Christmas Day:

Super snowy

Super new coat

Super cute twins

Super sweet close up

We had Christmas in Claremont, Christmas in Pasadena, and today we will have Christmas in Portland Oregon, if we had 5 more we could just call it Hanukkah this year. Spending time with the family has been a real treat, everyone is growing up quite well, and some of the gifts have been quite creative and artistic. Today’s Christmas in Portland should bring some success as well, as long as the rest of the crew can make it here in the snow. The top photo is at my dad’s house in Claremont, and the bottom photo is of my mom in Pasadena.

The next set of photos may have a lot more snow.

Claire in Shop, originally uploaded by ultimatewhit.

Another photo of Claire shopping!

For Claire and I, Christmas #1 is tomorrow. We’re celebrating our first Christmas at my moms house in Pasadena, I’m sure it’ll look a lot like the traditional Christmas - Snow on the ground, wind rattling the windows, kids sledding outside.

Probably not, maybe more like our Christmas in Australia 2 years ago.


Hopefully we’ll have some photos of our LA Christmas in the next day or two. Then up to Portland where the scenery may be more “its a Wonderful Life” like - not that it’s not a wonderful life down in LA, you know what I mean though.

Sacré Cœur, originally uploaded by ultimatewhit.

This blog post is impossible to write. We were in Paris, we got engaged, then we came home and told the story about 45 times.

If I told the the story here it would never be able to change - We would have a place to look back at and say “that’s exactly how it was”. That’s no good. The thing about proposal stories is it gets better over the years. I even hesitate to post photos because 10 years from now we can’t claim that it was a nice, sunny, blue day out.

I’ll give you some details that will always stay the same:
We were at the Sacré Cœur in Paris, France.
Claire looked beautiful.
I had butterflies.
She said yes.

If you want the full story, you should probably call one of us. If you want the full story told with amazing detail, full of romance, and beautiful imagery, ask me to tell the story 25 years from now while our young adult children are listening.

Claire, Out shopping in Paris, originally uploaded by ultimatewhit.

This is one of my favorite photos I took while in Paris. Claire is walking down this glass hallway full of shops. I say “Hey Claire, hang on a second.”

Let’s take note of something real quick. When we go on walks, or hikes, I lead by 10 - 15 feet. When we shop, Claire leads by about the same distance. I’m not exactly sure why this is, I’m open to interpretations.

Claire stops, turns around, and gives me this look that I’m so deeply in love with—I captured it here.

The look: “I’m in the middle of something honey, can’t you see that what I’m doing is very important.”

(But note that she is not mad)

The look continues: “I love you and I am willing to wait, but you must realize that this is a habit of yours worth breaking. When we shop, you are slow, why would you want to take pictures when you could be buying Christmas presents in Paris?”

With a huge smile (and without saying a word), I agree that it WAS completely ridiculous, which she returns with another classic Claire look that I can best describe as lips pressed together, head tilted down, chin to the left, eyes up and looking directly at me. This look says “you know what I mean.” My smile continues and communicates back, “of course I do honey, let’s go shopping…”

It’s a week until Christmas so we spent a solid day walking around looking for gifts. Somehow I only managed to come back with a few—Claire did much better than I did. I have a lot to learn from her when it comes to Christmas shopping—maybe I won’t bring the camera next time.

Of course I will.

Smooth rose flavored macaroon biscuit, originally uploaded by ultimatewhit.

This is a Smooth rose flavored macaroon biscuit, with rose petal cream, fresh raspberries and lychees. We got it from Laduree Tee room… which is amazing. Claire got 4 mini macaroons, chocolate, vanilla, salted caramel and raspberry - She shared a bite. We also got coffee with whipped cream, you heard me.

Normally you would think that eating at a place like this with a nutritionist would be a form of narcissism, but Alex seemed to be on a health brake - this is sort of opposite of a diet. Basically his tour of Paris was a food tour. Who could ask for anything more?