Home Leave Part 1 - Christmas in New Mexico

Sorry, folks, still no Hong Kong for you! I feel bad that I haven't recorded anything we did for home leave (and we did a lot!). After our trip to NY and our return to DC to wrap up my consultations, check out, pack out, etc. We jetted off to Albuquerque, which is our official home leave destination. C joined us in DC from school and we all flew together on the first leg of our trip. We spent a wonderful 10-days with my family. First it was just the immediate family (that being my parents, sisters, and their families), and then my parents hosted the first ever extended Pu family reunion. Our family is Jewish, so it wasn't really a big deal for everyone to get on a plane and fly into NM on Christmas Day. We had a lovely 2-3 days with my cousins, aunts, and uncles, some of whom I hadn't seen in over a decade. It was great to connect with my extended family all of whom are lovely people with interesting stories to tell. It reminded me of my childhood when we would spend every Thanksgiving at my grandparents' home in Connecticut. My grandmother loved entertaining and loved having her extended family around. She always had huge dinners for 30+ people, and we would stay for 3-4 days hanging out with my cousins while our parents booked a hotel room and got away from their kids! My parents extended the same courtesy and took all of our children that were out of diapers, which was such a cool opportunity both for us parents to get away for a few nights and also for our kids to hand out with their cousins. J and her cousin Y are the same age (off by a few months, so they're actually a grade apart), and A and his cousin A are about 1.5yr apart, so they really had a good time together. Going through my photos, I realize I have way to many to share all the amazing memories, so I'm going to have to split them into different posts. Here's the first batch from our days leading up to Christmas.

 Look how happy they are before all the minions descend to take over their house.

Trimming the tree.

Making our own stockings. 

Cousin Love!!

Christmas morning with the whooooole family. :)

Christmas Baby