Holiday fun!

I'm taking a break from Madagascar to post a few of my favorite photos from our fun holiday season. I flew out to NY before Jay because my employer (the rockin' & extremely generous Swinomish Indian Tribal Community) gave us two paid weeks off to spend time with family, so I did just that! I was able to spend an early Christmas at my parent's house with my sister's family complete with many LEGO kits, an art kit, and an aerobie boomerang that ended up on the roof within 10 minutes of outside play. It's still on the roof, taunting my father who wisely knows it is too damn steep to go up there, right Dad? Good.

After Jay arrived we managed to squeeze in one day where all the Barbers and Barber-Justs were together! Here is a rare photo of all of us in one place. We wish it could happen far more often.

My uncle and his family came to visit on one of the days I was in NY (prior to Jay's arrival). Although we were bummed to miss my cousin Kurt, we were thrilled to get some time in with David, Connie, and our cousin Lynn. She is in her second year of college and I haven't seen her since our wedding in 2009! It was great to catch up with all the Fredas - I wish we could see them more often too.

Lee and Allison

Jay flew into NY on Christmas Day - which we spent in Kinderhook with my parents. Jay gave me his present - which happens to be a new kayak! A wooden kayak - that HE IS BUILDING himself. My jaw was on the floor for hours with that surprise. The kayaks we bought after our wedding have been lovely, but I've always wanted a higher performance kayak that was more narrow than the current boat I have. I had no idea Jay was taking my whining seriously, but now there is a kayak kit in our garage and I'm hoping to be in the water in a gorgeous wooden boat this summer! My parents also surprised the two of us with a super fancy Kitchen Aid mixer - watch out Martha, I'm making my own pasta now! We left NY on Boxing Day and headed southeast to Cape Cod to spend several days with Jay's family. Our entire day was spent unwrapping gifts, sampling spirits, and making a fabulous dinner.  So much fun was had!

We even managed to get a few walks in whenever we took breaks from eating, drinking, and being merry!

A real treat during our visit was attending the wedding of my dear friend Sarah. Sarah and I have been friends since seventh grade - pretty impressive considering all the time that has passed! Throughout years of living far away from one another, we have maintained a friendship that I know will last our whole lives. She married a wonderful man, Chris Hansen. We are thrilled to welcome him into our lives too - if only we could see them more often!

Allison, Kim, Sarah, Julie - in perfect height order

Good old Ichabod Crane High School was well-represented at Sarah's wedding. Although not pictured here, her wedding photographer was also in our graduating class! We ate, we laughed, we drank, and we danced.....it was a lovely wedding complete with a gorgeous snowstorm at the end!

Our last days out east were spent at my sister's house. Christina had planned an unbelievable menu for our visit - but the real amazing stuff happened on New Year's Eve with blood orange margaritas and gourmet Mexican food. We rang in the new year with a game of Cards Against Humanity and a ton of great laughs.

Just before we left Jay got to power build a LEGO White House! I think he was pretty excited to go back to his own LEGO-obsessed years! We never get to spend enough time with our nephews.....so any time we get with them is a blast. Can you believe how big they are getting?

Coming back to our house is always nice because of these two damn cute fluff balls. They like it when we come home too and we typically end up with cats sleeping on our heads the night after we come home.

Back in the swing of work/play life here we decided to start our ski season with a day at Mt. Baker this Saturday. The snow was O.K. - not great, not bad...but the company was the best in the world and the views were stunning on this crystal clear day.

It was fun to spot Yellow Aster Butte from the ski hill....we camped just to the left of the butte right in the middle of the photo this summer. Wohoooo for winter!

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