Holly Jolly California Christmas

You can look at this picture and conclude only one thing: Christmas in California! We awakened Christmas morning, having arrived the day before and spent the afternoon wandering around San Francisco, to green beverages, a highly traditional Northern California Christmas morning tradition. The mixmaster is Rachel, and she has some crazy new 3 horsepower blender, which she busted out every morning to make us all smoothies. In more traditional Wisconsin fashion, we spent the remainder of the day eating, sitting around, drinking, and exchanging gifts. I got a new tent, to replace the busted one. Yeah! Note the creative recycled wrap:

Boxing Day we were lusting after some of those tall California trees, so we went for a stroll.

Sadly, my dad sprouted some kind of painful growth out of his back when he stopped to consult his GPS:

The whole clan, photographed by another family out hiking:

Sunday John and I headed out to the ocean to see my oldest friend Brendan (of Mrs. Morgenson's First Grade at Henry David Thoreau Elementary vintage) in Half Moon Bay. We ate chilaquiles and then walked on the beach, where we met this guy: