Our Chirstmas Happenings...

2010 was a weird Christmas season for me. I was kind of grinchy for no real reason. Luckily, for my family, I finally kicked in gear and 'got er done'! (I have never waited until the week of Christmas to put up the tree...until this year!)

We decided to make Christmas Eve a fun day! Scott wanted to take Kyle to see the new Tron movie. Before the 'big boys' headed off to a matinee show at the theater we went out for breakfast. (Other than on vacation) I can't remember the last time we went out to eat for breakfast. It was a fun treat. Might even be a new tradition.After our big birthday bash (you can read about it in the last blog post) the boys each had one gift to open under the tree. PJ's! I was pumped to find matching footie pajamas in both their sizes...a rare find!Off to bed, where visions of Sugarplums danced in our heads...

Hooray! Santa came and left some fun stuff.And as always, the aftermath of a fun, present filled morning.I love my little family so much. I have two great boys, who are my world. Scott is amazing and I am beyond blessed that he is my husband. Although we had a slow and slightly rough start to the Christmas season, it ended up being a success! We had a great time, got some fun gifts, and spent some quality time with good friends.

Happy 2010th Birthday!

When I was a child, every Christmas Eve my mom would make a cake and we would sing 'Happy Birthday' to Jesus. A good reminder to us kids of what the Christmas holiday and season is all about. We decided to take the whole Birthday thing a step farther and started a new tradition in our little family. On Christmas Eve we had a Birthday Party honoring Jesus...complete with friends, food, party games, and cake and ice cream. It was seriously SO MUCH FUN! And, I'll tell you what, Kyle has no doubt as to why we celebrate Christmas, so it worked!

Here is some of the fun from our birthday celebration...

Playing the present dice game. (There is a present wrapped up in tons of layers of paper and tape. You go around the circle and roll a dice. When you get doubles, you have to put on a pair of socks and start opening. As soon as the next person gets doubles you have to give them the socks and gift. It goes like this until somebody wins!) Kayleigh was the big winner of the kids round, and Jeff won the adult round!

We played stick the nose on the snowman. I was hilarious. Everybody got a turn. We went oldest to youngest. Guess who won? Little Kyle! His reaction was epic, we wish we would have had it on tape, we could have won some serious home video cash.

When it was Kourtni's turn, she had a little difficulty. It could have had something to do with the fact that they spun her more than anybody else, and then headed her in the completely wrong direction. We all laughed, HARD. I'm pretty sure Melissa almost peed her pants!

Next we played a random game. We split into three teams, gave each team two rolls of toilet paper, and put five minutes on the timer. The goal was to cover one person on your team as much as possible in the five minutes. The winner is the team who's snowman was covered the most. It was actually really fun. Everybody got into it.

The kids all had a blast playing in the paper after we were done. It was like a big snowstorm inside the family room. Every kid's dream!

Wait...the game was SO over at this point (and this team had already been declared winners), but Melissa, self proclaimed Toilet Paper Queen, just couldn't let it go. Poor Ryan had no choice but to stand there and take it. It was pretty funny.

Colby loved playing in all the paper. Making a huge mess and not even getting in trouble for it was like a toddler's dream! He thought it was great!

And...STILL GOING at it with Ryan. Everybody else started getting in on the action. Yes, that is even a little black duct tape you see! Who knew that one random game would turn into an hour of entertainment?

And to cap off our fun party...cake and ice cream!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

The Kyles

The Madrishin kids spend the night at our house a couple of weekends ago. We love having them over, but Kyle likes it best! He's in heaven when the 'big kids', as they are known to him, sleep over. Our Kyle has been permanently branded as Little Kyle, while Kyle Madrishin is Big Kyle.
He loves them all, but Big Kyle is Little Kyle's favorite. He told us a few days ago that Big Kyle is his 'coolest boyfriend'. We suggested to our Kyle to call Big Kyle his 'coolest dude.' It sounds a little better! (Big Kyle is 14 years old.)
It's hard to be so far away from all of our cousins. I hate that Kyle doesn't know his older boy cousins very well, because they are all awesome examples of what I hope he and Colby become. (Jake, Tyler, Justin, Mason - I'm talking to you guys!) But since we don't get to see them more than once or twice a year, I am eternally grateful for the example and friendship of the Madrishin boys. You rock! Thanks for being the big brothers/big cousins that my boys need as examples.

First Snow!

It has been SO STINKIN' cold around here lately. We finally got s little snow to go along with the cold! As soon as enough snow accumulated on the ground to become playable, Kyle and the Madrish kids were outside.I kept Colby inside for a while, but he kept running to the window and saying "outside". I got him all bundled up and took him out for a bit too. He just couldn't seem to figure out what was so fun about being freezing cold and having white stuff fall on your face...Good times!

Our Big Night Out!

Last night was Scott's annual work holiday party. I'll be honest, I think I look forward to it each year more than he does. It is one night a year that we get all dressed up and get to go to a posh location to mingle and eat delicious food. This year the party was at the Ritz-Carlton in Georgetown. We had a great time. The music wasn't my fav (they had a live Jazz band, which I'm sure some people loved, but I'm more of a pop/hip-hop gal!) But the creme-brulee make up for it. Definitely a fun night out.

But what made the night even better? Scott surprised me yesterday morning and said he booked us a room at a Bed & Breakfast in Fairfax for after the party. Ya, my husband is THAT COOL! The little B&B is called Stafford House.

I would recommend it to everybody! It is a small B&B, only two rooms. We stayed in the 'King Room.' It was amazing! I forgot to snap any pictures of the room, but I pulled this off the internet. It doesn't do the room justice, but at least you can see the beautiful bed.

It is not often that I take pictures of a bathroom, but this was picture worthy! The bathroom was huge. Two full vanities, and a full sized sauna room.

But get a look at this bathtub, it's HUGE! It's a gigantic Jacuzzi tub. Seriously, it could easily sit four people. (Although we didn't try to fit four people into it... ;)

This place was a dream.

None of this could have happed without the Madrishin's. Thank you SO much for watching our boys, and for offering to have them spend the night so that we could have a night out. We are so blessed to have such great friends that love our boys and would offer us such a gift as a night away. It was the first time Scott and I have gotten away, just the two of us, since we've had children. It was wonderful. We slept in until 8:45 this morning. AWESOME.

Belize City, Belize - 2nd Stop

This was our most anticipated stop of the whole cruise. In fact, this stop is the reason we chose this cruise itinerary. Ten years ago Scott was serving his mission in Honduras and Belize. There was no way that we could tour Honduras given the time we were in port, but Belize was a different story.

Getting off the ship was a little different this time. The ship had to stay anchored way out in the bay (because it is too shallow to have a pier) so we had to take 'tender boats' to shore. Colby was not a fan.
Once we were to shore we rented a 12 passenger van and off we went! Scott wanted to take us to the areas that he spent a collective 10 months of his mission. While it was so fun to see the land, and have Scott show us places that he had served in and such, the best part was seeing Scott. There was a twinkle in his eye. He's not a very emotional kind of guy, but you could just see his joy at being back to this place that is so dear to his heart. It was awesome. I am so thankful that we were able to finally go back to his mission area, and to share it with our boys, parents, and good friends was wonderful.We were all so excited about being there and being in the moment that we failed to take too many pictures of our day. Luckily we did come away with a few.

We stopped along the way at a gas station for some drinks. This building was across the road. We got a kick out of the Coca-Cola sign. It's amazing how far reaching their product branding is...
This is the apartment building in Santa Elena that Scott lived in for about five months. The missionaries still live there!

A guy on the street said we just missed the Elders, so we continued our drive...and guess who we found? The missionaries! Scott stopped and talked for them for a minute. They came over and met us all. We offered to take them to lunch, but they had an appointment, so Scott gave them some $ and we headed off. It was fun to see the cute boys in white shirts and ties.

Then we crossed over the river to San Ignacio, where he spent another 5 months. We were able to find a restaurant there to stretch out our legs and eat some yummy food. And since we were the only ones there, we took a bunch of pictures too!
We finished out the tour by stopping by the LDS church in San Ignacio.
An hour and a half later we were back to Belize City and back to the boat. It was a long day in the car, but so rewarding.

Now that I've had a taste of Honduras and Belize, I think we'll be going back again in the future. Next time though, we'll spend a little more than a few hours in each country!

Roatan, Honduras - 1st stop

Our first stop of the week...Roatan, Honduras. SO BEAUTIFUL! These were taken when we were pulling into port.Upon getting off the ship we were greeted by these dancers. Kyle had a blast dancing with the girls. Apparently he's already quite the lady killer! (It could have had something to do with the fact that he is a blue eyed blond haired boy in a country that is not!)(Scott, Monte, and my dad Milt went SCUBA diving, so they aren't in any of the pics.) My mom, Sherry, the boys and I took the chance to hit the beach! Since Scott came to Roatan while he was on his mission a few times, he knew just where to direct us to go...West Bay. Colby sacked out on the drive over. The first couple of days of our vacation have already worn him out!
All Kyle needed was his water wings and he was off!! The water was deliciously warm and so clear. A true island paradise!
After a little nap Colby was ready to get in on the action too!
White sandy beaches are no myth...they exist! It was so much fun to play at the beach...especially know how cold things had gotten back home. A nice break from reality!

Dave and Melissa went on a shore excursion through the cruise line. They went to go to an animal reserve and saw iguanas, tropical birds, and monkeys. This little fella took a liking to Melissa! They hit the beach after seeing the animals!
After a great sun and fun filled day, we all left Roatan wanting to come back for more. It was a beautiful island. It's definitely been added to our list of places to visit for longer than 8 hours.

This is a shot my dad took of us pulling out of port.
Next stop...Beliz City, Beliz.