Sinterklaas

This is everyone.

All of the Poorts.

Every year we celebrate Sinterklaas

(Dutch Christmas...you know...because Jon is from there and all...).

This year we hosted it at our home.

It was so much fun.

We ate chicken enchiladas (VERY Dutch...not really).

We read our poems to one another and opened gifts.

We changed into jammies and played games.

We made gingerbread houses and filled our shoes with carrots (for Sinterklaas' horses) and placed them on the front porch.

We stayed up until 3:30 (yes...in the a.m.).

Slept for a few hours.

Woke up to candy-filled shoes and breakfast made by Jon.

Lunch by Uncle Oscar.

Spent the day in jammies and laziness.

It was bliss.

Auntie Tee gets the kids matching pjs every year.

This year was Phineas and Ferb for the boys and Tangled for the girls.

Chloe wants hers washed every day so that she can wear them every night.

Our Uncle Weston Fix

My brother, Weston, is an Air Force man.

We are proud but we miss him.

He came home in the middle of December to celebrate Christmas early.

My sister, Amber, typed up an itinerary in late November to ensure that we got the most of our time with him.

We stayed busy!

We started out by having a family dinner together and then going to the Celebration of Lights.

There is something about lights and kids.

It makes them instantly happy and excited.

This year it was held at the race track and it was twice as long as last year's display.

All of us (illegally) piled into my parent's Yukon and turned up the Christmas carols.

Ava taking her turn in the front seat.

dAmber and Kyle run in the Santa Run Race every year and get free tickets to the Magical Forest at Opportunity Village. The kids played a round of golf, ate funnel cakes and hot chocolate and rode the carousel.

We spent Wednesday night of that week at Elizabeth's first band concert (she plays the flute!) and Thursday night we went to Naomi's first dance/voice recital.

Both of these events were must sees, but I think next time I will leave the kids at home.

Nightmare.

Santa Claus Came To Town

Auntie Meghan held her annual shoots with Santa Claus.

It is never a disappointment.

The kid's were thrilled.

Giving Thanks

I am sort of a control freak.

There.

I said it.

I like planning things and having things work out just how I planned them.

There is something to be said for getting what you want, when you want it.

It's nice, right?

This past year has been a year of learning that I am not always in control.

One of my favorite quotes is from the writer Maya Angelou:

"When you encounter a trial in your life, before you do anything, drop to your knees and thank God for what you are about to learn."

Trials are inevitable but how we react is our choice. I have been guilty this year of doing my share of complaining for things not always going as I planned them and in doing so missed so many learning experiences.

I am crazy blessed. Beyond what I ever planned for myself.

But, I think everyone is.

I just think that I am guilty of forgetting that some blessings come in the form of trials.

This Thanksgiving I am grateful that I didn't get exactly everything that I wanted this year, because I know that God, instead, has given me exactly everything that He knows that I need.

Day 1 - Washington D.C.

You know how there are some experiences in your life that you romanticize? You look back and what actually happened gets mixed in with a little bit more fluff from your memory so that the memory is better than what you really experienced?

Well...I do that sometimes.

In September, we took a VACATION (Yes, a vacation. NOT a trip. No children).

Our brother-in-law is living in Washington D.C. for a short time and so it gave us a place to stay. We planned the trip within a few weeks. We are so spontaneous.

I used to fly to Washington D.C. all of the time when I was a flight attendant.

One of my most memorable trips was a 72 hour layover to D.C. and my Dad decided to come along with me. It had all of the ingredients to a perfect trip. 3 days with my Dad. Free hotel. Money for food and spending. What could go wrong?

Well...

the trip occurred at the same time that the Virginia sniper shootings were happening.

Remember when that was happening?

Well...

as we were deplaning, the pilot gathered our flight crew together and told us that because the shooter(s) had not yet been caught, we needed to take extra precaution. If we planned to do any sight seeing, we needed to walk in a brisk walk and in a zig zag pattern...

you know...to throw off the shooter.

Genius.

I told my Dad...sort of in passing...but he pretty much took it to mean that our lives depended on our vigilance to this advice.

Oh...and it was poring rain outside.

My Dad was intent on seeing EVERY.SINGLE.MONUMENT/MUSEUM that D.C. had to offer within the 3 day period. This ended up not being as impossible as you would think.

The 2 of us ran, zig zag, throughout the whole downtown D.C. area for 3 days.

Did we see everything?

I think so.

Every time we would get to our destination, my dad would yell for me to take a picture, we would touch whatever it was and then we would be running to our next destination.

This was almost 9 years ago.

That story was probably romanticized a bit. It was probably more miserable than what I described, but over time it has become really funny.

But I digress.

This vacation was perfect in every way. Even while we were experiencing it, I knew that I was living what would become some of my fondest memories. Over the course of 6 days, we traveled throughout Washington D.C., Virginia, Philadelphia and New York City.

It was amazing.

This vacation has become my new "happy place" and now when I am folding laundry or the kids are screaming at me to referee a dispute, this is where I go.

My happy place.

Do you have one of those?

Get one.

Even if you have to romanticize a memory to get one.

The White House

Washington Monument

National World War II Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

Vietnam War Memorial

Day 2 - Washington D.C.

U.S. Capitol

We spent the second day on a tour of the U.S. Capitol. It really was amazing. We had a representative from Senator Harry Reid's office give us a detailed tour of the whole building.

Jon is standing on the star that is inlaid in the floor that marks the point where Washington D.C.'s streets are numbered. It used to mark the center of Washington D.C. It is found in the crypt of the Capitol (it is called the Crypt because it was built to house the body of President Washington...but he ended up being laid to rest at Mt. Vernon).

Original Supreme Court Chambers

Rotunda

Okay...so this is awesome. There is a statue that is made for each of the Presidents of the United States. President Reagan's statue has little pieces of the Berlin Wall in it.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Entrance to Nancy Pelosi's office

Brigham Young???

Each state was asked to choose 2 notable people from their state's history and have statues made of them to be added to the Capitol's Statuary Hall.

This one is from Utah.

This is us standing on the balcony outside of Senator Reid's office. The view is amazing!

After we left Senator Reid's office, a security guard asked us if we wanted to go to the President's Room. This is the room where all of the President's go after they are inaugurated. Our tour guide had never been in this room before and so we all learned about it together. There were no cameras allowed. There was, however, a picture of President Johnson and Martin Luther King, Jr. in the room after the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The table that is in the room is the table that President Lincoln used when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

Ummm...pretty amazing.

Her name is the Statue of Freedom and she is what tops the roof of the Capitol Building and she (and what she represents) is beautiful.

After we finished up our 4 hour tour of the Capitol, we whipped out our very touristy tour book to find where we could go before everything closed. We must have looked totally lost and a random man came up and asked if we needed help finding something. Since we didn't know where we should go, he suggested that we follow him. There were 4 of us and 1 of him so we totally followed.

So...

We found out that he was the head of the secret service for the Capitol and he ended up being the perfect tour guide. He whisked us off to see the Library of Congress. I had heard of it (and probably touched the building with my Dad!), but I didn't really know what went on inside.

It was breathtaking. The art. The books. Everything.

Did you know that you have to get permission to even do research there?

I didn't.

After a quick dinner, we ventured to the Thomas Jefferson Monument. It was awesome to see D.C. at night. All of the monuments are lit up and the weather was so calm. It was peaceful to sit on the steps of the monument and just think.

I feel blessed to live in America.