Merry Christmas

As usual, I'm late in wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. I wanted to give a quick update mid Allison and Garrick's stay. We are all having a wonderful time. The kids are having a blast. The girls are dotting over Lachlan and he is just living it up! He is trying his best to keep up with the crazy Rohrs. Lachlan was on the verge of walking when they first arrived. Within two days, he is practically running! There is just too much to miss out on if he doesn't keep up.

Christmas was very nice. As Karl mentioned he was able to watch the girls open their presents. Very surreal. They were very happy with everything Santa brought, but more excited with their cousins and Aunt and Uncle's gifts. It always amazes me just how much they love girly stuff. I don't recall being that girly when I was a kids, okay maybe. My favorite was Ella's combination of Daddy's red and green Afghani dress combined with Poppop and Nanni's turquoise tutu. She lived in it all day.

We had a very relaxing day, unlike most of our previous Christmases. With no where to go and no one to wow with our cooking, Allison and I sat on the couch for a bit drinking lattes for the majority of the day. I think we finally decided we should put the roast in the oven at 4 if we though we were going to eat at a reasonable time. For the most part dinner was a success with all of our substitutions. Trying to find or cook gourmet food in Oki can be quite challenging. For instance the entire island was out of cream. That alone nixed a few recipes. Dessert was saved with a can of readi whip and melted white chocolate (and a whole lot of Allison's creativity). We enjoyed sharing our English heritage with our neighbors, but introducing them to flaming Christmas Pudding.

In case you were wondering where Garrick was during all of this, he was enjoying our most unexpected, kind hearted gifts....a Wii. Just a few days prior to Christmas, the gym held a strength and endurance competition. I knew better than to compete, I knew who the competition was...Marta and Sarah. Both ladies blew the competition away, with some mind numbing amounts of pull ups, push ups and crunches. After over 80 push ups, Marta won a Wii, as did Sarah. The Sullivans recently acquired a Wii for Farrell's birthday. They generously surprised us by giving their newly acquired Wii. It was beyond what any of us expected. We are very grateful. It just goes to show just how wonderful our Oki family is.

Happy Holidays,

-Erica