CALIFORNIA & Christmas

After a long day of traveling, we finally made it to CALIFORNIA!!! And it was freezing!!! haha My parents picked us up from the airport with our favorite Mediterranean dinner for us! However, one dinner didn't stop my man from wanting in-n-out on the way home!! And, of course, my pops just had to join him :D

What a great way to start our break!!

Our first day was a nice day of relaxing, unpacking, and looking for our winter clothes that had all been packed away!! You may be wondering why and how Ashkon has a huge stack of books next to him- all which are Medical Dictionaries! Well...Ash found them in the mailroom and decided he would try to sell them! So, yes we brought them all the way from Grenada to California! But then just as he was getting ready to sell them, we decided that it would be a funny joke to give one to every family as a joke! (As we came to find out, everyone loved getting one and we were even still sold some to get a couple bucks!!) In the end, it was worth lugging them across the country :)

One of the things I was really looking forward to was baking in a REAL OVEN!!! (It's the little things, right?? :D) My mom and I made a couple different cookies (Tried a Whole wheat gingersnaps recipe that was soo good), brownies, and chex mix! It was so fun! Ash needed some major chill time so he had a very relaxing day to start his vacation. That night, we did a little last minute shopping since we couldn't do it all in Grenada! And then, we saw The Hobbit with Mom and Pop! Even though we were exhausted and had not adjusted to the time change or adjusted after our long day of travel, we had a great first day at home :)

Friday was our Annual Tacky Sweater but in a new location. Since the house was clean and somewhat baby-proofed for the kiddos coming, we decided we would have our sweater party at Bethany and Mike's new house! After having a bit of a slow morning, we packed the car and made a much needed lunch stop to CHICK-FIL-A (a new one had just opened in Walnut Creek!) It would be a huge understatement to say that Ash was excited :D We thoroughly enjoyed our lunch then we were on our way to Cameron Park! 

It was so great to see Bethany and Mike! I hadn't seen them since their wedding and Ash hadn't seen them since we had left in August! It was a much more relaxed sweater party than usual but it was so much fun to see friends, meet new friends, play games, and eat some DELISH treats!!!

When we got home the next morning, we had some pretty cute faces waiting for us!!! Jess, Jt, Jorde, Reese, and Zeke had driven through the night on Friday and arrived sometime early in the morning! The chaos was beginning! At least it was fun and adorable chaos! haha The weather wasn't the best so we mostly played inside but luckily Gammie was prepared with toys, homemade playdough, and sugar cookies ready to decorate!

Jorde liked his umbrella!

Yay! Poppa is on vacation!

Not long after we got home from Cameron Park, Rach, Ernie, and Ellie flew in from Temecula! We wanted to soak in every second we had with family and the kiddos, so we stayed in all day and just played and hung out! It was great!

On Sunday, we had home church since we didn't think we would be able to get everyone out of the house clothed and ready in time to make it there. We also had a family coming over for an early Christmas party! Everyone was coming over in the afternoon so we hung out until then!

Ellie practicing her walking! By the end of the trip, she was confidently walking back and forth the living room by herself!!!

Loved being with all my sisters!

We taught Jess all about Pinterest!

I love my family!!

Our grammies, aunt, uncles, cousin and more came for our family party! Since they weren't all coming back over on the actual Christmas day, we celebrated on Sunday! We got to tell them all about Grenada, show pictures, we all opened some presents, played wii, had fun with the kids and then had our traditional ARMENIAN DINNER (My fav!!). It was a lot of fun but obviously exhausting for a few of us...lol 

It finally stopped raining on Monday (Christmas Eve) and since the boys were having man time, the rest of us went to the park!

Love that silly boy!

Alright troops, here's the plan...

We are going to the Park!!

Everyone wanted to try out the swings!

Cousins!

Jorde loves trains!

We love Gammie!

Monkeying Around :)

We were going to Disneyland on the train!

CHRISTMAS EVE!

Family Photo!
(Mom and I made these Elf Yourself shirts for everyone! Each family had their own pic on the front of the shirt!)

Who's this guy??

They jumped in our pic!

Love him!!

Yummy Dinner!

Jorde wanted Ash to be a hurdle as he was running circles around the kitchen!

Here he comes!

After a while, he just decided to cannonball on the hurdles instead of jump over them! haha

On Christmas Eve night, we always open sister gifts (which has now turned into secret santa gifts since there are so many of us "kids"). This year was our first year trying it out and it was great! I had Rach and Ash had Jt. Jess had me and got me the cutest jacket! Ernie had Ash- see the pic...

Jess majorly scored on my secret santa gift!! Such a cute jacket!!! I wore it for my Christmas dinner outfit!

Ernie got Ash a California kit- In-n-Out giftcard (and hat!!), Chick-fil-a giftcard, iTunes gift card, and all his favorite candy!!!

Then, we ALWAYS get Christmas Pjs- one of my favorite traditions! Jorde is sporting his while he plays with his play dough!

Jorde loves his playdough from Gammie! He kept making everyone cookies and pancakes! Yum ;)

Grami and Grampi (Jt's parents) got them matching Mickey jammies that they had to show us before they put on their new ones from Gammie and Poppa!

CHRISTMAS MORNING!!

We have a lot of traditions for Christmas! We wake up on Christmas morning and do stocking presents while we snack on Christmas Tree Bread! YUM!

Our traditional Christmas Tree bread that we eat while we open our stocking presents!

Our first married Christmas!!!

Uncle Rad always makes a basketball hoop for us to shoot our wrapping paper into! A couple years ago, we started a traditional of putting a funny picture on the backboard of whichever boy wasn't there. Since they were all there this Christmas, we decided they all had to be on it!!!

Then, after stockings, we have a huge breakfast with eggs, all different kids of toast, fruit, little smokies, more Christmas tree bread, and MORE!! After breakfast, we usually take a little break, get the table cleared and set up for dinner, then we open the rest of our gifts!

Reese liked to sit on her new toy

Jorde checkin' out his Grenada tatoo that we gave him!

Ellie's Christmas outfit!

Mom's Family Tree!

Ellie loves Poppa!

Slap yo' Mama (A spice that Ash loves in his Jambalaya!)

Jess likes being a Momma and an Auntie! Gammie got the girls matching Christmas outfits- so cute!!

Mom and Pop are some of the best givers I have ever known and I am so glad that I got their love of giving gifts! Even though it is fun to get gifts on Christmas and always get spoiled, we always have so much fun giving gifts to family!

After we cleaned up our gifts (we each get a laundry basket to fill with our gifts to keep them organized and separated), a few more family members came over! We finished up giving out a few more gifts (I made wedding photo books for the grammies and they loved them! I made a big photo book for my parents- they had a lot of fun looking at what I did and reminiscing on our special day 6 MONTHS AGO- can't believe how fast time goes by!) So, then before dinner we usually will read the Christmas story from the Bible or do a Christmas play acting out the birth of Jesus but it was a bit more chaotic with all the kids and they were just not old enough to want to do a play yet! But maybe in 2 years when we are all together again?!? :)

Cutie Pie!

TIME TO EAT!

Christmas Dinner...love Armenian food! Best tradition ever!

I don't know how we had room for dessert but we all did! There were pies, cookies, chocolates, and ice cream! (Yes, American ice cream!)
But, before Christmas ended, we had to test out my new Just Dance 4!!!! Here's a little sneak of what went on that night!!




Then, before we passed out from the days activities, we watched Jorde's gift of the Christmas Version of one of his favorite videos What's in the Bible (made by the same guy who created Veggie Tales). Even though it's made for kids, it taught us the coolest things about Christmas and certain traditions and reminded us of the real meaning of Christmas!!

The next day we had to say bye to Jess and the gang  :(  It was really hard knowing that we wouldn't see them for 6 more months! :(

The next day, we headed up to Cameron Park to Bethany and Mike's! The boys were excited because they had decided they were going to Mike's dad's house to shoot some guns (Bethany joined in too). It was way too cold for me (still hadn't adjusted to the 50-60 degree change from our home) and we had to keep Ellie warm and away from the loud noises of the gun. So, Mom, Rach, Ellie and I watched White Christmas and taught Mom how to use Instagram!

We had to unfortunately get Ernie to the airport, so after dinner at Chipotle, we headed to Sacramento airport because he had to get home for work. And we had to say our next goodbye for 6 months to Bethany, Mike, and Ernie. Luckily, Rach and Ellie got to stay for one more day! 

Do a little work out before they stuff their faces!

On Friday, we had a very calm morning with no agenda. We knew that Ash and I had to do some packing up before we headed down to So Cal but we wanted to have some fun before the storm of packing that always seems to occur. We headed to the mall with everyone to make some returns and exchanges. The best part of the mall?? Discovering that Ellie likes Incubus!!! We went in a store where they were playing their cd and she was jamming the whole time! It was awesome!!!

Love her!

We got some awesome Giants phone covers for Christmas. Unfortunately, they weren't good quality covers so we decided to take some pics with them before returning with them. We didn't think it would be worth it to have our phones potentially get damaged just to have a sweet cover. We were bummed though! And then the real packing began. It woudn't have been as difficult except that we had to pack for So Cal and half way for Grenada of the stuff that we needed from my parents house. And it made it harder that I wasn't ready to leave yet...

But, we got it all done, had one more sleep at home and then headed to So Cal the next morning. It was really nice that I didn't have to say a real goodbye to Mom and Pop. Mom got Pop tickets to the Rose Bowl since Stanford was in it!! They were staying in Manhattan Beach which is right near Ashkon's parents so they came by for New Year's Eve!!

But before New Year's Eve...

We had our Christmas with Ashkon's family the night we got down there. Then, the next day, we went to DISNEYLAND!!!!

Aladdin's Oasis...They should hire Ash to be Aladdin!

Back to Club 33! We didn't really go but I wanted a pic by it as a married woman since that is where I was taken for my bachelorette party!!!

Aladdin & Jasmine ;)

Having some fun in the Hat Shop!

<3

Mickey & Minnie

Mickey waved to me at the parade!!!

First time in Cars Land!!!

"Act like someone with a Ferrari!"

Show Stopper!

"Act really excited!" (Attempt #1)

Attempt #2 much better! First Cars Land Ride!!

A Bugs Life

Love him!

His usual modeling spot

Last ride of the day--Toy Story Mania! It was absolutely freezing by the time we left!!

Doing some work! Our little Mac family :)

Dana came to hang out with us for New Years Eve!!! This is after we got cleaned up from playing SPIKEBALL at the park! If you haven't played you need to! It is so fun! Ash got it for Christmas and it was our first time playing!!

Love this pic!

So glad Mom and Pop came for NYE!!! Have fun at the Rose Bowl tomorrow!! Go Stanford!!

My New Years Date!

They all happened to wear APU shirts...

I got really sick on New Years Day :( The next day, Ash had surprised me and told me that he was going to take me to my favorite breakfast place (Ki's in Cardiff-by-the-sea)-the only thing I asked for for Christmas- they have the best muffins and the food is definitely worth the drive!! And then we were going to go to the Rainbow Outlet because he made me throw mine that I had for over 6 years away because of how torn up they were...but we couldn't go because I couldn't even move out of bed. What a way to spend our last few days of vacation...

Ash insisted on testing out our new camera even though I felt awful...This is what I gave him.

Our second to last day, I started to feel better so we were able to do two (actually 3!) of the things that we had held off the few days before- Rainbow Outlet, Meet Amy Crawford for lunch and go to Azusa to see some friends! Even though I still didn't feel 100% I was so glad that we got out for the day! We first headed to the Rainbow Outlet so I could get some new rainbows (Thanks Mom :D). Then, we met Amy at Corner Bakery and got to catch up for a really long time until she had to get back to work! It was truly one of my highlights of break!! :) Lastly, we headed to Azusa! Man, it was weird to go back to our college where our lives together had been based. But, so fun too! Not too many people were back yet for the spring semester but we got to hang out with Gareth (one of Ash's old teammates), see my old coach Carrie and meet the new assistant Lana! And, we all went to dinner at Canyon City BBQ -one of my favorite dinner places ever!!! I got to hear about how all the girls were doing on the team, we got updated on whats been going on at APU; we had a great time hanging out with friends, talking about our new life as a married couple and in Grenada and were encouraged by the time we spent in a place that means so much to us both and by the people who truly made an effort to see us while we were there!!

The new field that has been built since we've been gone!

We really miss this place!

Our next and last day was filled with errands, one more meal at In-n-Out and way too much time packing. It was a rough day- we didn't feel ready to leave and had a lot of anxiety about going, even though we had felt so settled when we left the term before...But, we were able to do our last minute shopping and somewhat enjoy our last day in California. I was really glad that I got to see my mom once more! She came to pick up the car that we had driven down that was also full of our winter clothes so that everything will be in one spot when we come home from Grenada. We were able to spend some really needed one-on-one time where she was able to give me tons of encouragement and relieve some of my anxieties about going back! (It also really helped that she was coming to visit 3 weeks later!) But, it was such a blessing to get that time with her. Unfortunately, when I got back to the house after that time, there was still soo much packing to do. But...it got done. We got 1 maybe 2 hours of sleep and were up by 3 AM to catch our flight back to our home. We were so happy for the time in California and to get a bit of a recharge before heading home to Grenada! We definitely were ready to get back to our weather too ;)