For Christmas we went to my parent's house in El Paso. I love El Paso. That must sound silly to everybody else but I really missed it. Random women calling me "mija," crisostomo's burritos, dry desert air, the orange glow over the city, mountains, the giant sky, and seeing my favorite people. Also, this is the place I met and fell in love with John. He proposed to me on the Rio Grande for Pete's sake.We have lots of memories here.
We left on the eighteenth and the twelve hour drive was actually pretty easy. This was the first Christmas in a while that my whole family has been together so that was really neat. Nora loved it. She has three older cousins on my side of the family. To be honest I thought that they would probably like playing by themselves and doing "big kid" things, but they were awesome at playing with Nora. She went everywhere with them and talked up a storm. She also learned how to say "ga-ma" which was so cute I nearly died. On Christmas day she got a dog that sings and tells you the names of its body parts when you press them. Currently it is in a diaper and a pink polka dot skirt. It's like Nora's baby. She also got a car that you can ride around on and my brother got her a turtle book that makes sounds. That book was a total lifesaver on the airplane ride to Wisconsin.
John had to leave the day after christmas so he could be at work the next day so he drove the car back to San Diego while I stayed for my niece, Nadia's baptism. It was a special day for a very special girl. I left the day after with Nora for Wisconsin. They were nice enough to meet me at the airport in Chicago and drive us Richfield. I think Nora knew we were leaving my mom's house because even though she hadn't warmed up completely to a few people in the house, as we were saying goodbye she gave everybody a big kiss on the cheek.
The plane ride would have been okay if Nora wasn't such a creature of habit. We left during her nap but she is used to a pre-nap routine and was too excited to go down so there were tantrums and panicked/desperate breastfeeding attempts. It was a mess. Luckily the people around us were so patient with us. While we were in El Paso my Sister Valerie had taught Nora to squeal "weeeee" really loud as she was going down the slide. And when Nora wasn't crying, she would look out the window of the plane and scream "weeeeee!" So thanks Valerie for that.
At John's parents' house things are always more relaxed. They have a basement for the kids to run around in, so most of the time I got to read my books and let Nora do her thang. Which is weird for me because before I went to school I remember playing a lot with my mom and at home I play a lot with Nora. So this whole "independent play" thing is kind of nice. Nora sits and plays with her toys and now I can actually get stuff done. Who knew? (Everybody but me #MomNoob)
New Years was fun. John's mom celebrates with appetizers and I ate so much! Did I mention my Mom-in-law and Sister-in-law Laurel are pretty much the best cooks in the entire world? The only downside to the whole vacation was that I didn't get to be with John. Weather was terrible in Chicago and since we fly standby we couldn't leave Chicago until last week. So Nora and I were away for close to a month. Our friend and neighbor Kristina picked us up from the airport and we hung out at her place until John got off work. Her husband arrived home first and Nora started crying - I think because there was a lot of talk about Daddy coming home, and she naturally assumed it was hers. So when she found out it wasn't him she started feeling sad. Luckily John showed up a few minutes later and she was crazy happy. I can't even describe how happy we were. Maybe it's strange to miss each other so much. But with a deployment coming up I feel like every second matters.
So thanks to our family and friends who spent time with us over the last month! We miss you and love you!
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