Sunday, December 27, 2009

Christmas Pictures

Christmas was a pretty sedate affair at the Baker's Alaska compound. Here's a brief update in pictures.

A few days before Christmas, Aaron decided to shave his beard. It had gotten pretty bushy...

The "after" picture was a little blurry, but here's a picture of us on Christmas eve after we opened all our presents...

Aaron is clean-shaven, and we're covered in a pile of goodies from our friends and relatives. Thanks everyone!

We have a guest for Christmas and New Year's Eve. It's our friend Atticus.

Atticus belongs to Erin and Anthony, who are in Kansas for the holidays. So we're cat-sitting. He's a pretty good cat and has gotten used to living here for a bit already. He does seem to know how to open the freezer, though, which is strange. We taped it shut for now. (With the bright green duct tape that Aaron got for Christmas!)

For dinner on Christmas day, we went to Ginger and Terry's house. (Ginger is Samara's boss.) Their daughter Aurora was there, along with their (former) foster child Lauren and her sister Ayla, as well as one of Lauren's friends. Here's Lauren (on the right)...

Ayla acting silly...

And Aaron and Aurora acting silly...

It was a nice dinner. Ginger and Terry made a ham, as well as mashed potatoes, salad and a wonderful diced cranberry dish. Samara brined and cooked a turkey, which came out great. Soaking the turkey in brine overnight before cooking is a great way to keep it moist!

The rest of our holiday weekend has been pretty tame. Aaron went next door and played some video games with Tim, we watched marathons on TV, and slept a lot! On Sunday, we felt like we needed to get out of the house, so we went to the shooting range at the dump.

Samara wanted to test out the new lighter trigger pull on her Glock. (The new trigger connector was an early Christmas present from Aaron.) She says she likes it much better now, and she's getting pretty good at hitting targets. Saramay apparently got a .44 magnum revolver for Christmas from her dad, so there may be all-girls shooting trips in the future.

Here's Samara shooting her 9mm...

If she ever gets tired of her job at SAFE, Samara could always apply to be a Dillingham cop. She's a natural with the Glock, and they definitely need the help!

Well, Happy Holidays everyone! Hope you got everything you wished for. Now it's time to do some dishes, hang up the laundry and exercise on Samara's new Wii Fit. (Sorry, she won't let me take a picture of her doing that!)

2 comments:

Barbara said...

Yeah, no Wii Fit pix please! No offense, Samara, but really, who wants to see a sweaty woman jumping around in her living room. I allow no pix of my daily exercises.

Nice shot of you shooting, BTW. You look focused and kind of scary.

Erin said...

Yay! Atticus! I'm glad that he isn't destroying anything. Sorry about the freezer. I have no idea how he learned that.