LIFE is GOOD at the BEACH: MERRY CHRISTMAS

It might be July and hot as ever in California, but this last weekend I swear it was Christmas! It was a jam packed weekend full of some of my favorite things. And my family even enjoyed the weekend, it wasn't just me making them have a "happy new tradition."

The weekend started off with a great "Christmas Eve" wrapping presents, watching a Christmas movie and anticipating the next day. We started off the day skyping with my parents and then our friend Dana in Ireland. Then we had "Christmas Morning."

Max got some new soccer balls and LOVED them as you can tell by the blurry boy!

Max took a very short nap (it's like he knew it was Christmas) and when he got up our friends Hayley, Ryan and Finn got here!!!

Max and Finn had such a good time playing together and I loved getting to cuddle Finn for a long time while he sat with me and Max went crazy on Sam. Finn is one of the sweetest kids ever and I love all his faces and little smirks. He's such a cutie and I am so thankful to have them in our lives.

Heading out to Tauranga's MidWinter Christmas. I ended up going with my friend Celeste and Max's friend, Meila. Sam and her husband thought it might be a bit more fun if we went together and fully embraced the night. It was an absolute blast!

The night was SO fun! We got there as it was beginning to cool off and get dark. We saw carolers and waked around with our hot chocolates and THEN they made it snow! I am pretty sure Celeste and I were at the snow area for the majority of the night.

Watching the Carolers

The kids watching the carolers

Here comes the snow!

This is my FAVORITE shot! Max loves to oh and ah and you can tell in this picture he is doing that!

Then as if the night wasn't so fun already, we ran into to Uncle Tom and Nicky! Max loved getting to hang out with his Uncle Tom for a bit.

Uncle Tom and Nicky took him to see the snow again.

Notice Max attacking me to kiss me. He was pretty over excited at this point and wouldn't sit in his stroller or stop spazzing out with excitement. I had to find Uncle Tom again to help me.

The night was such a great experience! It is a great addition to the Christmas in Winter tradition we started. The winter is SO long here with no fun thing to break it up like Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years in the States so I love that the winter now holds two fun things to look forward to and break up the winter: 4th of July and Christmas! Hard to wrap your mind around those two holidays in one month, but so FUN for us here!

Sunday we had another great day. We went and tried this brand new bagel shop (they have never had anything like this here before) for lunch. It was SOOOO yummy! Bread is not really something that I can have but a "christmas" splurge was in order I think. I might be paying for it now but it was so worth it! We all enjoyed our bagels that tasted like we had been transported back to California!