Christmas came early this year!

Christmas is actually coming 5 times this year.
Christmas #1 happened last night (see below), December 5, 2008
Christmas #2 is Friday, December 19, 2008. This is the last day of Lyle's finals of his first year at NYUCD (Dental school). Phew. It's also my last day of work of 2008. I start up again when Lyle starts school after the holidays. That means we are going to cut a rug and watch all my co-workers get drunk at the Kids Club Holiday work party that night (booya).
Christmas #3 is Monday, December 22, 2008 when Lyle and I exchange our gifts to one another. This won't be a big blown out evening, but there will be our own traditions shared with some yummy cocoamotion, and a Christmas movie.
Christmas #4 is on the traditional December 25, 2008 with the Decker family in Utah (pray for a white Christmas). This year that includes Tamales on Christmas Even with Grandmother and you'd better believe some hard core skiing (lyle) and boarding (ciara).
Christmas #5 is with the Schofield clan in Sacramento. I'm pretty sure they're not waiting for us to have the actual Christmas Day because we won't get there until Saturday, December 27th because HELLO, why would ANYONE want to wait two more days for Gifts and Traditions (especially when you still have two little ones at home).
We're excited for all of these Christmases and for me, it is very exciting to have a reason to celebrate the birth of Christ with our many traditions on more than one occasion. I cannot wait!

Christmas #1
Yesterday was a blah day for me for some reason. I had no reason to be upset, and it wasn't that I was upset, it was just that I wanted to crawl under the covers, watch a few girly movies, with a few yummy treats. Who knows if THAT would have even helped me, but instead I woke up, went to work, then the gym, then back to work. Poor Lyle thought he did something wrong, but he didn't! Anyway, after work, I went to run a few errands, and used my new Starbucks giftcard I received from one of my gymnastics students (my first gift from a student!) to get a hot steamer and a cookie. This TOTALLY turned my attitude around (funny how starbucks can do that for me). I got home, and had a few good convos with friends and family and in walked Lyle with a few packages. To my surprise...it was my Christmas gift we had been debating a week earlier! aaaggghhh! Thanks babe!

This is supposed to not only serve as my Christmas gift for the next 4 years (lol...no seriously), but also motivate me to get going on the personal business I am starting. Hopefully I can focus instead of playing with all the new features!

Later that night, we went to a brazillian rodizio style restaurant called Rio Churascaria. I had purchased 4 "pay $10, get a $25 gift card" for the restaurant and figured, we could eat there for almost free (past the $40 I originally paid) which was a steal. It was a restaurant we were excited about since the zagat gave it a 23 overall and we had seen it as we jogged to the gym. The meal was great (although I must say we prefer Tucanos over it), the service impecable, but unfortunately I didn't read the small print and we could only use one gift card per dine in per MONTH! I looks like we will have to go three more times and pay quite a bill each time. DANG IT CIARA! Lyle forgave me since his belly was nice and full. I am actually excited to go back. The sirloin and mussells were my favorite! It turned out to be our "Merry Christmas" dinner!
Zagat rating: 23
Schofield rating: 23