Merry Christmases :-)

This year we turned the one day of Christmas into a multi day celebration.  The first step was getting Christmas Eve right.  The 24th was a Monday, and the federal government had been given the day off, so Jeff was home to help us hunt for the best possible food for our Christmas Eve dinner.  The first thing the girls did in the morning was check on Google's Santa Tracker.  Viv was explaining to Elena how it works.

Vivan loves it, and I think it's a brilliant idea.  There are fun games, but it also teaches geography and has little features on each of the places Santa goes to.  It was a beautiful day outside though, so we wanted to get the girls out of the house.  The friends we had spent the weekend with told us about a store called Gastronomy Market that has some higher end food, as well as mango flavored Greek yogurt that Elena completely fell in love with.  We decided to walk to the closest one and stop at the playground along the way.  The walk was a bit long for Elena, but she lit up when we got to the playground.  She and Vivi worked on conquering the climbing ropes.

We ended up finding the mango yogurt, but didn't have any luck with a good ham, so we went to our default, PriceSmart.  Vivian has also been asking for an apple pie, so I made my first attempt.

It ended up looking a bit like someone had sat on it, but it tasted good, so Vivian declared it the best pie ever.

While I was busy cooking up dinner, the girls were watching Christmas movies and eating popcorn.

The got through the original (and really only in our household) Grinch as well as our family favorite, Mickey's Twice Upon a Christmas.  Then it was time for Christmas Eve dinner.  Viv was so excited she started serving herself green beans before the rest of us even got to the table.

Elena is not a green bean fan, so she had ham and carrots.

After dinner, the girls got their first Christmas present, new matching Christmas PJs.

The next morning, the girls were very civilized and let us sleep until almost 7am.  We got coffee and hot chocolate for Viv, and then we started with stockings.  Vivian was very pleased with most of the items in her stocking.

Elena had asked Santa for bubble wrap, a candy cane, and a doll that looked like her.  She was very pleased to find the bubble wrap and candy cane in her stocking.

After rooting around in her stocking for a while though, she said, where is my doll?  We suggested she check the boxes, so she started with a promising looking one.

She needed some help from big sister to get it unwrapped.

As she moved the box around, she discovered that the doll blinked! She was thrilled.

There were lots of other presents too.

Viv got two different doll organizing containers, which she was a bit skeptical about.

She has since come around to the fact that they could actually be very useful.  While I was making breakfast, she used her new lip gloss kit to create a berry flavor.

Jeff and Elena worked on reading some of her new books, but she was more interested in popping her bubble wrap.

The girls also had fun trying out their new game of Operation.

There had been a family wide request for Christmas pancakes, so I decided to give it my best shot.  Historically, I have had issues with pancakes, but I decided to try a Bisquick recipe, and after one undercooked starter pancake, I was on a roll :-)

The pancakes and bacon were a hit!

We had accidentally ordered 30 eggs instead of 12, so, since I was on a cooking kick, I decided to cook up some more bacon and make a quiche.  It turned out really well.

With plenty of food, we spent the day enjoying our presents and stopping occasionally to fuel up.  Our Christmas fun continued into the next day, since not all our packages had arrived before Christmas.  Also, Jeff was a little sad that he hadn't gotten anything in his stocking, so while he was at work, the girls and I went shopping.

They each picked something for Jeff, and he was happy with the results.

He had also brought home a box of presents from his mom.  The two big hits were an instant camera for Vivian, and a Hatchimal for Elena.

In our toy ignorance, we hadn't heard of Hatchimals, but a little research showed us that they were an internet sensation.  They start in an egg.

They make various noises and move around inside the egg for a while.  I think ours was in its egg for about twenty minutes.  Then, it starts to hatch.

Viv checked online, and we were allowed to help it out, so we broke off the shell pieces.

Once it was out, it made a lot of noise, and its eyes kept changing colors.  Vivian was our head researcher on what it all meant and what it wanted.

After much feeding, soothing, and rocking, Elena put it to sleep.

We're still waiting on one more Christmas box, so the fun will continue.  My big Christmas present didn't come in a box though.  My present was Lasik surgery, which I had yesterday.  I had to wear special glasses for the day, and everything was a bit blurry.

But today things are getting clearer and clearer.  It's super exciting and a great Christmas present.  Of course, our whole family's favorite present is travel, but we'll have to wait another week to enjoy that.  For now, we're just relaxing in Bogotá.

Villeta

We didn't have anything big planned for the first three weeks of vacation, so I knew we would need some kind of break from Bogotá.  There's another embassy family with twin four year old girls who come over for football quite regularly, so one Sunday we were trying to figure out an easy, kid friendly getaway.  A lot of things were already booked, but we found a nice Airbnb with a pool in Villeta which is about two hours north west of Bogotá.  It's also far enough down the mountain to be warm, which sounded good to all of us, so I booked it.  Jeff took Friday off and we caravanned out of the city around nine in the morning.

It took an hour to get out of Bogotá, and then another hour to get to Villeta, but the trickiest part was finding the house itself with minimal directions, no address, and rutted dirt roads.  We got turned around a couple times, but eventually, with the help of a local boy who biked ahead to show us the way, we found the right gate and drove into our retreat.  Within about ten minutes Jeff and the girls were in the suits and in the pool.

The house's setup was pretty cool.  It was basically a long open room with three seating areas and a dining room table.  At either end were two bedrooms with en suite bathrooms, so each family took a side.  There was also a small open air kitchen, and a housekeeper to help with cooking and cleaning.  The kids spent most of the morning in the pool, while the adults played with them a bit and sat and read their books on the sofas with a good view of the pool the rest of the time.

There was quite a bit of land, so after a few hours of pool time, the girls got dressed and went exploring, led by the intrepid Vivi.  There was a grass tennis court as well as eight holes of some pretty rough golfing.

It wasn't ideal for sports enthusiasts, but it provided a lovely backdrop for the pool, and the girls had fun exploring.  Eventually, it got dark, and the girls played with toys in the living area.

The housekeeper's family lived on the property as well and had quite a few animals including several dogs, chickens, and at least one evil rooster that started his alarm calls at 3am.  We were not pleased about that, but managed to shut it out and go back to sleep.  When we eventually got up, the chickens were roaming around taking care of the early morning bugs.

It got into the 60s overnight, and it was still a bit chilly when we got up in the morning.  We tried to slow the kids down with some breakfast, but they weren't interested in delaying their pool time.

There were two mango trees on the property, and the housekeeper picked a couple and sliced them up for us to enjoy.  That got Elena out of the pool ;-)

She has turned into such a confident swimmer.  She was swimming all over the pool, and we are so proud of her.

Viv's swimming is also impressive.  She's working on her kick turns, and so she was swimming laps back and forth.  She was also wonderful with the younger girls who hung on her every word.

To thank her for being such a great big sister, I let her pick an afternoon activity.  She found a big chess set at the end of the living area, and so she and I set up a game of chess.

We had a fun game, but she really wanted to win, so I let her play both sides at the end.  Meanwhile, Elena and her little friends were doing arts and crafts.  Elena didn't complete a big project, but she made lots of little things to use for a puppet show.

The next morning, Elena took one more swing in the hammock and said goodbye to one of the dogs on the property.  There were at least three that wandered in and out while we were there.

We said a final goodbye to the pool, and then got in the car.

It took less than two hours to get home, which was nice.  It was Sunday in the country though, so the cyclists took over the entire right lane of the "highway".  That was part of why we left early, and it was worth it.  We were glad to be home, but we really enjoyed our break from the city.