waited for 2 hours for our luggage to come off the carousel. And then we waited for over 1 hour in 3 different lines to find out that we couldn't get a flight until Friday. We were stuck in Las Vegas for 2 nights.
So, we decided to make the best of it. We found an amazing deal at the Venetian on the Strip. This lavish hotel is designed to look like Venice, Italy. The first floor is the casino (of course, this is Vegas); the Grand Canal Shoppes takes up the entire 2nd floor; complete with the Grand Canal & authentic Italian gondolas, this shopping center includes fancy, high-end stores, restaurants & (our favorite) a bakery/coffee shop all set alongside the canal.
A perfect, unexpected, relaxing vacation.