Visit with Santa, riding the escalator

Today we made our annual trip to have our pictures taken with Santa Claus. We headed first to Stanford to see the Santa there, but no luck. We arrived around noon and Santa was nowhere to be seen. Instead, Bill was informed that Santa would not be back until 1:30. What kind of Santa is that?? Two days before Christmas and he decides to take a 2 hour lunch? Also, there was a line waiting for him that was estimated to be 45 minutes long. We couldn't wait that long so decided to try Vallco (where we usually go), but were unsure if there would be a Santa since most of the mall is under construction. Liz whipped out her handy dandy Sidekick, quickly located the number for the mall, gave them a call and was informed that Santa was on a 10 minute break, but would indeed be there, so off we went.

We arrived at Vallco some 1/2 hour later and Santa was still on a break, but we were assured that he would be back soon, so I waited in line while everyone else wandered or went potty. Within minutes Santa was back and we had to rally the troops which included waking up Samantha, who had been sleeping on my shoulder. Pics taken, came out very well as far as I'm concerned. No crying (though it was tough staving off Bill), just very serious faces from the twins. Stacey looked great in her new do.

Afterwards, the twins got to take their first solo escalator rides (holding hands instead of being carried.) They were very cute and wanted to do it again and again which was a good thing because I missed the first trip down, so we had to reenact it for pictures. Andrea was very good about going round and round with them even when I launched Riley on the escalator 3 steps behind her and gave her a heart attack.

Bill finished his shopping and we headed home where we had the opportunity to meet Marti and Cort Doughty. They were very nice and the girls had a great time playing with them. Samantha was very excited about bringing toys to Cort.

The girls didn't get to nap today, so they fell asleep early, and I'm off to wrap presents. Merry Christmas all.