Back to cold, cold Buffalo....sigh....

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone!! I hope your Christmas was as wonderful as ours was!! We got to spend our vacation on the warm, sandy beaches of Port Aransas, Texas with my family. We had several days of sun, sand and 70 degree weather!! It was such a blast. Now our trip to get there was not such a fun time, which is a whole other story, but lets just say that we finally made it to our beach house at 3am on Christmas....we were supposed to get there at about 5 pm on Christmas Eve. Leave it to the wonderful Buffalo weather to delay flights, etc!! The flight delay actually wouldn't have been TOO bad had it not been for the booking agent who accidentally rescheduled our flight to arrive at the wrong airport in Houston. Even that would have been manageable if the rental car place would have transferred our reservation to the other airport as well...but they didn't...anyway, long story short, we ended up flying into the International airport (where we were supposed to originally) so that we could pick up our rental car. Then we had to rent a car seat (even though I brought ours with us!) so that we could drive to the other airport in Houston (about a 40 minute drive) to pick up our luggage. After all of that, we were finally on our way to the Beach!! Poor little Maia was so exhausted by the time we finally started driving. She fell asleep the instant she was buckled in and we started moving! But who cares about that whole saga?? We got to lay out on the beach at the end of December for crying out loud! You can't beat that! I actually got a sunburn on one of the days. There were a few days that were a little overcast and colder than others (the term "Cold" is all relative though!) When I say it was colder in Texas-talk, I mean it was in the low t0 mid 60's. It still felt pretty warm to me!! But my favorite days were the ones where the sun was shining and the temps were in the 70's.
David even got to go out deep sea fishing one of the days with all of the "boys." He had a really good time and caught a few big ones--shark and King Mackerel I think. We cooked up the shark and I was actually surprised at how good it was.
Anyway, it was definitely hard to come home, especially since this morning we woke up and the temperature outside was a blazin' 8 degrees, but I guess all good things have to come to an end sometime right? I just keep telling David that after these four years are over, we are moving someplace WARM.
And as usual, I've uploaded a hundred zillion pictures because I couldn't decide which ones I liked best. At first I tried to somewhat organize them, but gave up quickly, as you can see. So sorry for the hap-hazard way they are posted. Do any of you know how to rearrange pictures once you have already uploaded them to the blog? I have yet to figure that one out, so any suggestions would be appreciated. I always end up deleting them, which really frustrates me!! Anyway, on to the pictures!

Maia and Dada on the beach after family picture taking...I will post some of the family pix once my little bro sends them to me!

More playing on the beach.


Momma and Maia posing for the camera.
Maia, Aunt Cheyenne, and cousin Austin. Austin got to be quite afraid of Maia because she can give some really powerful hugs (yes, the kind that knock over little kids....hmmm, maybe she's trying to tackle them? No, not my innocent little girl....)
Nana, Maia, and Poppy. Maia was a little hesitant with my dad at first because of the mustache, but it didn't take long before she warmed up to him...she was even giving him kisses at the end of the week, still trying to figure out what that scratchy thing on his face was!
Maia and cousin River hugging...they loved each other and had a great time playing together. One of River's favorite things to do is to play "baby maia" where she is Maia, her mom is "Crescent" and her dad is "Toadie" (David's nickname growing up was Toad for those of you who didn't know that...for some reason it still sticks as far as the kids are concerned!)

I love this picture of David and Maia walking on the beach...so cute!
This is the ferry that we would take to cross over the water when we wanted to go into town. It was fun!
Maia and Poppy chasing the birds on the beach. Maia got so excited to see the birds--she would run after them, then they would fly further away, so she'd stop for a second and sign "please" and then start chasing them again. I think she was puzzled as to why she couldn't get the birds when she was asking so nicely! Silly girl.
...and more sand and sun.

Cousin River getting buried in the sand.
Maia absolutely loved playing in the ocean....I mean this girl has NO fear, which scares me sometimes!! But I think the look on her face says it all.
Pictures of our place...Above is the dining/living room area. The back patio doors look out right over the ocean.
Master bedroom, again with a beautiful view of the ocean.
Maia's bedroom, as if she really slept in those beds!! It doesn't look very cute in this picture because I took the bedspreads off the bed and put them on the floor in Maia's little corner where she slept.
The view from our back patio.
Maia was so excited to see her Aunt Seri. The minute she saw her she ran up to her and gave her a big hug. It was so cute.
This is how we spent Christmas Day!! Playing on the beach and in the ocean--life just doesn't get any better than that.


This is one of my favorite pictures of Maia...she is a strong runner--so determined!! She must get that from her Momma....just kidding. Check out the cottage cheese thighs....now it might be more accurate to say that she gets those from her Momma!