A Very Vaughn Christmas

I've been trying to blog about Christmas and our trip, but there was so much going on I barely know where to start!  Here's just some highlights:

--Amarillo has amazing antique stores.  One day Kyle and I spent hours on 6th Street, looking at all the awesome stores! There are so many, full of such incredible antiques.  I bought him some great green malachite cuff links and he bought me beautiful earrings.  We also weirdly ran into Kyle's old best friend who he hasn't seen or talked to in a million years and who I've heard a ton of stories about.  I loved our afternoon on 6th Street.

--Naomi Naomi Naomi.  We ADORE this baby.  She is 6 months old and absolutely incredible.  We had so much fun playing with her!  She squeals really loud when she's happy--which was basically any time Kyle was around.  She loves her uncle.  She has phenomenal chubby cheeks and gorgeous coloring.  She is also SUPER clever and fun to play with.

She's the happiest baby!

She has a weirdly long attention span.

Her cute Christmas dress.

--Braxton!  We got to spend an evening with Kyle's best friend Braxton and his wife Mary.  They made us a delicious meal, took me to Braum's (the favorite post-stake-dance ice cream place in high school), and took us to the beautiful Christmas lights of Bishop Hill, which is famous in Amarillo. Braxton gave us a beautiful painting to hang in our home--he's a really talented artist. It was so fun.

--Jennifer and Jason have a coke machine in their backyard--like, the fridge that holds sodas that are next to the checkout lines in grocery stores.  It is constantly stocked with a beautiful array of sodas--and it was the DEATH of us.  I swear, if we gained weight on this trip it's because of the steady stream of delicious sugary carbonation that was being pumped into us.  It was heaven.

--Jennifer and Jason also have two dogs--Baby and Garbage.  Baby is a hideous little creature and Garbage is sweet-looking but smells bad.  Kyle loves them both and is so nice to them.  You um can probably tell that I don't like dogs.  These dogs are okay though--I don't think they minded that every time they tried to play with me, I made Kyle call them over to play with him.  For some reason I think they're hilarious though--maybe because of their misnomers?  Plus, Baby only has one eye and that's always entertaining.

Demon Dog

Sweet but Smelly Garbage

Baby needed some love from someone. Kyle was happy to oblige.

--It was my first white Christmas!  The weather in Amarillo is pretty crazy.  Dry snow + crazy insane wind = some INTENSE snow drifts.  It was really pretty and totally bizarre.

--Presents!  We made out like bandits.  There were a MILLION presents piled around the Christmas tree.  The most exciting present wasn't even for us--our niece Sydnie got a Barbie Dream House that everyone else coveted, mostly me and her dad.  Kyle and I are so excited about the thoughtful gifts we received!

Intense mountain of presents

Oh how I covet that dream house. You can tell Travis does too.

--Because of our obsession with the show Supernatural, we had a weird desire to stay in a seedy motel as we passed through Gallup, New Mexico.  Sam and Dean always stay in the coolest old motels!  Those, apparently, don't exist.  Old and cheap now gets you...nastiness.  We regret our decision. BUT it was kind of exciting and we had some sketchy adventures.  We didn't battle any demons or monsters--but that's just because we didn't load up on rock salt and lighter fluid first.  Next time.

--And, most importantly.....

We only went to Rosa's three times during our trip, but we gorged ourselves each time---and left with 3 dozen tortillas to make Utah a little bit more bearable.  Seriously--they are the most incredible tortillas in the country and probably the world.  Let's just go with universe.

And here's our slightly goofy family picture.  Kyle's in his new rhino shirt and Naomi's face is covered with her hat, but I think it's cute!  Can you tell that the Fanelli Brothers are...brothers? With all 3 kids in Kyle's family married, there are still only Vaughns and Fanellis.  I think that's so neat!

I'm looking forward to New Year's Eve with Kyle.  Last year we rang in the new year with Prison Break.  This year it'll be, you guessed it, Supernatural.  We've been saving two discs for the occasion.  I CAN'T WAIT.