Christmas in Virginia

Not long after Paul and I decided that we would be staying in Virginia for Christmas, my parents called to say they wanted to come for a visit. We were thrilled at the idea of having family with us during the holiday season! In preparation for their arrival I cleaned, decorated, and furnished our extra bedroom (huge thanks to Victoria Blanchard). Friday December 21st had finally come. I paced by the window as I waited in anticipation for my family to arrive. I had so many things I wanted to do during our one week together.

Local Places

Of course we had to check out Virginia Tech's campus.
Burruss Hall

 

We stopped by the duck pond & quickly made new friends. 

Dad & Paul managed to improvise in the rain without umbrellas.

Back at the house we made gingerbread houses & cut out snowflakes.

 

Mom & I had a blast cooking up delicious meals! I think the men enjoyed eating all our creations.

My first attempt at making an ice cream cake roll, turned out pretty well.

Christmas Day

We spent the afternoon on a hike to Cascade Falls.

Following the leader.

Paul caught a brook trout on Christmas Day.

Cascade Falls

Washington D.C.

We drove to Washington D.C. the day after Christmas. It was quite the journey as we finally made it through the snow storm, the first of the year for us. We had a wonderful time visiting the Air and Space Smithsonian as well as several other historical monuments.

 The D.C. Temple had a great holiday light display.

A quick ride on the Metro to the Smithsonian.

Arlington National Cemetery 

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Lincoln Memorial

And this is what we all felt like doing by the end of our fun filled week.

Thanks for the good time Dad, Mom, & Tyler!

Thanksgiving Weekend

Paul and I gladly made the three hour drive to spend time with family in North Carolina this Thanksgiving. We are so grateful for Scott and Chelsea's hospitality each time we have visited them. We are thankful to have family close by, especially during the holidays. We love and miss everyone in Utah.

Our original plans were to go camping and create a Dutch Oven Thanksgiving Dinner. Due to several coughs, sore throats, and lost voices we decided that it would be best to stay indoors. However, because we had already planned some of our dutch oven dishes, we decided to go ahead and cook part of our Thanksgiving dinner in the dutch ovens at the house. This lead to a friendly competition between Scott and Chelsea who decided to have a turkey cook off. Chelsea cooked her turkey in a conventional oven and Scott used a dutch oven over coals. I thought both were great, along with all the other wonderful things we ate!

Happy Hokie Day!
(It's complicated but a Hokie is a turkey)

 Our lovely table setting for our Thanksgiving feast.

The men hard at work to prepare the dutch oven dishes.

The goodness cooking.

Scott is ready to carve the turkey.

We went for an afternoon hike at Occoneechee Mountain. The weather was perfect. 

Our view from the top.

We took a small break & the girls decided to play Down By The Banks. 

Following the Leader. 

Paul made an attempt to fish the Eno River with no luck.

Chelsea's and I spent some craft time making origami star ornaments. 

The instructions claim this to be "an excellent folded star which can be made by children of great aptitude as well as the bedridden invalid of full mind". In other words this is really hard and takes a lot of patience. 

After some serious thinking and a few wrong folds we were successful. 

We had a wonderful weekend with the Scott Dyreng family. We always enjoy our time with them.

And we are looking forward to spending Christmas in Virginia with my parents and little brother Tyler!

Happy Holidays!