Emma and Pau are skiing! (12/28)

Emma and Pau took a private lesson with Kevin, who was a great teacher. He had the girls laughing the entire time and they actually skiied on their own! After the lesson, Arturo, Mau and I took the girls down the mountain which was fun too. Though Alexa did not take a lesson, she went down at least 5-6 times with me and Arturo. The child loved it and kept asking for more! Unfortunately, there are no pictures of Alexa skiing :(

Wintergreen Tubing (12/27)

We arrived at Wintergreen early on the morning of the 27th and headed right to the tubing slide for kids. Emma, Pau, and Alexa were addicted from the first run -- and spent time tubing each day we were there. For the most part, Emma and Pau were going up and down completely on there own, at one point, even helping Alexa as well.

Emma and Pau "hooked" their tubes together and would sometimes go down together, screaming the entire way. Once, all 3 cousins hooked together and slid down the slide. Pretty fun stuff!

Mexican Invasion, 2007

I haven't updated this blog in over two weeks, and believe me, it wasn't because there weren't any pictures. Arturo's family just left us yesterday after a two week visit. Every single day was filled with activity and chaos -- and shopping, lots of it -- and I'm only now catching breath long enough to start updating the blog.

If you care enough to follow our adventure chronologically, then you should scroll to the first post of this series, entitled "Everyone Arrives (12/22)" and start reading upwards from there.

Enjoy!
- Fran

Paulina Ochoa, Makeup Artist (12/26)

Pau got a makeup kit during one of the shopping sprees, and promptly set to work on Emma. She turned Emma into a butterfly:

Leaves - 12/25

What better thing to do on Christmas Day and what better way to make your guests work, than to have them work on your yard? After breakfast, everyone headed out to our backyard which still had leaves for packing. It took a team of 7 adults almost 2 hours to fill up 44 contractor size bags of leaves! Everyone was exhausted afterwards -- the guys promptly went for a beer run after the workout.

Christmas Morning - Present Frenzy

We positioned video cameras and digital cameras to capture the girls' faces when they first saw all the presents under the tree... and though they were happy, if you look at the pictures closely, it actually appears that Ale and I seem to be way more excited than the kids! Anyway, everyone still had fun opening presents (which took almost 2 full hours)...

Santa visits again (12/24)

After the kids went to bed that night, we adults stayed up for hour, discussing many important topics, such as:
1) When should you tell your kids that Santa does not exist?
2) Should we separate the presents from Santa from the other presents?
3) How best to take a picture of the presents under the tree?
4) What should Santa write in his letter to the girls?
Mau did take great shots of the tree, laden with gifts, and ultimately we decided that Santa couldn't fit any more presents under the tree, and instead he left them in the chimney for the girls to see. I don't know who was more excited that night, the kids or the adults...

Artsy shot by Mau:

Christmas Eve Dinner

We had our "big" dinner, Christmas Eve -- Turkey (thanks Ginny) and all the fixings. Midway through the dinner, Gabriel put on Arturo's Santa hat, quietly slipped out of the house -- unnoticed by the kids. Suddenly, there was a loud knock on the door. All the kids froze, and looked towards the door and all they heard was a loud "HO HO HO!" By the time they got to the window, all they saw was Santa's hat running away! They were so excited they were jumping up and down -- see pictures below!

Typical Scene at Old Quincy (12/24)

Here is a typical scene at our house during the last two weeks -- it may look peaceful, but just imagine 5 cousins running around screaming, lots of chattering, and general chaos.

Gingerbread Houses (12/24)

The girls decorated Gingerbread Houses on Christmas Eve. I used Graham crackers and melted white chocolate to put them together. Abi, the architectural wizard, helped me to implement the design and decorated the houses with tinted chocolate to make doors and windows. Each cousin's house came out very different, but unique.

Montse in Motion (12/23)

Udvar Hazy (12/23)

A Squirrel! (12/23)

Everyone (from Mexico) got very excited with the first squirrel sighting:

Busy Cousins - 12/23

We were all amazed at how well the girls all played together for the entire visit. Towards the end, the bickering did start a bit, but there was not one major fight the entire two weeks.

Here are Emma and Pau playing Chutes and Ladders


The girls are working on a Christmas Art Project here:

Everyone Arrives! (12/22)

Xmas is over, and we are all exhausted but boy did we have a good time. Here's a chronological look at events over the last two weeks:

We celebrated Gabriel's birthday the first day that everyone arrived.

Early Christmas

The Chens came over for an early Christmas celebration at our place. Here are the girls scribbling on the dry erase board, while Jujy takes her usual spot in front of the kitchen (mini-Ginny). Then we were treated to an "Item" Christmas sing-a-long -- complete with its littlest drummer -- The Juje.

Gift opening frenzy:

The kids' table -- the girls stuffed their faces and then continued on their maniacal streak of tearing down the house.