Merry Christmas from St. George and...California?

I've had this post in the works for a while but I keep waiting for the time and energy to actually write about our Christmas/New Years adventures. But alas, I think time and energy are a thing of the past so you'll just get the picture synopsis with a few comments! :)

We had originally planned on spending 4-5 days in St. George for Christmas and then coming home and spending the next week working on our house (since John had to take his vacation days before the end of the year or else he'd lose them). But on Christmas eve we realized that we were half way to California, the weather in SLC would be miserable all week, and this could be our last chance for a little getaway before baby girl comes. So on the 27th of December off to California we went (with a few stops at Costco, Walmart, and the grocery store on the way to pick up swim suits and other essentials for the last minute trip).

If you can't tell, I'm liking the collage feature on Picassa since it takes a fraction of the time to upload several pictures (I think you can click on the collage to enlarge it a bit but sorry the pictures are small).

Temple square and riding tracks pre-trip, Christmas eve nativity with the Crofts

More nativity and Christmas eve, Mimi with the newest member of the family (baby Chase), singing Happy Birthday to little J since big J despises being sung to on his birthday (which is the 23rd, poor guy!), and Johnny's big find on Christmas morning...a geotrax set! Just don't tell him it's used, he'll never know :)

Pismo beach, Palm Springs, and Oceanside, CA!!!

And Johnny's favorite part of the trip...LEGOLAND!!! He was in HEAVEN! And now he says about 10 times a day "let's go to legoland!" or "where did legoland go?"

Coming home has been a bit rough, especially since Johnny got hit with a bad case of croup. We originally thought he was having an allergic reaction to peanuts since he basically stopped breathing last Friday...the same day we'd spent 3 hours at the allergist having him do a peanut challenge test where he actually got to eat Reese's pb cups...but after lots of steroids, epinephrine breathing treatments, and some benadryl the doctor concluded it looked more like a severe case of rapidly onset croup than an allergic reaction. I think this was the first time I was excited that the kid was sick because I'd much rather deal with a week of croup than a peanut allergy for the rest of his life!

Other than that we're just plugging along and trying to get ready for baby #2 (or baby Hannah as we refer to her around here...it will be funny if we decide on a different name because we've all gotten pretty used to calling her that). Hard to believe I'm 35 weeks and she could be here within a month!