Christmas Season Top 10

The holidays are finally drawing to a close as the kids finally head back to school tomorrow.  My personal top 10 of the holiday season:

10. Food.  Holy cow - I have never been quite so inundated with a high quantity of quality food.  For weeks there were pies, cookies, cakes, parties, etc.  No end!  Jeffrey contributed to it by helping Sheralie make her delicious pumpkin roll (pictured below):

9.  Holiday travel.  Ok, this is more of a lowlight, but I will need a reminder in years to come that I should never, ever travel by air during the holidays.  We weren't planning on going anywhere, but the Canadian winter was getting to us, so we got some tickets to San Diego.  The catch is that we flew out of Seattle on Southwest with a connection in Oakland.  We were doomed from the get-go.  3 hour early-morning drive to Seattle.  The line to check bags was over an hour long, mainly due to severe flight delays (ours being one of them).  Wait another two hours to board.  Our plan in Oakland is also delayed - another 2 hour wait in the airport.  Board the plane, then they announce we can't take off because of fog in San Diego.  Wait for an hour on the plane.  I am about ready to rent a car and drive the rest of the way, but mercifully we took off.  Door to door 17 hours to San Diego.  Driving straight through would have been 22 hours.

8.  Snow!  The kids' first day of break from school brought snow!  

7. Christmas Cards!  Thanks for all of those who caught us at our new address.  We will try to get ours out sooner next year, and of course we didn't order enough, so please don't feel bad if you didn't get one!

6. Paddle boarding in San Diego.  My in-laws are big water people, especially living in San Diego.  They surf, they water-ski, they boat, they are very comfortable in the water.  This year they introduced me to paddle boarding, which is a sport I can handle and enjoy.  It is trickier than it looks - balance is not a given, especially in the waves, but after a while I was feeling pretty good.  Soon enough I'll be catching waves.

Not me - I had a wetsuit on!

5. Filipinos!  We managed to get an invite to the Filipino Christmas Party at our church, and it was a ton of fun, with again, lots of great food.  We also spent Christmas Eve with a generous Filipino family, and also a great time.  We even broke out karaoke, and I remembered enough of a Filipino song to try my hand at "Bakit Ba?"  It was rocking.

4. Presents!  Several records broken in the Broadbent home: 2:30 am - latest spent putting together presents (mostly the foosball table):

And our last present was opened at 1:30 pm, as we took several breaks to enjoy the presents and (for Sheralie and me) to sleep!

Loving his own set of wheels

Ready to camp

The big one

3. San Diego Sun and Fun.  My in-laws went all out to ensure a great time for their grandkids during our week in San Diego.  This will probably necessitate another post once we get some pictures (did we even take our camera? We kind of packed in a rush).  And of course we could enjoy everything in sunshine and mid-70s weather everyday, because that's the bonus of living in Southern California.  I especially enjoying running up to the top of Ramona Dam.  We also enjoyed basketball, archery, hot tub, air hockey, ping pong, Legoland, three birthday parties apart from Christmas, sand, baseball, football, kayaking, water skiing, bikes, and a heck of a good time.  

2. Florida State Football.  Ok, I'll admit it.  I spent a lot of time this year on college football.  Probably too much.  But it was just too tempting - with the west coast time zone, we could devote all day Saturday to it.  The BYU bowl game against Washington almost put a terrible cap on the season - it was their worst performance all year.  But I grew up in Tallahassee and we followed FSU pretty closely too, though their games weren't as interesting because only a few were close.  The championship game though, did not disappoint.  They quickly fell down 21-3 and there was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.  Laird walked away saying "I can't watch this."  But beginning with a fake punt late in the 2nd quarter, FSU started to claw its way back, finally taking the lead on this kickoff return:

It was electrifying.  But it wasn't over.  Auburn drove down the field and scored a TD with 1:13 left.  But there was enough time for one more drive, capped by this gem of catch from Benjamin:

For sports fans, seeing your team win the championship is a rare event, and to win it in such dramatic fashion is extremely rare and lucky.  

1. The Family.  I felt very lucky to spend so much quality time with my family and to remember and celebrate the birth of the Savior.  Truly a great holiday season.  

Levi at 4 months