California Christmas (Christmas Break part 2)

This year it was a must that we go to California. My grandmother Sharyn made that pretty clear in August at my cousins wedding. I was saying goodbye to her and she looked at me and said, "This year Christmas is mine." Then she raised her eyebrows, started doing a slow nod with a little smile, as if to make sure I understood. As her grandchild, I have learned that when you get a comment like that followed by that smile/nod routine, you had better do as you are told. So off to California we went, and I had no problem with that.

The traveling could not had gone better. Flights were being canceled left and right because of the weather, but our flight to Oakland arrived 15 minutes early. Hallelujah. That evening we went to the Verizon store and bought new phones and got on the same plan. Jacob can now text! And I got my first new phone since 2006! Thank goodness!

Christmas Eve we headed out to my grandparents house. We almost always go there on Christmas Eve, and by "we" I mean everyone in the family from my grandparents and down. We ate dinner, and did our new white elephant tradition. Jacob and I got the prized present. The Yellow Rat Bastard backpack. Yellow Rat Bastard is a store in New York my grandparents ran into and thought it was hilarious, so now the Yellow Rat Bastard backpack gets passed around every year.

Christmas day was beautiful and green, just as Christmas's should be! I am not sure Jacob agrees. We had a really enjoyable and relaxing Christmas with great food.

The day after Christmas my parents, Jacob and I headed to Golden Gate Park. My dad took us to an aquarium that he used to go to when he was a kid. It was a little over priced, but we had fun seeing all the animals.
I call him grandfather fish.
Albino Alligator
Penguins!

Later that night we went mini golfing with my brother and got absolutely soaked in the rain, but we had a lot of fun trying to hit our balls out of the puddles they got stuck in.

Then it was time to head back to Idaho to pack up all of our belongings, clean and move to an apartment across town.