Julie & Christian: Beach House Christmas

Ummm... I'm sitting here with all these Italy pictures and I log on to do a post and what do I find? The Christmas post I was supposed to have posted back in January! Well here you go. Only 6 months late.

I was waiting to post these until a certain surprise made it to California. It finally made it after a month and a half!! Thanks ~~stupid incompetent people at~~ USPS! These are pictures from Christmas vacation at the California Beach House. We had so much fun having the whole family under one roof. Our family has grown rapidly over the years but somehow we managed to squeeze everyone in.

Christian and I were the first to arrive for the Holiday festivities. John and Becky don't count as their travel time is about 5 min. The Beach House was located in Half Moon Bay right by moss beach. The weather was a bit rainy a few of the days but there were still plenty of perfect sunny days too.

Obviously Christian took most of these pictures. I took a few but they were with my phone and not nearly as impressive!

We started the Christmas festivities by doing the new California Crapo family tradition. We went to the Fish Hopper for lunch followed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium and ending with Ghiradeli for dessert. Best tradition ever!!

These two stole the show at lunchtime. Delightful little boys!

Dallin

Connor

The food at the Fish Hopper is incredibly yummy. Every dish I sampled (everyone else's plate at the table) was scrumptious and my own dish made my tummy scream with excitement (or the need to un-button my pants...). After lunch we collected sea glass and then headed to the Aquarium.

The Aquarium was lots of fun. There were tons of fish specimens to gaze at and cool exhibits to play with. Dallin and I particularly liked the wave tunnel.

Here are some of the fish we saw

Round observation windows

The seahorse exhibit was really cool

We were lucky enough to see the Octopus come out from hiding that day.

There were so many cool things to do!!

But eventually you start to go crazy and need a little sugar. Thats when you go to Ghiradeli and get ice cream sundays.

The next day a bunch of us went to Alcatraz

The boat ride over was fun

These two are adorable! Little miss Jade and mister Asher

There was a rainbow over the Bay that day

Katie and little Paige kept warm

Here is the whole group

Me being weird

imagining life on the Rock

These two. Awesome kiddos!

Uncle Mark figuring out his headset for the audio tour

Dad peeking through a window

Silly Rydar

The boat ride home (escape from Alcatraz)

Meanwhile back at the Beach House...

we made Gingerbread houses and cookies!

First I tried to corral the kiddos. (I love Sadie's face in this photo)

This girl is so cute!

Sadie drew up the plans to our deluxe Gingerbread house while Madoc tasted the frosting.

Then they both got to work

Sheri helped

Sadie was pleased!

These two worked on being adorable

Joseph strummed carols and sang

John supervised the escapees (mostly Scott who loved crawling towards mischief)

These two evaded supervision as much as possible

We read a Christmas story before bed every night. Pish posh!!

We explored the tide pools down the street at the beach.

We all loved the beach!

We played hard and got dirty at times. (segway sentence for my favorite photo- nice shot Christian!)

We all attended the Christmas Eve party at Brian and Annie's house. Uncle John masterfully directs the Christmas program every year and there is much merry-making to be had. It was fun to visit with all the Aunts and Uncles and cousins and friends while sharing delicious food and treats.

some wanted to lick the cookies and then offer them to Aunt Julie. Yum!

some babes just wanted to be snuggled

...and here come the singing faces!

Mine was the best.

Rivaled only slightly by Mckay.

Dallin learned how to use Grandpa's camera.

We all watched for Santa in the sky that night (except for a few of us who found ourselves puking in the porcelain thrown) and went to bed while visions of sugar-plums danced in our heads. Out on the lawn there arose such at clatter, we sprang from our beds to see what was the matter... (just Joseph puking on the lawn)

Christmas morning came with a few of our numbers feeling rather ill. With our large numbers traveling from all different parts of the country we had unknowingly become a petri dish of flu disease strains. We found a way to enjoy ourselves and when I think back to Christmas morning I remember these magical moments of joy.

California Beach house Crapo Christmas 2012 was wonderful! Spending time with all my family under one roof was unbelievable fun. I can't wait to see what happens for Christmas 2014.

Another favorite photo of the week. Tuckered out Grandma and Grandpa dosing by the warm fire.