I bet you all thought we tipped over!

Whew!  Where on earth did the time go?  I promise you our little island of Guam is still upright and our (my) lack of blogging has nothing to do with what the crazy man from Georgia thought could happen to us.

So here we are…2012.  How did we get here so quickly??!!  Because I really don't have anything wild and exciting to share (shocking, I know), I'm just going to give some updates on what us crazy Kennedys have been up to.

Let's see…we'll start with China.  Hehehe…JUST KIDDING!  I know it only took me two months to finish that post, but rest assured, I am long done with it :)  Let's begin with Christmas!

We I put up our tree the first weekend of December.  I was quite excited this year to get the tree up since last year we canceled Christmas in our house.  Ok, I know Christmas has a deeper meaning than just a gift-giving holiday and you can't just "cancel" it, but while we recognize the day for what it is, we chose to treat it just like any other day, except we didn't have to go into work.  Folks, I had just arrived to Guam, was all messed up with the time change and hormones, didn't have time or care to shop, and we just had a quiet day at home with the Griswalds (my favorite Christmas movie).  So now you can understand why this year, I was PUMPED!  It was time to bring back all that spirit and then some.  Out came the ornaments and the tree, and to work I went.  I'm going to take this opportunity to explain to you that I did do all of this myself only because my husband was suffering relentlessly from massive pain in the butt. Literally.  He had a hemorrhoid.  It's ok to laugh…I did.  You would have thought he was gnawing his own arm off the way he behaved.  I just made sure he changed positions on the couch every now and then so he wouldn't end up with a skin decubitus as well.  I gave him all the love and support a wife can give a hemorrhoid husband, but by about day 3, I was ready to lance that thing off myself just to keep from hearing about it and get him UP!  So anyway, I decorated while he watched (I'm sure he was thankful for the hemorrhoid at this moment though).

No chimneys in Guam, so the stockings were hung on the wall by the tree…doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?!  As soon as the tree went up, it seems the gifts for Reece immediately started making an appearance.  Oh my word.  The presents this child received.  Unbelievable.  I was nervous putting wrapped packages under the tree out of concern Reece would try to open them.  I was adamant he wait until Christmas, since you know, 9 month olds totally understand days of the week and holidays and such.  But anyway, we didn't have to worry because at first, the child had zero interest in anything tree or present related.  He would look at the tree and touch it, but quickly lost interest.  Whew!

The week before Christmas, the marina on the Navy base hosted a 'Holiday Boat Parade.'  They asked those who owned boats to participate and to decorate their boats for Christmas to go on display during a boat parade.  The boat lover Carlos is, he was out there for almost 2 full days getting busy before the parade.  He did a great job with the decorations and was by far the best looking boat.  The pic in the daylight doesn't do it justice, but my photos at night (when the parade took place) were not that good.  We took friends with us, a bottle of wine, some beer, and a boat parade we had!

Back at home, it wasn't until gifts from my brother showed up that Reece became a force to be reckoned with when it came to trying to keep him from opening gifts early.  I don't know what it was about that candy cane paper, but the child was bound and determined to try and eat it. Now the simple solution would be to put the gifts in another room so he wouldn't be so curious, but see, that would've been too easy and I was being a good mother by trying to teach my 9 month old how to be patient with gift opening :)

Fast forward to Christmas morning, otherwise known as the day our living room blew up.  We rejoiced in the fact that we still had a baby…translation:  too young to know Christmas/Santa and therefore does not wake up at 4am to open gifts.  So we slept until Reece's norm (6:30), got up and did our normal routine with him and even put him down for his morning nap.  It wasn't until after his nap did we start opening gifts.  And by we, I mean me.  We took TONS of video footage of Reece NOT opening his gifts.  No interest whatsoever.  So I would open his presents for him, he would glance at whatever new toy came out of the box, then grab the remote control for the tv and begin his usual playing with the remote.  His first Christmas went exactly as how Carlos and I predicted it would be, which is why we only bought him a couple gifts (so many gifts came in for him that we weren't even going to get him anything, but because one day he might ask us what we bought him for his first Christmas…because I'm sure he'll ask (sarcasm), we had to get him something!)  By the time all the gift opening was done, I was the one who needed the nap!

Reece loves his Leap Frog table…no unwrapping required.  We had it set up and ready to go

Enjoying the pile of presents

Greeting his new Pooh Bear!

The poor child's pj pants were a bit big, so he had a baby gangsta' sag going on

I have a couple of videos to post as well, but I'm going to attach those in a separate blog.

So after present opening, Reece ate lunch and went down for another nap while we cleaned up before heading out the door to Christmas dinner at our friends house.  Unfortunately, this is also where my camera decided to go crazy and I was only able to get one pic of Reece with me on Christmas.  None of the pics with Carlos turned out and none were taken of the 3 of us together with our tree (sad face).  Side note, I have since bought a new camera and it is awesome!

 

The following week we rang in the New Year very low key.  Carlos had gone out fishing during the day and caught many, many mahi mahi fish so by the time he got home, we ordered take out (Reece was already asleep), watched a movie and went to bed.  There isn't much to stay awake until midnight for here in Guam!  I rang in New Years day with a stomach bug that pretty much put me down from the afternoon through the next day.  It was awful, but always wanting to look on the bright side of things, it was the fastest holiday cookie weight loss ever! :)

Now that all the holiday hoopla has died down and things are back to normal at work, we have set our sights on what 2012 will bring.  Reece will be turning 1 in March (seriously…2 months away…my word) so I've been working out some party planning details.  We are in the early stages of planning a trip to Australia in April.  Carlos will be taking Part 2 of his ortho boards in July so this means a trip back to the states for him.  We are hoping to end 2012 with a trip to New Zealand in early December.  Other than our travels, we'll see what else our last full year in Guam has in store for us!