Pictured below are two of the big reasons for her excitement - Grammy Gayle and her partner in crime, Cheyenne.
As we have said many times, Callie loves dogs. But there is a special bond between her and Cheyenne. Now that Callie is fully mobile, she chased poor Cheyenne around the house, grunting and growling. And yes, that was Callie grunting and growling, not Cheyenne. But she was just so excited! Amazingly enough, the excitement never wore off. And before any relatives or "friends" get any ideas, at this point we only plan to visit people with dogs - so no surprise gifts for Callie for now.
Callie has started to enjoy the play areas in the middle of the mall, the airport, and any other place that has large foamy things to jump on and slide down. Here she is caught mid-slide at the wonderful play area in the Roseville Galleria Mall. Not pictured but also enjoyed on this trip was a great play area in the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. We may very well write a book on such things by the time Callie is in high school.
After we hit the mall our first official visit was to Callie's Great Grandmother Lucas. She had just moved into a brand new place and we wanted to check it out and take some time to catch up. We definitely had a wonderful time and Callie especially enjoyed the Christmas decorations.
However, those decorations were nothing compared to the sweet ride that Great Grandma Lucas had. Callie was able to not only get Great Grandma Lucas to take her for a spin up and down the hallways but also had her parents taking laps after Great Grandma needed to sit down and take a rest.
Next stop was Great Aunt Teri's house where of course she had some activities lined up for us. In fact, Callie got the opportunity to make her first ginger bread house. Knowing that Callie has never eaten any candy, Teri thought it would be better to use different cereals to decorate the house. But even those cereals were more than Callie had ever been exposed to, and it was amazing that any of the cereal (Froot Loops, Apple Jacks, etc.) even made it on the house. And as you can see, instead of putting the sprinkles on the house, Callie just chose to stick the bottle in her mouth and would not let go of it. It was the like the first time she had sugar...oh wait, it was.(Okay, not the first time, but possibly the third)Pictured below is the construction crew with the final product. If you look closely you can see the sugar rush in Callie's eyes.
All of the above occurred in the lead up to Christmas day. Callie had busy days and then when she went to bed her parents had busy nights driving around Sacramento making up for all of the shopping they did not do in Lexington. Unfortunately, the busy days, the long trip, her first molar, a cold, and as we found out later, a urinary tract infection, made Callie a little cranky throughout the Christmas festivities. However, she is a fighter, and she managed to enjoy all that came her way.
Here is Callie opening her gifts on Christmas Eve after our traditional dinner of chicken enchiladas. She is still a bit timid with the unwrapping process - her paper ripping skills need some work. Ironically enough, Callie's favorite gift was the dog toy given to Cheyenne. But she also enjoyed spending the evening with her Uncle Zac and cousin Keith.
She was also fortunate enough to get to open her stocking on Christmas Eve. Apparently Santa had Sacramento first on his stops this year. Her favorite gift in the stocking was the tiny snow globe that she loved to shake. 
On Christmas day we visited the Lucas clan again. This time Haley, Ryan, Sara, Tyler, and little Brady were all there. Brady is so big and so cute. And as you can see in this picture, has a great smile. He also had pretty good unwrapping skills - Callie might need to get some lessons from him. It was great to see everyone and there is never enough time to catch up with everyone. And John wishes he could have bowled just a little more on the Wii with Tyler, Ron, and Ryan. The next day we headed to San Francisco. Yes, that's right, on the day after Christmas we went to one of the biggest cities in California. And yes, we went to Union Square, one of the popular tourist destinations in the city. The day was a little hectic, but it was great spending time with everyone. And we got to spend some quality time with Christy, Zac's girlfriend. Here is the whole crew in front of the Christmas tree in Union Square. Quite a good looking bunch, if we don't say so ourselves.
And if that wasn't hectic enough, we also threw into the mix meeting up with Denise, Lauren, JP, and little Kate.
Here we see the girls in front of the same tree. Kate was enthralled with everything around her and spent much of the time outside looking up. Callie wasn't always sure which way to look or what to do. Unfortunately she was still soldiering on fighting a fever and a runny nose. When we look back at this we are pretty impressed with how much of a trooper she is. So what do you do in this kind of situation. If you're us, you spend the night in a hotel in Fremont and then get up the next morning to drive to San Jose to go to a cool exhibit on Leonardo da Vinci at the Technology Museum. But that's not enough. You jump back in the car, go over the hill on Rte 17 and meet the Nice family for lunch near Santa Cruz. And as was the case with so many of our visits, it was great to see everyone and there was not enough time to really catch up.
Pictured above is the whole group enjoying a fine lunch. Even Callie is looking at the camera and smiling. It was a great day and we were back in Sacramento in time for dinner, which meant we got to fulfill one of our California trip necessities - a meal at In-N-Out. So tasty...even now I can still smell the double-double animal style.
This is a fitting picture to end our update. By the time we landed in Lexington all three of us needed the next week to recover. With that being said, we would do it all over again in a heartbeat to spend time with our family over the holidays. Well, everything except the molar, the fever, etc. You get the idea. And now that a new year is upon us, we can only guess at what it will bring. Frankly, we can't wait. But we do hope it brings us, our family, and our friends, good health, happiness, and much laughter. Here's to lookin' fine in 2009!
