Nothing much...

After the craziness of December, January has been a slow and peaceful month for us. The weather has been a little nicer, so we've tried to get the kids outdoors more. We've been able to leisurely hang out with friends. We are also training for a 10-miler we signed up for in April (although it's not going as well as I had hoped- guess I am not as young as I once was!). Other than that, there is not much to report from Doyleland.

Great Falls, MD

Another Big Top Cupcake- will the fun never end?!? ;)

While on the never-ending hunt for a decent church, we found a really nice one near the best place in the world- Krispy Kreme! Coming here might be a Sunday tradition!
Out on the Potomac River
At Leesylvania Park. Seriously, all of the national and state parks out here are amazing. What a wonderful, fun and cheap place to go!

Picnicking with the Kindle's- they have three boys also!

What Justin would look like if he had Peter's hair! He's all colored up for crazy hair day at preschool.

And they are calling for snow in Saturday! I'm hoping for some winter pics in my next blog!

Like mother, like son.

I don't know where he gets it from! ;)

New Years in Ohio

We rang in the New Years with Peter's brother, Christian, his wife, Marilyn, their six kiddos, and Peter's sister, Della, in Ohio. Sr. Della is a Franciscan sister and we all were lucky enough to be able to stay in her convent during our visit, which is extremely rare. We had a wonderful time, just relaxing, watching the snow fall, and letting the kids run around and play.

Playing around in the convent

We did watch the Oregon-Ohio State football game, which was a blast! There are no televisions in the convent, so we attached a projector monitor to their computer and "broadcasted" it big-screen style on the wall!).

Watching the game

We also drove to Oglebay to see their Festival of Lights, which was amazing! Far better than the Bull Run's Festival of Lights here in Virginia, which I thought was very disappointing.

My favorite light display

The drive home was a little icy, but we made it home safe and sound! It was snowing and it was registering 3 degrees on the inside car monitor. Glad to be back to the warm 30 degree temps in Virginia!!

The mountain pass over West Virgina...

But now we are back, after an extremely busy holiday season. The boys are going back to school today and life returns to normal. I'm ready to calm down, but already planning on big things for next Christmas that we just didn't get to this year! Here's some things I'm already planning on doing... Ford's Theatre 'A Christmas Carol'; The Rockettes; Capital Tree Lighting, and Zoo lights at the National Zoo.

Happy New Years!

Christmas and ICE!

And what a great Christmas it was! I would say that it was the best Christmas ever, however, it went by just to darn fast! But we did a ton of great things this year and this was also my first white Christmas ever, since there was still tons of snow everywhere from last weekend's two-feet of snow.

Our back deck

We had some friends over Christmas Eve. The kids ran around and decorated cookies, while the parents had some yummy eats! I may make this a Christmas Eve tradition, b/c it was definitely fun having everyone over and helped pass the time for the kids until Santa came!


Travis told me that night that he had to sleep on the top bunk, since it was closest to the roof. That way he would be more likely to hear Santa Claus. Turns out, he heard something on the roof at about 2:30 am. He came barreling in, all excited, and since it was obvious that he was not going back to bed, we all got up and opened presents. WoW! We got some amazing gifts!! Thank you all!!

Travis wrote Santa a note with his milk and cookies

Our beautiful tree

We had a very lazy Christmas day. Other than going to church at 11, we lounged around and played with our gifts. For dinner we had turkey and ham, mashed ptotaotes, green bean casserole. I made a berry crisp that Peter had requested for dessert. Yumyumyum!

Decorating our Big Top Cupcake

After we lounged around all Christmas Day, we headed off to the Gaylord Resort to see ICE!

Granna going down the slide!

Here comes Justin and Daddy!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

NYC- Snow version!

So a friend emailed and asked about the snow we got up in NYC. There was a "historical" amount of snow here in VA while we were gone, but we got a pretty good amount- 12 inches- in New York too. It made for a fun train ride, a slightly difficult walk at times, and a very picturesque Central Park, filled with sledders & skiers galore. So here are some quick pics of the snow...

7th and 51st Street

Snow deep enough to throw your kid into...

Or for the kids to throw you into!

New York City!!

I had a very hard time writing this post. How do you sum up a huge trip in a quick blog? And between Lori and I, we took almost 800 pictures. How do you pick the best ones? So after going through them, and loving them all, I tried to pick just a few to sum up our amazing trip!

So here is an extremely Cliff note-picture version...

We rode the train up to the city. It was snowing the whole way- just like the Polar Express. I highly recommend traveling by train- AWESOME!! We made it up to NYC in about 4 hours.

WE'RE HERE!!

In Times Square...
We only did Christmas-oriented events, figuring we could save the huge tourist attractions (Statue of Liberty, Epire State Bldg) for the next time. Here we are in front of the Saks windows.
Lighting a candle in St. Patrick's Cathedral

Toy Store!!

Playing on the piano from "Big"

In front of Radio City Music Hall

The whole gang in Central Park

Seeing the famous Macy's Santa Claus

In Grand Central Station

It was a wonderful trip and I am so thankful for the experience! Merry Christmas, everyone!!

A Christmas-sy Night out

Last night, we, Granna and the Bolands took the Metro into DC for a wonderful night out. We had a great dinner inside the Old Post Office Pavilion, followed by an absolutely AMAZING holiday concert put on by The United States Army Band "Pershings Own". This concert was definitely one of my favorite Christmas events here so far (and we've done quite a few!)!

Beautiful scenery, singing and orchestra!

After the concert, we headed over to the National Christmas tree, in President's Park on the Ellipse of the White House.

Notice that the Washington Monument is also in the background of this picture! And Justin is dead asleep, draped over Peter's back.

And next weekend is New York City!! Woo Hoo!! Rockefeller center, here we come!