A Zyga Family Christmas

So if you've ever seen "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation"  you will get the humor behind my title ;)   We decided it wasn't in the stars for us to travel home for Christmas, so we extended the invite to whomever wanted to visit to come out here--and they ALL did!  We had Dave's family and his Aunt Cindy, Uncle Dave, and cousins David and Sophie come from roughly Dec 23rd through Jan 1st (at 3am) and then my parents, sister, brother and law and their 1 year old from Jan 1st (noon) through Jan 15!  3.5 weeks of visitors!  Oh and we went with my folks on a cruise in the middle of all that.  Crazy! 

So here is the Zyga's (minus Dave--poor sucker had to work) visit to the Botanical Gardens for the Festival of Lights. 

 Lena sure took a love to her older cousin (2nd cousin?) Sophie :)

I know I took more photos of the Zyga visit, but I can't find them...GRR. I'll keep looking...

Anyway, we had a great time and enjoyed the gardens, the wild animal park, many yummy meals, and a lot of laughs.  What a gift for ALL of them to come out. 

So then, my parents came out a few hours after the Zyga's headed to the airport and two days later we headed out of Long Beach on a 5 day Carnival cruise.  All of our first cruise experiences--and it was great!  Loved it--hope to do it again sometime.

That's our boat in the background :)  Here, we are enjoying a golf cart ride exploring Catalina Island. 

One of my fav parts of the cruise--learning to make Towel Animals!  (Also at the top of the list...Dave competing in the hairy chest contest--sorry, he won't let me post the video!)  And also, Lena dancing her heart out on the stage at the farewell party...see the video :)

When Andi and Ryan came out we also went to the Wild Animal Park. 

We celebrated Christmas with everyone--lots of fun presents and the appetizer dinner as is tradition :)  J missed the big one because he had a hard time adjusting to the time change...so we had a second opening just for him.  :)

Again, what a gift that everyone--(including our new nephew that Dave had never met!)--could come out!  Thanks everybody!