Christmas Day with the Hammy's

Christmas Day 2009 was quite untraditional for us. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Mike had to work - nights. So, we headed up Christmas Eve afternoon and got to Salinas just when he was waking up. We hung out with Dad for a bit, put lights on the mini tree he found, got something to eat and dropped him off at his office. We then headed over to my Aunt and Uncle's house in Pacific Grove for Christmas Eve Cioppino!!! The girls had a great time playing with their cousins (they are fairly close in age to Kailee) and Mike even got the beat close to them and was able to pop in for a quick bite.

Mike's Sergent even let the guys with kids off at 1am so they could go home and get rested for presents with their kids. Christmas morning the girls woke up and saw that Santa found them all the way up in Salinas (we left a note and extra cookies and carrots at our house, just in case he stopped there first). The girls favorite gift was a Wii with Guitar Hero. Unfortunately, they had to pretend for the day b/c Mike doesn't have a tv at his "policeman house".

After a yummy breakfast, we headed out for a family day of fun. A friend of mine from college is a firefighter for Salinas Rural and happened to be working that day, so we took a bunch of cookies to the station and the girls had a private tour of the firehouse, the trucks and got to hang out for a bit. The loved it! After that, we headed to Mike's office for tour of the CHP office. That was way cool for them because they go to see where daddy worked and where all the police cars were, the dispatchers that talked to him on the radio, the whole bit. We left daddy at the office and headed home to cook a feast for the guys he graduated with that were working that night.

We had Mike, his roomie and 2 other officers filter in for food and Christmas treats. The girls were just in heaven with 4 officers in uniform eating dinner and all 4 police cars in the front of the house. It was short lived as the guys got a call and had to go back out to keep Salinas safe. At least they got a full tummy of food and treats though!

It was a fantastic Christmas! Who needs traditional anyway? I guess when you work a crazy law enforcement schedule, there is no traditional. We got to be together and that's what counted!