silly girl

 

Thanksgiving in DC

Livin' the m life...

 

currently in Virginia...

 

about 3000 miles away from home...

 

means most of our holidays are spend apart from our families. Sure does make me appreciate the family I'm missing and appreciate my little family of 4. I feel so blessed to have such an amazing man, sweet little boy, and spunky little girl in my life. Words fall short to describe the love I have for my little family.

 

I could go on and on about what I'm thankful for, but I'll skip to the fun part, our Thanksgiving in DC!

first stop: the FEAST. and boy, was it a feast! Chris chose this Brazilian barbeque restaurant where they are constantly bring out different kinds of meat. He was in heaven! We ate every kind of animal you can think of...AMAZING! (sorry PETA).





















next stop: the White House. I love this city at night, especially during the holidays. DC is full of character, the buildings are so beautiful, and the atmosphere there is just so... chill (for lack of a better word)!

our view of the Capitol building.

 This is definitely a Thanksgiving we will always treasure.

 

Thanksgiving 2700 Miles Away!

Thanksgiving 2011

     I always wondered why restaurants were opened on Thanksgiving, then I realized it was for people like us... We had been living on the East Coast, far from family and friends, for less than a month. With no plans for Thanksgiving, we thought it would be an opportunity to go out to a restaurant with our little family of four. Fortunately for us, we have some very kind people at our church that invited us over for dinner! There were a few other families there in the same situation. It turned out being a great, loving evening with our new friends and their families.



Can you find little Ella?!

Lincoln got his own little table!

Round 1 of our yummy dinner!

Our "Thankful For..." tree. Everyone wrote some thing they were thankful for on a leaf and stuck it to the tree.



Here's my leaf!



Lincoln kept playing tug-of-war with their dog!



Lincoln and Daddy!

     My night got even better when I received a video from my whole family at my Grandma's house where we celebrate every holiday. It brought tears to my eyes seeing everyone again and how thoughtful it was of them to think of us and send us a "We miss and love you" video. I loved seeing their faces and hearing their voice again.
     I am so thankful  for my wonderful family, miles away. I'm thankful for my amazing husband and perfect children. I'm thankful for our health, our home, our means. I'm thankful for all the great new people I have met that have made moving to an unknown place much easier. I'm so thankful to have the gospel in my life, without it I would be lost. Life is good, and it keeps getting better!

Thanksgiving in Utah

My first time in Utah!

Chris' grandparents were kind enough to fly all 3 of us up to Utah this Thanksgiving. It was absolutely gorgeous up there (and freezing)! I think it got as cold as 8 degrees. We had so much fun our there. They rented out a beautiful cabin out in Eden. It was 3 stories and each family got to have there own room which was really nice. There was even a hot tub out side in the snow! Chris and I went for a romantic stroll through the woods and made snow angels. I felt like a little kid playing in the snow, but I've never had the chance to do that. We had a pretty intense snow ball fight too, and of course I dominated him. Hahaha! Our snowman was the coolest!

The whole Fam!

 my cuddly bear

our super cool "ICE MAN"

 ahhhhh, the life.

 my boys relaxin'

family Christmas tree!

As much as we enjoyed our stay there with family, I must say, the airport was a pain! It took us 2 1/2 days to finally get home! Our flight was originally scheduled to leave 8:30 Sunday morning. So we get there, go through security (anyone who has flown with a baby knows how much work it is), sit for an hour and a half, only to find out it was CANCELLED because there was no one there to fly the plane! (at this point all of our luggage has already been shipped to California). We get RESCHEDULED to fly at 11:30. So we wander the airport for hours and as they finally scan our ticket to board, we find out we weren't scheduled until 11:30 the next day! So we talk to 3 different people and they work something out so that we can fly that night at 9:30. Chris' grandpa drives back to the airport to pick us up, we hang out at there house for a while, then he drives up back to the airport at around 7. We check in, go through security AGAIN, wait to board our plane, and we're finally in! We're seated, buckled in, and all ready to head home. An hour of waiting passes, and they announce that this flight has also been CANCELLED because one of the engines wasn't working! Chris is going nuts at this point and I'm just trying to stay calm and Lincoln was great through all of this. Our flight has now been RESCHEDULED for 3:30 pm the next day! Grandpa drives back to the airport to pick us up and we stay another night in Utah (without our luggage). This time we have a shuttle pick us up and take us to the airport (give poor grandpa a rest), check in, go through security yet again, wait to board, seated and buckled, and we're still crossing our fingers. YESSSS! We finally made home to good ol' California! It feels so good to be home.... the next day we were both sick in bed with the stomach flu!

hahahahahaha! It's funny now, but it sure wasn't at the time! What an adventure!

 It's snowing! this was our first attempt, so we're still happy

Lincoln slept the whole time.