A pictureless Christmas

After a wonderful Christmas Eve Day, two family parties and lots of family Riley and I got the stomach flu. We were up all night. It was not an ideal way to spend Christmas morning. Therefore, there are no pictures! Benson's first real Christmas morning and we have no documentation. 

Luckily I made it upstairs to talk to Riley S. on the phone for a few minutes, then Riley and I were able to sit through present opening.... but not dinner :(

Poor us.

It was still a lovely day and we got several lovely gifts. Luckily the sickness didn't get in the way of us feeling the Christmas spirit. We are grateful for Jesus Christ and that we could celebrate his birth.

The weeks after christmas were filled with a lot of fun! I have pictures of that :)

We sat in the living room. Ha, ok, can you see the puzzle table behind benson? Mom, kate and riley spent a lot of hours on that. 

One of the highlights was going to the cabin. Riley and I hiked up for a night. It was BEAUTIFUL. Winter and mountains is incredible.  We were lucky enough to see a bald eagle fly over tibble fork and land on the top of a pine tree. can you spot him in the picture below?

We had planned to snow shoe but the snow was so packed down that it was easier to hike. 3 1/2 miles and took us less than two hours!

We took a lunch break and enjoyed the views.

I sure was happy to see this place again.  

Once we got up there we had to start the fire. It was freezing! But it warmed up soon enough. There was no gas for the generator so we had no electricity. And the water pipe was frozen so we had to melt snow. It was quite the adventure.

Fong.

They almost look like they are on a date! What cuties. This is pre-hadley-blow-out.

We also got to visit the MOA- Carl Bloch exhibit. Really amazing.

A few days later we flew home. It was very sad to leave everyone again. We sure miss seeing family so often! We have been very busy since we got back. One day we got Benson new shoes. Sweet kicks.  More posts to come.

Before Utah/Benson's first birthday

Dad? Are you viewing this on your new phone? I hope so, because you can do that now. If not, call me and I will show you how.

Wow. We are back in Maryland. What a fun trip we had. It will be difficult to recapture everything that happened. But before we get to that... here are some things from before we left.

We built a snowman.

We visited the National tree.  It sits in the lawn in front of the White House, surrounded by a tree from each state.  You better believe we looked for the Obama's.

Notice the Washington near by?

Benson tried on his daddy's shoes.

And went to our ward Christmas party!

Two days later- Riley dropped us off bright and early at DCA where I somehow managed to push a stroller and pull two bags, a carseat, and a backpack to the check-in counter.  I quickly learned that Frontier now charges for carry-on bags if you buy the ticket through a third party. Like Orbitz. I guess it is in the fine print. rude, right? So I checked it at the gate which left my hands free to deal with Benson, who had just discovered how to walk- and all of the independence that comes with that. Somehow it took nearly 45 minutes for everyone to board the plane...... but once we got on we found our seat had an extra 5 inches of leg room. we scored.  We made fast friends with the lady sitting next to us. She was wearing a fur vest and Benson loved it. Between that and her watch he was pretty occupied for the entire flight.  He didn't sleep but was fairly easy to please.  After a quick layover in Denver we were on the last leg of our trip.  As soon as we took off Benson passed out on my lap.  He woke up just as we were landing. It was a lovely flight.
Also- Frontier doesn't serve drinks anymore. I mean, they do, but they charge you. What's with that?

Mom was waiting for us and our luggage came quickly. Before I knew it we were home! The house was decorated beautifully. I love it at Christmas time! It was so fun to see everyone. Kelli and Jake came over for dinner. I hadn't seen dad in nearly 6 months and it was great to see him again.  In the week before Riley came we accomplished a lot.
-sister lunch and movies
-babysat cousin Hadley
-laughed at benson and hadley
-shopping, a lot
-watched my three sons
-ate mom's delicious food
-played the piano
-made chocolate covered pretzals and peanut clusters

And I don't have a picture of a single one. BUT- I do have a few golden pictures:

Ok.... one golden one. But it's a good one.

Then Riley came! Oh boy, a week away is long. Too long. We were excited for him to join us. Finals went extremely well. As soon as he arrived we had a little birthday party to hold. For our cute one year old. Can you believe he is one? Me either. He just gets cuter and more fun every single day. It's amazing. 

Here's the party.

We are so grateful for Benson and the wonderful, sweet boy that he is. We are also so lucky to have wonderful family and friends who care about him as well :)