Christmas and New Year's pictures

I had a great vacation! 5 days with my family in Austin for Christmas and 4 days with Scott's family in El Paso for New Year's. We did it all in the car, and we drove in Scott's RX-8. More than 2000 miles! Makes up for his car being on blocks for a month. He finally got his wheels put on and was able to show it off. He also put a computer in it for music and I was able to watch two DVDs on the long trip back once it was too dark to read. That was really nice. I also vacationed from blogging, so here are the photo highlights to catch up.



Everyone was in town for the holidays this year, so we took a family photo at my aunt and uncle's house in the country. Mom got me a nice tripod and I brought the right speed film this time, and I think it came out great. This is actually the digital one. I haven't developed the film yet. The two girls in the front just add an element of character to the photo. We did miss my nephew Quentin. He had to work on Christmas Eve. So the picture is not quite perfect.



Becca took this one of us. I think it came out great too!



This is a pic of the majority of my gifts. I started reading The Da Vinci Code on my trip, and I really like the mystery of it so far. I also got some money, the tripod and a nice ceramic napkin holder. Scott got me several items of jewelry, my favorite of which is shown in the next picture. And I love this bear! I opened up the jewelry box in front of the family, and I couldn't read the inscription out loud because a lump jumped in my throat. It says, "Karen, the best is yet to come. Love, Scott". Of course everyone was wondering what that means :-)



How many "oohs" and "aahhs" do I hear? And who just smiled? I know I did. It was a total surprise that I was not expecting. We had saved a few gifts to open together on Christmas morning. I opened this box to find the cute bear and the foot said Helzburg Diamonds. "Oh dear," I thought. "Surely he wouldn't." Then I had no idea what I would find. There was a jewelry box in the bear's backpack. Yes, we have talked about getting married, but we are not quite at the point in our relationship for the "real" ring. So he got me this ring to represent his promise to marry me once we are both ready. It is elegant, simple and beautiful. I really like it. Now don't be mad that I'm just now announcing this. I know I could have sent out emails galore, but I chose to stay quiet until I could post it on the blog.



Scott's mom always makes a batch of tamales over the holidays. She freezes them and they usually last all year. This year I got to help, and it was really fun. While in El Paso, we also went to Juarez, Mexico and browsed the markets one afternoon, we met up with several of his friends, his dad showed me how to clean a gun, ate several great Mexican meals and even made it to Las Cruces again to have more of Grandma's enchiladas. We brought back some tamales too.

And this year, I finally got that New Year's kiss everyone talks about. It was truly special.

You can see more holiday highlights on my Flickr page.