Living the Life and Loving It!: Celebrating Christmas In Northern VA!

We spent this past Saturday in Northern Virginia visiting with family and friends for Christmas!! We were sad though to miss out on seeing our dear friends The Murchisons and also Ruth and Matt and their cute girls because they were sick:( We did have a GREAT day, though!!

We left our house around 9 and once we finally started to head North on 29 we felt like we were getting somewhere!!! We went to our friend, Raman's house first. Where we were greeted with smiles, hugs, good conversation and an Indian lunch prepared by Raman's mom! We all enjoyed tastes that we don't often get, but I think out of all of us (Raman's family included) Ethan enjoyed it the most!! He ate and ate and ate!! If I didn't know differently I would think he ate that food everyday!!

After leaving Raman's we headed to the temple! We thought, since we didn't have any other plans until our Family Christmas Gathering at 6pm we would take the kids to the Washington DC temple visitor's center and see the nativities and watch a few movies about Christ. And that is just what we did. And we were fortunate to stay just long enough for them to turn on all of the amazing Christmas lights that decorate the temple grounds this time of year! It is breath taking! I love to see the temple and it was made even sweeter to have our kids with us on Saturday! They all enjoyed the lights, but I think their favorite was the nativity scene that was set up. It brought tears to my eyes as I watched both of my girls walk up to the manger where baby Jesus was and look at him. It was a moment that I will not soon forget. I could see in their eyes that they get it, and that they are truly beginning to understand what this Christmas Season is all about.

We went straight to Nathan and Sarah's house after leaving the temple. And there had a yummy dinner and dessert! Seriously I think some of the BEST BLUEBERRY PIE we have EVER had!! Way to Go Sarah! Then we had our FIRST EVER Cookie Exchange, sang a verse of Silent night, had a prayer together and were on our way back to Charlottesville at 9PM! (of course there was lots of great conversation and play time for the kiddos in between all of that too!! I mean how can you not have those two things with 7 adults and 8 kids in one house!!:)

We are blessed to have so many family members and friends that we love so dearly living so close so that we can visit often!! We are looking forward to our next visit already in 2013!!!

Ethan playing with Raman's Mom!