Season's greetings!

The good news: After logging nearly 100,000 miles on a airplane this year, we are done with traveling for the year! The better news: we have lots of time to spend with the Bear. Last weekend, when Lynn was in Seattle, I took Claire to see santa. First, let me preface this story by saying that for the two week prior, we had been preparing Claire to meet St. Nick. "Santa!, Santa!, Santa!" was all we heard for two weeks. Our neighbor has a life sized santa is his front yard and we would visit Santa daily.

So the moment of truth arrived last Saturday when I took Claire to visit Santa, who made a special trip to our neighborhood clubhouse. We walked in and Claire sees Santa and starts pointing and saying "Santa!". It pretty much went downhill from there, as we approached Santa for the photo op, Claire's grip around me tightened and the waterworks came on. After several minutes of trying to get Claire to sit with Santa, we abandoned the idea. It was a far cry from this! You can see more Santa photos here.

This morning, we needed some family time. So we took Claire to the local bounce house. $7 for the three of us to get in - what a deal! At first Claire was tentative, not wanting to get in/on the various houses/slides. But after a few minutes of mommy and daddy bouncing around, she got into the spirit of it. Her favorite thing by far was the slide. After an hour and a half, mommy and daddy were exhausted. We will send Uncle Paul and Aunt Taya here with Claire when they come next week! More photos from today and a video are located here.