Christmas Day

Christmas Day
December 25, 2009
Falls Church, Virginia

The kids had a "sleepover" on Christmas Eve with their sleeping bags spread out on the floor. They left cookies out for Santa and carrots out for Rudolph -- they were amazed Christmas morning when all they saw on the plate was a pile of crumbs. Andrew woke up at 3:30AM, and Gracie woke up at 6:00AM -- both VERY excited. We have a video recording and some other pictures from Christmas morning that we will share with anyone that is interested.

New table for doing art projects that Munga bought the kids for Christmas. They LOVE that they can draw on the table. Katie spends all day with the chair -- up and down -- up and down -- up and down. Katie also got a french beret hat for Christmas from Heather Francis.

Our little "Superheroes," off to save the day -- with Katie leading the charge. Sarah made these capes for the kids for Christmas, and they LOVE flying around the house in them.

Gracie got a baby bottle for her dolly (named Ruby) for Christmas. When you tip the bottle up the juice inside disappears, as if the baby is drinking the juice. When you tip the bottle back down the juice re-appears. Sarah also made a superhero cape for Gracie's dolly.

Andrew got a tractor book for Christmas and was very excited about it -- especially since it makes real tractor sounds.

Gaylord National Resort

Gaylord National Resort
Christmas Eve - December 24, 2009


Gaylord National Resort is a hotel located on the Potomac River in Maryland. There was lots to see -- including the lighting of a glass Christmas tree inside the hotel, a model train exhibit, and a water fountain show put to music.

The harbor was aligned with boats, and the community Christmas tree was center stage -- it was over 100 feet tall. Santa showed up on a jet ski, but so did the Grinch -- Santa dumped the Grinch.

"ICE" was a life-size ice exhibit at the resort. It included 2,000,000 pounds of ice covering 15,000 square feet of space. A team of 40 sculptors from China spent 40 days sculpting and coloring everything from Santa's workshop to a penguin village to a castle complete with ice slides (which the kids LOVED). Inside it was 9 degrees, which required all visitors to wear the special blue jackets seen in the photo above.

Andrew and Gracie and one of the many ice sculptures.

Daddy and Andrew ice skating in the rink outside the ice exhibit. Both Gracie and Andrew loved their first experience on ice -- they got better and better as the day went on -- just as Daddy's back got worse and worse from holding them up. We had fun.

It's Winter Time!

It's Winter Time

December 2009

The Girls. Our first snowfall of the year. The kids had a BLAST, as we had a family snowball fight.

We got our Christmas tree this week. Gracie and Andrew LOVED decorating it. Katie stays busy un-decorating it.

Andrew and Gracie play like making sand castles, as well as SNOW castles.

The Washington, D.C. Visitor's Center is lit up with 500,000 lights every year (similar to Temple Square in Salt Lake City). This year was no exception. The kids could not get enough of the lights, and they loved the musical concert held inside.

Daddy and Gracie built a snowman, complete with two eyes, a nose, a mouth, hair, two arms, and a button-down vest.