Wonderful Christmas, Sunny New Year!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful and meaningful Christmas and a Happy New Year! We sure did. These being our first holidays away from our friends and family in the States, I was a little worried that it would be lonely. We did miss our friends and family dearly, and it was so different not having them around...we've all been with family every holiday all of our lives. Because we knew to expect this we decided that we were going to stay busy for the holidays. And, stay busy, we did! We spent Christmas morning at our house and then loaded up, along with Doug, and headed for an eastern city on the coast where some friends live. We spent a few days with them and had a wonderful time. For New Year's we decided that we were going to spend the first day of the new year sunning on the beach. We did that too.
If you like pics, we've delivered....probably too many, but here they are anyway, with a few random things thrown in....enjoy!

Here's our mantel....we did have a tree even if it was a little weak....therefore, not in the pic...

Here are the girls...still a little sleepy, but very excited...
even though they don't look like it.

The ladies and their new wards...

Carys can have very few types of chocolate candies because of her food allergies....so when she gets chocolate (that she found here in her stocking) she gets excited about it!!

Here is Little Red enjoying (literally) her new toys.

Carys and Erin soaking up some sun on our friends' terrace. We went to their house for the holidays. Thanks Macs!

Here we are on the bus on our way to the beach on New Year's Day!! I know you're wondering why Sophia is in the ridiculously hot outfit if we're headed for the beach....well, we have to make the locals happy....
see two blogs ago and you'll understand.

Here is the view from the apartment we stayed in....pretty sweet, huh? That is the beach you see through the bars.

And, the beach....aahhh, wish I were there now.

Here is Heath teaching our precious Sophia to be a card shark at the tender age of 9 months.

Our bathing beauty, Carys.

More beach...

Sunset view from our terrace.

Our second bathing beauty, Erin.

Here is our great friend, Doug, who you met in a previous post....he's taken a liking to Sophia, and she to him....and, ladies.....he's single.....hmmmm??? Oh, by the way, he's not sleeping here....he's looking at the sweet baby.

Here are the posers.

This is a pic of the town we visited...where the beach was.

Our princesses at sunset.

O.k., we are to the random now....two days ago, we hear all of this noise out of nowhere...we look out off our balcony to this....this is the first demonstration we've seen...due to the tension because of the Palestinian/Israel conflict. Luckily, it was peaceful. We've seen two more today, and much bigger than this one.

Do I really need to put an explanation here?

Here is a video of Sophia trying to catch and eat the bubbles in her bath...it's quite hilarious because she really believes she's going to do it....see for yourself.

In case you were wondering, she is wearing Carys' leggings on her head...why? Because Carys said so.