"Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree"

For the Simmons family Christmas officially begins the day after Thanksgiving and the first official act of our Christmas season is to cut our tree. For the past several years we have gone to Apple Hill but this year we decided to stay closer to home and went to Bill's Christmas Tree Farm conveniently located just off Jacksonville Hwy about 10 minutes from our house. They had a small petting zoo (2 goats and some chickens and rabbits in cages) and wagons for kids to ride in.

Hannah didn't stay in the wagon to long but loved running through all the trees.
What we didn't realize is that the traditional firs don't grow down here in the valley so all they have is the bushy trees (like the technical name). We almost went with one but at the last minute decided that we liked our traditional fir trees and bought one of their pre-cut noble firs.
Here's the tree we almost got.

Here's what we ended up with.

"I am the very model of a modern major general"

I love the opera and Brian is nice enough to take my at least once a year (and I even think he is starting to enjoy it). This season Sac Opera opened with Pirates of Penzance and it was wonderful. If you ever have a chance to see this show I highly recommend it. It's about a young man who is accidentally apprenticed to a pirate instead of a ship pilot but once he is set free from his apprenticeship he decides it is his duty to hunt the pirates. It is extremely funny and witty, the music is marvelous and it is one of my all time favorites.

Twilight

So you may or may not know that I have become a avid Twilight fan. I loved the books and am almost embarrassed to say that I have read them all several times (I even made Brian read Twilight but don't tell him I told you). Needless to say I was extremely excited about the movie. Well, the big day came and a group of us were their for the first showing at 12:00am.
I promised myself I was going to like the film no matter what, but they sure made it hard. I had no problem with any of the actor/actress choices (of course no one can be as gorgeous as Edward and the other Vamps are supposed to be) but I felt like they took out all of Edwards charm and didn't show how Bella and Edward fell in love. I could go on and on but I will just say that it was less than stellar and disappointing. In allegiance to the books, I will like the movie anyways and am excited for the next one.

Cabo

We have enjoyed some great trips this year and our week in Cabo San Lucas was no different. We had a blast and were especially glad to have my sister Kristin, her husband Darin and their youngest daughter Sydney with us. We were able to stay in a great resort a few mintues walk from downtown (thanks again Doug and Cindy). Here's the view of it from our balcony.

Yes, that is a ship in the pool!
Most of our morning were spent hanging out at the pool which the girls loved.

We also went deep sea fishing. Brian gets horribly sea sick so he opted to babysit the girls. After a full morning we had two bites, one was a beautiful El Dorado (mahi mahi) and the another that got away, and were headed back when Darin and Kristin spotted a Marlin. We had seen quite a few but hadn't been able to get them to bite. Well, this one took the bait and after 1 1/2 of hard work Darin was able to reel in the beautiful black and purple 200lb 9ft Marlin. Congrats Darin. We then released it.

We also took a snorkeling cruise. Even the girls got in and saw some fish.

Of course, we loved the beach and warm ocean water.