NYC

We have lived on the East Coast for 7 years and in all that time we've never made it up to New York City. We have always wanted to go, but, for a myriad of reasons, it just never worked out.
This year Daddy decided we'd waited long enough.

The day after Christmas we all piled in the car and drove up to NYC. It was like another Christmas present. We only had a few days to spend there, so, although we didn't get to see everything, we made sure our time there counted.

That is a long way down.
We were on the 39th floor. 

The first thing we did after dropping our bags off at our hotel was take the subway up to Times Square. With all the lights and people, it was easy to see why they call NYC the city that never sleeps.


We were so happy that Emily was able to come with us.  When Paul bought us some Last minute Broadway tickets, Emily bravely took both boys back on the subway to the hotel and put them to bed.

Paul and I saw Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. It was a lot of fun to have a night out together.

The next day was a beautiful December day, so we hopped aboard a ferry and visited the Statue of Liberty. She is very impressive up close. We also made a trip to Ellis Island before heading back into the city for Dinner.

 
Everywhere we went, we took the subway. The mosaics in some of the stations were very pretty.



Mommy was really excited to go to a fancy NYC restaurant. Momofuku was perfect for this trip being a big deal but not too expensive. Having spent all day at the statue of liberty without having a nap, Bennet was not overly happy about being there and waiting in another line, but at least Mommy thinks it was worth it. They were very yummy noodles.





On our last day, we spent some time at the 9/11 memorial which was just across the street from our hotel. The Memorial's twin reflecting pools are each nearly an acre in size and feature the largest manmade waterfalls in North America. The pools sit within the footprints where the Twin Towers once stood.

Then, before going home, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.

We will have to go back someday to see more of the fun things in New York City!

HO! HO! HO!

We'd been excited for Christmas to come ever since we put our Halloween costumes away, with no one being more excited than Evan. We had to put Xs on our calendar to count down to "Thanksgiving" or, in his mind, the day before the Christmas decorations could be put up.

Evan was so thrilled that we were going to finally decorate the tree, he pushed and pulled the heavy decorations box all the way from Mommy and Daddy's room all the way to the front room in front of the tree. Evan decided that in order for it to be done right, he needed to take charge and tell us where each ornament should be placed. In fairness to him, he did a pretty good job. Bennet wasn't sure what all the fuss was about, but he liked ringing the jingle bells by pulling on the branches of the tree.

It's not Christmas time without lots of cookies to keep us happy while we wait for the big day. Though he wasn't much help at making the cookies, Bennet enjoyed watching us cut them out and he ate as many or more cookies as the rest of us.






Mommy and Aunt Emily had a wonderful time making their first ever gingerbread house together. It turned out very cute. We are already planning our gingerbread house for 2015.




















Considering it is Aunt Emily's first Christmas in Virginia, we took her on our annual trip to see the Christmas trains at the National Botanical Gardens. This year it was a lighthouse and pirate ship theme all made out of plant material.
Bennet could have watched the Choo Choos all day. Evan loved showing Emily all the cool pirate ships. Because we went on a Monday, there weren't very many people so we went through twice and took our time looking at all the other fun things at the Botanical Garden.

Evan knew that in order for Santa to know what he wanted for Christmas, he needed to make a list and somehow get it to Santa. Mommy helped with the spelling, but he wrote the list all by himself. We heard that Santa was hosting a breakfast at our local fire department which seemed like the perfect opportunity for Evan to hand deliver his list to Santa. Legos, puzzles and a toy that is inside plastic.

Aunt Emily spent Christmas Eve with us so she could be with us for Christmas morning.  But first, we had a wonderful dinner and a fun time at the temple looking at all the lights.  Christmas morning was worth the wait.
Bennet LOVES the choo choo and the train track he received and Santa made sure to check everything off of Evan's list.

Czech Christmas Market

The day after Halloween, the Embassy of the Czech Republic held a special Christmas Market. It felt a bit early to start thinking about Christmas, but we couldn't pass up the opportunity to eat goulash and watch a traditional marionette theatre performance.



Evan loved the marionettes and Bennet mostly loved eating the "trdelnik", a Czech pastry that is made from rolled dough that is wrapped around a metal tube then baked and topped with cinnamon sugar and nuts.

Trdelnik, YUMMY!

  I couldn't resist the beautiful hand blown Czech glass ornaments and I can't wait to see them sparkle on my Christmas tree next month.

Candy, Candy, Candy

Happy Halloween! We had a great Halloween this year. While Aunt Emily was staying with us, she helped carve pumpkins. Evan was so excited to carve pumpkins with her. He has loved having Aunt Emily here in Virginia. Emily and Evan carved a funny face with big teeth and hair on the big pumpkin, daddy put a spooky face on his, and mommy put a silly face on Bennet's

Bennet didn't carve his pumpkin, but he had fun watching all the pumpkin carnage from his little red car.


During Halloween week, we had lots of fun going to halloween parties. Evan and Bennet collected their body weight in candy.

Mommy made both costumes this year and they turned out really cute.










Evan was Super Why, a super reader hero from his favorite show. Evan has learned to read this year and we are so proud of him, so it wasn't hard to dress him up as a super reader.




Bennet was a Cute-a-saurus rex. I made him a tail and added spikes to a matching hoodie. It was adorable to watch him waddle that tail around carrying his candy bucket.

In addition to the ward trunk-n-treat, Evan had a Halloween party at his preschool and on Halloween day we took the train into DC to go trick-or-treating at Daddy's law firm, WSGR.







The kids had so much fun and got so much candy that, when it was time to go trick or treating later that night, Evan didn't want to go out. He thought it would be more fun to stay home watching halloween movies, binging on the candy he had already collected, and handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters that came to our house.

Pumpkins and Hayrides

Last week the boys and I headed up to Butler's Orchard to their Harvest Festival.
We had a lot of fun picking out the perfect pumpkin. There were LOTS of pumpkins so, it took a while, but Evan was able to find "The best pumpkin ever!"

We had a fun hayride to and from the pumpkin patch and, after dropping our pumpkins back at the car, we spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying all the other fun things they had at the harvest festival.

Bennet enjoyed playing in the sandbox filled with corn.



Evan loved the wooden castle and pirateship at the playground.

We also had fun finding our way through the corn maze

and going down the BIG slides on a burlap sack. We could have stayed all day, but we eventually needed to get home for naps.

Hershey Park

Unfortunately, when we got there, Evan wasn't feeling well and threw up all over himself, twice. So we turned around and made the two hour drive back to Virginia without riding any rides.

Before the season ended our wonderful friends, the Inouye's, invited us to go to Hershey Park with them. They had some free tickets for us and we were so excited to spend the day riding rides and eating chocolate.

The tickets were good for two more weeks and our nice friends gave us an extra ticket so, when Aunt Emily moved to Virginia, we could take her with us. This time everyone was feeling well and we had a great time exploring Hershey's huge amusement park.

 Evan did end up throwing up on himself again at lunch but this time it was because Mommy took him on a roller coaster that was probably too big for him.

We stayed all day and rode as many rides as we could before heading back home.