How I Spent My Winter Vacation

We're home! Yea and Boo all at the same time. I will never leave town the day after Christmas again. We opened presents, hurried off to brunch at Molly's -- which was so fun and yummy -- played with their present for the next 3 hours, hurried home and put the kids down for a nap so we could try to clean up and spent the rest of the day doing laundry, cleaning and packing. And trying to put batteries into toys. Bright and early the next morning we were off to Virginia.

The kids were great on the plane, and Sadie refused to nap as she usually does on the 5 hour plane ride, took forever to get the rental car. . . but hey, we were on AZ time, so eating at 9pm at night was all good.

Thursday was filled with all the good stuff -- a trip to the book store, dress fitting, playing with cousins, shoe shopping, meeting my sister's future in-laws. . .very loud and very crazy.

Friday my sister took her endowments out in the DC Temple. It was such a cool day! My dad joined the church as a teen ager and for years has been the only LDS member in his family. A few years ago, his younger sister had the missionaries over and started taking the discussions without even telling my family. Long story short, she was baptized a little over a year ago and decided to get her endowments taken out the same day as my sister. My mom was my sister's escort and I got to be my Aunt's. It was such a neat experience to get to do that with her, made only better by my whole family being there as well. I can't even explain how neat it was to get to do the whole thing with all 4 of us. My Aunt Ruthie is possibly the world's sweetest person and it was so amazing to see her reaction to everything. At one point she whispered, "I never want to leave." It can't explain what a wonderful time we all had.

5 hours later, hurried and picked the kids up and headed out for the rehearsal dinner. Nate's dinner: chips

Saturday was the wedding. We all know how that went, but I had to sneak a picture of Nate in since the booger went on camera strike during this vacation. You will notice there are pretty much no pictures of nate from here on out. He actually started running away when he saw the camera. And as you can see from this picture -- he didn't really want to take this one either. The only thing keeping him put -- sheer exhaustion.

Nate's meal plan: cheeseburger for lunch and I have no idea if he ate dinner because I was running around so much. Maybe cake? I know he had punch!

Sunday we all slept until past 1o, which is bad because we missed church, but I don't think anyone thought we would sleep that long. To make up for it, we stayed in our PJs all day and went up to the Temple that night to look at the lights, the Christmas Tress and Nativities. I love the Temple -- enough to go 3 days in a row.

Monday we visited the Udwar Hazi Air and Space Museum by Dulles. That place is HUGE! The kids loved it, even if Ellie did get "high sick" when we were on the highest cat-walk. They also have flight simulators there that I got to go on with the kids. It was so much fun to hear and see their excitement. I let the kids sit in the front and I sat in the back row, so Nate kept turning around to check on me and tell me to "hold on tight."

Ellie insisted that she take a picture while we there holding her cool space shuttle toy. It lights up and spins and all that fun stuff. Only Grandparents can get away with buying that kind of stuff. She also saw the American flag and asked me why they had the same flag we have in Arizona. Ellie doesn't quite grasp the concept of the United States I guess, since she also kept asking me at the airport how people talked in Virgina. "Do they talk normal?" Why yes they do!

Nate's lunch: McDonald's nuggets and fries

Tuesday was Zoo day! My mom has a friend who volunteers at the Reptile House at the National Zoo, so she gave us a special tour and then took the kids back so they could touch some of the reptiles. I was little worried since my kids are pretty wimpy, but Ellie loved touching all those gross little things. Nate sat in the corner with his thumb in his mouth and pouted the whole time.

My Aunt Kristine has been dying to see some reptile pictures so you get to see the 4 that I took. I don't even remember what they were all called.




After the reptiles we still managed to see the elephants, the apes and the pandas among others before we headed home for the day.

We also ate lunch at the zoo. Nate's meal: Half a burger, french fries and chips.

Wednesday we drove up to the National Aquarium in Baltimore. It is really amazing! If you're in DC, it's worth the drive. We started off with the 4-D movie. They played the Polar Express. 4-D means not only is the screen 3-D, but they also use your other senses. So the chairs moved, it snowed on us, you could smell the hot chocolate, they blew cold air at your face. . . Sadie was not a fan. She especially hated it when the water would squirt out from the chair in front of us. So we got up about half way and stood the rest of the show.

We also saw the dolphin show, which was incredible. Ellie leaned over and told me that she wanted to be a dolphin trainer when she grew up and I was trying to figure out how many years of college I would have to go back to do in order to become a dolphin trainer. Even Sadie was enthralled. She would clap and try to do the hand signals along with the crowd.

After that we headed to the "Ray Trays" and the Shark tanks. Nate loved the sharks, but was scared of the Rays. Ellie is taking a picture of puffins in the picture to the left. Below is Nate refusing to take a picture.They also have a Rain forest exhibit where the birds and monkeys are just climbing all around you in the wide open. Sadie couldn't stay awake by this time and fell asleep in the carrier for the rest of the aquarium exhibits.Nate's lunch at the Aquarium: chips

Thursday I wanted to stay close to home so my mom and I decided to go shopping with the girls -- Ellie really wanted some boots -- and my dad decided to take Nate on a train adventure. They rode the metro into DC to Union Station where they grabbed a train to ride into Baltimore. When they got there they turned right back around and rode home. Nate loved it. I called after not hearing for them for a few hours to figure out where they were. Nate answers the phone: "I'm on a train!" When he got home he showed me his ticket stubs with his name on them and told me all about eating in the snack car and pushing the doors open to get in between cars and how he had to jump over the little gaps.

He also had some of those free pamphlets with train pictures on the front which he insisted on carrying around. I'll get a picture up as soon as my parents send me one since it's on their camera.

Nate's train meal on the snack car: chips, chips and skittles.

Friday Sadie and I decided that maybe she needed a nap today, so my parents took the kids into DC on the metro where they went to the Natural History Museum and saw the Dinosaur bones. Nate told me he was scared before they left. I asked him why he was scared. "The Dinosaurs will eat me." "Dinosaurs will eat my butt. And my poop. And then they'll spit me." Turns out they didn't, but the kids came home with more great souvenirs for me to haul home. No pictures since they're on my parent's camera to.

Nate's lunch: chips! Are you shocked? He did eat healthy the rest of the time, but when we were out I couldn't get him to get anything remotely decent.

Saturday we did laundry and packed and cried and Nate proved how tired my kids were by throwing the world's longest hissy fit over nothing.

Other fun things we did in DC:

Made S'mores -- for some reason this has been on Ellie's to-do list for years and we've never done it

Sadie learned to crawl up and DOWN stairs

Made sugar cookies. Nate dumped the enitre bottle of red sprinkles on one cookie shortly after this picture was taken.

My parents never slept. The kids were both in their room and they made them sing songs and tell jokes and goof off all night long.

Sadie pulled everything out of every nook and cranny at my parent's house.

Sunday we returned home to find our Christmas tree still up -- I thought maybe some magic elves would come and put Christmas away for me. It's all put away now, the clothes are unpacked and the laundry done. I think I'm ready for life to start again.

Now admit it -- did you actually read that whole novel, or did you give up half way through and just look at the pictures?