We went to California for Christmas this year to be with my parents and siblings. We had some presents to each other to open before we left, but we weren't quite sure when to open them, so we started pretty early in December. Our thought process went something like this "Open them the day before we leave? That'll be a busy day with packing. How 'bout the weekend before? We could... there's nothing special about December 15th though. Any day we open them won't be Christmas, so we might as well pick any day. And we need the UPC code for the mail-in rebate on that already wrapped box... so December 3rd it is!"
We only opened one on the 3rd. It was a new TV (the one with the mail-in rebate).
We made it part of our Family Home Evening lesson. We talked about the Christmas story and the wise men bringing gifts and why we give gifts to each other. And we saved another present for the next weeks FHE lesson. Some nights, we used opening a present as a bribe to get Dallin to eat his dinner. That child has never swallowed whole chunks of food so willingly.
We used their eagerness to open presents to our advantage. On the airplane ride to California, we wrapped some cheap dollar store toys for them to open on the plane.
When they we getting squirmy and didn't want to sit quietly any longer, we broke out a present and that bought us a little more time.
As has become a tradition when visiting my parents, we went to Monterey Bay.
We ate lunch at the Fish Hopper and Dallin enjoyed making Grandma color his menu
Connor had pizza.
We went to the aquarium next. Dallin's favorite part is definitely the splash tank.
We visited the beach a few times on our trip (In the few hours that it wasn't raining).
Connor found a stick and was using it to scoop sand into his mouth. Yummy.
Mckay and I got to go to Alcatraz with a few other family members while the kids stayed at home with Grandma.
Here we are on the boat heading for the island.
It was a pretty cool tour and I'm glad we went. They had pretty strict rules for the prisoners there. This was my favorite one:
"You are entitled to food, clothing, shelter and medical attention. Anything else you get is a privilege."
I am so hanging this up in my kids' room someday.
More on our trip coming up...
2 comments:
That's what we took away from our Alcatraz trip, too! Glad our parenting styles are the same. :)
That trip to Alcatraz was fun. I'm glad we all made it. I love that you guys started opening presents so early. I love second Christmas! ...or third or fourth...
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