We flew back to Seattle to surprise Dad for his retirement party.  Only Ma knew.  So we also got to surprise Becky, Grandpa, GrandDad, Grandma, Uncle Bob and Aunt Dee!  We had great fun!  We actually needed a place to rest our tired bodies and party prep after we sat on the tarmac that morning for 3 hours (pilot slept through his alarm) so we went to Grandma and GrandDad’s before the grand unveiling at the party and surprised them and Aunt Dee early at the house.

Check out more photos after the jump!

And check out my pop’s new hobby: http://www.daveandjanallen.net/

We have had a very Merry Christmas and hope you have too!  Spending this Christmas just the two of us was both a bit lonely without our families and also exciting for us.

This morning we woke up early in order to open a couple gifts before services so we could wear new Christmas clothes to church, and then we headed over to Trinity Church.  It was a beautiful service with a great sermon.  We really enjoy it there.

After church we hightailed it home to continue our tradition-making.  We popped a French Bread Casserole in the oven that Jeannette had prepped last night and then exchanged gifts over Skype with the Allen side of the Fiallen family.  We had such a great time getting to see Jan, Dave, Becky, Grandpa, Uncle Bob, GrandDad and Grandma!  Skyping really helped us to be able to feel like we had a little piece of our back home family out here.

We want to mention that we got the French Bread Casserole recipe from a roommate of Jeannette’s from college from Junior year.  And it was so so SO good – the calories can attest to that!  It is going on our Christmas morning traditions for sure.  If you are so inclined, looking for a goody to bake for a special morning breakfast treat you should check out the recipe here on her blog:  eat at allie’s.

In the afternoon we watched the Celtics WIN (86-77) in Orlando, even without Pierce.   It was so much better than last year’s abomination Christmas Day game against the Lakers.

AND we got a Wii and games for Christmas (Thanks Moms and Dads!!!!) so we’ve been playing that all night!  We love Super Mario Bros. Wii and are already getting into Madden 10.

For dinner, we cooked the traditional Fiallen Green Bean Casserole, with a great Mustard-Maple Pork Loin (using thyme from our still-growing-like-crazy herb garden).  It was really good Christmas dinner!

All in all, a great Christmas! We made some great memories and will treasure our first solo, married couple Christmas as a special one.

We hope your Christmas was as blessed as ours!

I’m going to sign off with the Blessing from church today:

UPDATE Here is a picture of the Skyping session from the West coast perspective!

But we did have a great time! We played Pinochle!! Josh even had a Double Run, one deal after melding a Double Pinochle! Grandpa has been playing since he was 17 or so and he has never seen a Double Run! Pretty great! We had a good time seeing them on their RV journey, zig-zagging across the States. And we had a fun time roughing it, sleeping in a tent in super chilly weather – but it was good to know the RV was nearby if we needed it!

Our parents and Grandpa Brown took us to Nantucket to celebrate the big graduation and take a little time off! It was great to relax and be with our family, even if it was a little rainy! We do love Cisco Brewery and we love Nantucket’s cedar shingles!

More pictures after the jump.