Our Girls

Cole Family Picture

It was so fun to be all together for Christmas!

Christmas in California

Sarah's whole family made the pilgrimage back to Saratoga for Christmas this year. For us it was our first trip back west since our move to Ohio and an appreciated break from the snowy weather. We were welcomed with a host of eager hands to hold and take care of our girls. I think some people were even excited to see me and Sarah. With five grandchildren now for Kevin and Gina, a total of 16 people overran the Cole household for the week and shared Christmas morning together. (Thus the monstrous pile of presents under... or, around the tree.)


Annie admires her new doll house that Santa brought while Leah plays with her new animal train set that moves and flashes, and an overly enthusiastic female voice continuously sings an annoyingly contagious song (that I can still hear playing in the back of my mind... ...climb on board the animal train, come on, everyone...).




Annie loved opening her presents. This was a pink phone that she has been convinced for the last month and a half Santa would bring her. Looks like she was right.


Leah loved it too, but was easily distracted.


Annie also got a Leapster, an educational video game system that tricks kids into learning by masking it behind technology and princesses. Sarah got a new purse-sized camera, some jewelry, new clothes and a coat. I got a flash for my camera and some new shirts, ties, and sweaters for work.


The sisters all got matching pajamas. Aren't they cute? (Especially the one on the left.)


Here are the three cousins, Emmy, Leah and Halle in their Christmas pajamas.


Scotty and Annie, the other two cousins, enjoyed some good times together. They didn't always look like this, but they had fun most of the time.




One afternoon we went to the park to watch Mike fly his model airplane. All was going well until the plane's graceful landing approach was abruptly interrupted by a deceivingly close soccer goal post. Mike was sorely disappointed.


After Christmas we spent a few days down in San Luis Obispo where Ashley was playing in a basketball tournament. We had a blast one day cruising around the sand dunes at Pismo Beach on a couple 4-Wheelers.


Michael, tearing it up.


We had planned on touring Hearst Castle on the way home, but were surprised and disappointed to find all the tours sold out for the day. Instead we drove home along the coast on Highway 1, where we were able to enjoy the windy-roaded scenery for six hours, rather than the three hours it would have taken to get home the conventional way. A beautiful drive, just a little long.


On New Years Eve we fired up the hot tub and soaked in the final minutes of 2007.


The pool was a numbing 40-some degrees, but that didn't stop us from a brief dip at the stroke of midnight.