Family Weekend

Since we've moved here I've had my eye out on the Delta fare sales that come out every week for when Salt Lake to Washington went on sale.....and I'm happy to say last weekend they finally did! So my family booked flights and flew out over the weekend, it was so nice to see them, it literally lifted my mood instantly. Initially it was just going to be my parents coming out but Megan and Allie jumped on the bandwagon so we had a full house at the Ostler's over the weekend. They flew in Saturday afternoon and left Tuesday morning so it was a quick trip but definitely worth it. After we picked them up from the airport we had dinner and then drove through the city to see the monuments at night. We only circled the mall twice by getting turned around (since this was my first time driving downtown) and it was good we drove through because Sunday and Monday were foggy rainy days.

 Allie making her delicious chocolate chip cookies

Sunday was pretty typical, go to church but I had my dad help me (actually I don't think I helped at all...ha ha), so he made a pot roast and homemade rolls for dinner, my absolute favorite. My cousin Jaklyn came over for dinner, she lives just across the river from us in Virginia and it was so funny because Harrison has been saying this thing a lot lately and I've never thought much of it, kinda sounds like baby, but Jaklyn said, "it sounds like he's saying Bieber!" so now that's all I hear whenever he says it....and he says it a lot!

Monday we went out into the city, saw the Washington Monument and went to the Natural History Museum. It was pretty cold and rainy....I think it's the coldest we've had since we've been here, normally it's in the 40's or 50's. Monday was also the Pro Life March, we had no idea. When we came out of the museum the mall was packed with protestors....should've gotten a picture but we were just trying to get out of there.

All bundled up

This was before we went into the museum, when we came out it was solid people marching for the protest

The Hope Diamond

In the live butterfly exhibit

Then we had to go to Georgetown and get some cupcakes. It was pretty exciting and delicious!!

Ice

So I can't believe I forgot to include one of the funnest things we did this Christmas. Porter's work does Secret Santa's and our gift was tickets to see Ice. And what it is are these ice sculptures done by the Chinese and this year's theme was a Merry Madagascar. We get there and we didn't really know what to expect but they put us into a big room and show a movie clip from Merry Madagascar so we know the storyline to the sculptures. Then they lead us into a huge room/maze with these amazing ice sculptures. They keep the room at 9 degrees so they give you an extra parka to put on top of our winter coats and even then it was absolutely freezing, not only because it's 9 degrees but they've got these huge fans in the room blowing 9 degree air.

But simply amazing. Then at the end they have this big ice slide you can go down. The first time Harrison went down he really like it so we put him down again and it was a total 180. He hated it and he got stuck in the middle which really really made him mad.....that's the one we got on film. I felt like a mean parent, torturing my kid just so I can get a video. But I promise he liked it the first time!

Holidays

Christmas was a lot of fun at our house this year....mainly because of Harrison. We got the tree up and decorated it and I'm surprised at how well he did with it, mostly looking at it and feeling a couple of the ornaments but nothing disastrous. Earlier in the month we drove up to the DC Temple to see the Christmas lights. It was really pretty and Jenny Oaks Baker was playing that night so we got to enjoy her music.

Then unfortunately Harrison wanted to play with the stockings and he pulled it down and the stocking holder smacked him right in the eye.  It was black and blue for about a week. I felt so bad but he was such a trooper.

Christmas was really fun. On Christmas Eve it was such a nice day that Porter took Harrison outside to play at the park. And we enjoyed some really good food on Christmas Eve and dinner. We had to spoil ourselves someway since we weren't spending it with family. We decided to open presents after church since Harrison wasn't getting up early. By the end it was really fun because Harrison was getting the hang of it and excited for his new toys.