Getting all of us together under the same roof for Christmas is a rare occurance these days, but this year we made it happen! Danielle came home Friday morning and was immediately put to work moving boxes and painting the window.
Jennifer, Bin, and Bin's parents flew in Christmas Eve afternoon. While Jen and Bin took turns wrapping pre-shipped packages, the rest of us learned how to use an iPad language translation application to meet and welcome Bin's parents who are visiting from China. The biggest challenge in this endeavor was to make sentences complete and simple enough that thoughts translated as they were intended. Without any specifics, suffice it to say that spelling errors also wreak havoc with translated vocabulary and can make for some either very funny or very embarrassing faux pas.
Meanwhile, Sarah had flown to the East Coast to keep Jeremy and his canine children company and share the driving on the cross-country trip home. Buying a lottery ticket and a packet of jerky in each state, they left Monday afternoon and pulled two separate all-nighters sandwiched around a layover in Albuquerque to swing into the driveway in time for Christmas Eve dinner.
And celebrate, we did!
