On the evening of December 21st we flew up tp Seattle to spend Christmas with Rick's parents. On Sunday we took a drive to their cabin on Herron Island. It was kind of gray and rainy, but it was still fun to see. Sunday night we had dinner with our friends Karin and Robert. We had a great time and finally got to see their great new house.
On Monday the weather was clear, so we took a drive to downtown Seattle and went to the top of the Space Needle. The view was amazing! We got lucky and picked one of Seattle's 75 or so sunny days for 2002 to see it. Afterwards we saw a model train display at the Seattle center, then had dinner with our friends Christy and Brian in downtown Seattle. Lots of laughing!
OnTuesday evening we headed to Rick's sister's husband's parents house for dinner. There was a big group, probably 25. It was also Chris' birthday. Afterwards we headed back to Burien and went to Saint Bernadette's Church for midnight (ok, 10pm) mass, where Rick's mom sang in the choir.
Christmas morning Chris and Shannon arrived around 10am, and we all opened our presents. Lots of great stuff! Afterwards we all piled in the car to go see the Lord of the Rings, but, unfortunately, it was sold out. It worked out just as well since we had plenty of fun that afternoon trying out Shannon and Chris' new iBook (and sampling Randy's Cosmopolitans, which everyone seemed to like!). Dinner was later than Rick's Mom really wanted, but what no one knew (except Randy and Fred) was that Rick's brother Jim had booked a last minute ticket from Florida, and was arriving at about 7pm. Fred carefully planned when the turkey would be done so that Jim could be home for dinner. Around 7pm there was some ruckus outside, and when everyone went to look, it was Jim! It was lots of fun to see all the surprised faces! After dinner lots of friends form around the neighborhood came over and we talked and laughed for quite a while. That night we had a hard time getting to sleep because we kept recounting the day's events ang giggling!
Thursday morning we got up early and caught a 10am flight back to San Jose. What a fun christmas!
