CHRISTMAS!!

One of my favorite times of year!! No school, good food, happy music, happy people! Having such a huge family and extensions of family, it's always a busy time of year for me! I think I ended up having 3-4 Christmas dinners! Haha

 I found these jammies in Walmart. My Uncle Ed would have been so proud if I wore them to Christmas. I decided to return then to save money...if I had a job, I totally would have kept them!!

 With Christmas, comes cookies! I made these a while ago for Dalton when I was experimenting with gluten-free, and I thought I would try them again! I liked them better the second time...no flour! Just powdered sugar, coco, and eggs whites!

My mom finally found a good gluten-free flour and re-designed her delicious Christmas sugar cookies 

And again with the ugly sweater...haha one of my favorite parts of Christmas. I get to wear ugly, but comfy clothes to Christmas dinner!

Christmas just isn't complete without the dancing Santa Claus. I demand a dance out of every one who wants to watch him go! Haha, I think I may tear up if it ever breaks... 

My friends, Lindsey and Courtney have a Grinch obsession. I found SO many cheap Grinch things this season, so I turned it into part of their Christmas gift. Haha Grinch galore!

Nicky's 19th Birthday

[Absolutely HORRIBLE quality pictures, but how can I leave my little brother's birthday out of the story? Haha, I guess he's stuck, awful quality and all!]

THE DAY before finals, I was forced to put down my books (which was definitely needed) and my brother, mom and Kevin went out to East Village Asian Cafe for dinner in downtown Encinitas. I love this place. It's so quirky with it's weird robot menu and playing strange Asian cartoon movies in the background (almost always Ponyo), PLUS the food is delicious!

In case it's not obvious, my brother was not fond of my picture taking and mocked me for my "obsession" with blogging and Instagram. Haha, as seen by my lack of posts, I most definitely am not addicted to blogging, but I try to keep some pictures coming through Instagram to keep family and friends in touch while I slave away at prison...I mean nursing school....

After dinner, since the restaurant was small and crowded, we went across the street to a picnic table at the beach and did cake and presents in the almost-darkness. Haha, but I wouldn't ask for anything more! I love night time beach! And cake and presents ;)

iPhone is not well adjusted to night time photography when it is moist outside -_-

After finals were over, we did a re-do for my brother's birthday with my Dad and Melissa. We went to Karina's to get some delicious hole-in-the-wall Mexican food (haha my brother couldn't be any happier about that choice) and then came home for him to open his present and have some cake. Since he was saving up money to buy a new bike for races with the cycling team at CSUSM, my parents found a clever way to give it to him. And I give Melissa major props for having the patience to cram $100 in change and cash into dozens of balloons! My brother had a good time popping all of those.

Haha I LOVE IT!

Ugly Sweater Christmas Party

[YES, I know this is a little late, but it has been sitting in my drafts box for 2 months now and I didn't even realize it! Haha]

After the semester was over, we decided to throw an ugly sweater Christmas party at the Kuhns' house in order to kick off the beginning of our PRECIOUS 5 week winter break from school! You wouldn't believe how much thrift stores sell some of their old ugly sweaters for...so, I decided to make my own! Haha how hard can it be to make a sweater ugly?

All the girls

Eric won first place in the ugly sweater contest. Haha, I told him it was the lights

And Thaddeus won second place...haha I later voted for him to win first because his sweater vest and old lady turtle neck WAS seriously ugly

Palomar Mountain Observatory

Dalton took an Astronomy class during the fall semester, and for extra credit, he had to go look at the stars, sky, or anything related. I've been to the observatory before during rock climbing trips or on my way out to Julian or somehing, but I've never really actually explored around. It was cool going up there with an actual purpose so I could learn a thing or two ;)

This thing is HUGE! And the telescope is really cool inside! I want to come back  on a day they do the tour so we can go inside deeper and take a better look!

Afterwards, we came home and ate my mom's leftover chicken pot pie....MMMM :D