Christmas, etc…

Christmas has come and gone, and it was a pretty quiet one being just the 3 of us.  On Christmas Eve, we went to the children’s Nativity Play at Holy Trinity church just around the corner from our flat.  It’s a little church surrounded by an old cemetery where the tombstones are mossy, worn, and tipping over.  It’s pretty cool, I plan on taking some pictures of it sometime.  Anyway, Sarah was sure that the service started at 5:30, so we got all dressed up and walked over only to find out that it didn’t start until 6:30!  So we walked around for an hour and got colder, and then went back to the church.  The kids in the play were cute, and Simone was mesmerized!

Simone got up extra early Christmas morning…go figure.  She tried to wake us up, but when she was unsuccessful she went into the reception room and started peeking at her presents.  Well, I guess we’re getting up now!  Simone got all kinds of cool presents from Santa, parents, and grandparents – including the one in this video:

Sarah and I didn’t get each other anything for Christmas (or our anniversary) except some chocolates for our stockings.  We had all kinds of excuses (time, money, etc), but in hindsight this was really a mistake.  We have to learn to make some time for each other if we’re going to make it through this!

Sarah made a turkey for Christmas since we didn’t really have a Thanksgiving dinner (more excuses!), and it turned out perfect:  crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside.  And she made up some stuffing with cinnamon and nutmeg, which was very different from any stuffing that we’ve had before, and incredibly delicious, and the mashed potatoes and homemade gravy had me licking the plate!  All-in-all, a pretty good Christmas.

Yesterday, I took Simone to the Natural History Museum to check out the dinosaur bones.  We had a great time, but it was ka-razzy crowded!  So many people.  We ate lunch there and then headed for the dinosaurs…that’s when I saw the line (queue for you Brits).  Yikes!  The dinosaurs are awesome, so everybody wants to see the dinosaur exhibit!  There’s a huge diplodocus skeleton in the grand hall, and the line went back-and-forth, back-and-forth under the diplodocus.  Fortunately, the line moved somewhat quickly and we were standing among dinos in under 30 minutes.  The full skeletons are plaster-cast reproductions, but they’re still awesome:  triceratops, iguanodon, stegosaurus…and there’s an animatronic T-Rex!  I’d show you all of the pictures that I took, but I forgot to take the camera…whoops!

I really should just start carrying the camera with me all the time.