Christmas Day... in as few words as possible

Courtney Family rearing to go before the present opening begins

Anabelle's baby doll and the Courtney children's new African dress

Our gifts from the Courtneys (although we said we weren't exchanging lol!) we were pleasantly surprised at the thoughtfulness of their gifts:

This is a table cloth and napkin set...

 Yummy Cashews!  All nuts are OUTRAGEOUSLY expensive here! I always savor each bite!

 John always borrows Robin's baby powder.  He has a secret trick to get the sand off his feet after a day at the beach.

 This is a coaster

And the first gift for Baby Campbell!!!

John and I agreed not to exchange gifts this year.  Mostly because we are on a tight budget, but partly because he has been naughty and probably deserves some coal in his stocking (just kidding!).   However, even though I said I didn't need anything, John still got me a couple of fun things...

A kitchen timer...

 And yes I did say I wanted this... so John is not (I repeat NOT) in trouble for getting this for me :)

As you can see in the pictures I am wearing pajamas in this pictures.  John and I are pajama kind of people on Christmas morning.  Anybody get all ready in the morning before opening presents?  Last year I was training for a 1/2 marathon and Christmas morning I woke up and did one of my long 9 mile training runs before anybody else was up.  When I returned home, I still showered and got back into my pj's because its tradition!

For Christmas we were invited over to Gabe and Sada's house for a Mexican food dinner.

7 layer dip

 Hot spicy queso

 Really spicy and delicious homemade salsa (they have a hand crank blender!)

 They found chips!  (Very rare here)

 Homemade flour tortillas (a recipe from Gabe's mom who still lives in Mexico!  Mmmmm soo good!)

 My contribution: guacamole!  It could have been a little spicier for my taste

Also included but no pictures: refried beans, taco meat, skewers of chicken/bell pepper/onion, and chocolate cake for dessert.

Here is my delicious dinner plate:

Here are the players:

Gabe and Sada (He is a dentist that runs a clinic here that I will hopefully start cleaning some teeth at next week!) Sada is 33 weeks pregnant and will be returning to the states next week to give birth there.

 Tom and Becky... they just arrived a few weeks after us and are Gabe and Sada's neighbors

Becky and Christine

Chuck and Tom

The entire dinner crew... (check out Chad's awesome face!)

A fun game of white elephant with our friends!

I scored and got a box of chocolates and John got a car shade!  I think we lucked out and got the best presents.  Other finds were an electric mosquito killer that looks like a racquet, a backstreet boys mug filled with individual nescafe packets, a brownie mix, among many other fun gifts!  Sierra Leone is a gold mine for white elephant gifts.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.  John and I missed family a lot but got to talk to them via Skype Christmas night!

Happy New Years!