Colter and the Wii

A week after we got home, Lara, Brent, Colter, and Ally made it to Mom and Dad's house for another little Christmas. The highlight of all this (besides seeing their beautiful faces) was watching Colter play the Wii. We turned it onto the swordfight game and let him go crazy, which he did.

And Daniel rather enjoyed Colter's new Bumblebee transformers helmet. Well at least long enough for this picture. Colter is quite the Transformers fan.

Please enjoy the following video of Colter showing off his intense Wii-master skills. :)

The Rest of our Vacation in a Nutshell

So, finally, here is a culmination of pictures taken on the remainder of our east coast adventures. They are in no particular order (sorry). Enjoy what you can.

This Christmas was unlike any Christmas I have ever had. It was my first without my family, and I took it harder than I thought I would. But Daniel's family was absolutely great and we all had such a blast at the beach house. Watching the grandkids open Christmas presents was really cute. All of them got darling new PJ's on Christmas Eve.

Here Alan and Dianna are helping lil Peter open his new PJ's. He was definitely the cutest man of the house.
Here begins the random pictures. Above is the Sunday after the beach house, right before we left to come home we wandered around the Mall and check out a couple museums.

Here I am with the very impressive George Washington in the National Art Museum.

The Museum of Natural History was extremely crowded, but had lots of fun stuff to see. We wished Hannah could've been there!

Poor Daniel nearly got swallowed by a hippo.

Some of the exhibits were extremely graphic of animals dying or being attacked by predators. I thought it was kinda intense for a children's museum. Here I am sharing my sentiments about the poor wildebeast.

Above we have the tumultuous waves that greeted us Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. It was kinda cool to see the water so worked up only a few hundred few away from our house. If we had been staying any closer to the water I would've been nervous.

For example, this house was in front of our house. It is condemned and for good purpose. The water was crashing against the sand bags and the already destroyed deck.

Much of our time was spent bonding over the Wii. We had a lot of fun trying to play the retro Mario games and rocking out to band hero. Jason probably has the best Taylor Swift impersonation I've ever heard.

I think Mom and Dad really just enjoyed have everyone together and getting to dote on their super cute grandkids all the time.

That super good-looking silhouette is Daniel and I after our visit to the aquarium on Ronaoke Island. Pretty, yes?

Hannah was going through a "don't take my picture" phase, but we had to attempt to capture our sweet niece on film.

I don't think she knew we took this picture. We had such a fun time hanging out with her and Bella.

Beneath all Hannah's girliness is just a girl who likes to play football.

I think we had quite the impressive mantle ready to go for Santa. And we are even missing two stockings.

We had the COOLEST Christmas tree ever. It stomped all competition to the ground. We picked it up for only 10 bucks at the Food Lion (What a bargain for such a tree!!) Then it was adorned with homemade snowflakes (Courtesy of Alan and Dianna's amazing cutting skills), wooden and vellum ornaments colored by those of us very concerned with our coloring abilities (Erin, Daniel, and I) and those who just do it for fun (Hannah), and the final touch was created by Mom and Hannah (the beautiful paper chain). Oh! And don't let me forget the single string of lights we bought that only wrapped around the tree once and a half--the best part. And that is how we ended up with our masterpiece of a tree.

Oh by the way, here is the awesome beach house in Rodanthe that we all love so much now. The house from the movie "Nights in Rodanthe" was just about a mile or so up the road.

Here is the beach on a good day!! This was the first day Daniel and I ventured out onto the beach and checked everything out. It was considerably warmer than anything we've had in Rexburg for a long time, so we found it to be rather enjoyable. We played football out there a couple times, and woke up at six a.m. one morning to go collect seashells and got to see the sunrise over the ocean. Very beautiful.

And that is the end of our adventures in Rodanthe. It was definitely a Christmas we'll remember and it was so much fun to be somewhere new and exciting. Totally wouldn't mind going back again.

The Reception that Never Really Was

So in the midst of the infamous snowstorm Marci's reception got cancelled due to the inability of anyone to even get to the reception. But, Sunday after the weather calmed down we all made the trip to the reception site for a family get-together.

(Please turn your head to the left-pretending this picture isn't not rotated) :) The reception was beautifully decorated and it was fun to see Marci and Alan all dressed up and grossly in love with each other. Haha.


Hannah and Bella had darling matching dresses.

But the dress became too much for Bella, so before too long she stripped down to just a diaper and tights. She is pretty dang cute that way.

And she ripped of her headband which some how made onto my head. :)

Daniel, Marci, and I.

Marci and the newest nephew, Peter/Pierre/Pedro. He is such a stud in his lil tux.

Washington D.C.(The Blizzard of 09')

This probably was the most insane snowstorm we've ever been in. Nearly two feet of snow fell on a previously dry ground in the DC area in less than 24 hours. Everything instantly closed. Marci's wedding was nearly cancelled, but the temple opened up just for those people getting married. One poor couple only had their parents at their wedding because no one could brave the weather to get there. On our short drive to and from the wedding we saw several cars buried in the huge snow drifts on the side of the highway. The day after the storm we head south for the reception and we drove through a completely closed down DC. The steps to the Lincoln Memorial were covered and tape off so you couldn't even get up to see it. So we settled ourselves back in the car and were content with just a driving tour of a very snow covered capital.

(This is actually taken the week after the snowstorm, and all the snow is gone. That would never happen in Idaho. It would stick forever.)

Just some of the hundreds and hundreds of cars completely covered and well stuck by the storm. We didn't get too many pictures due to the fact we were trapped in our hotel with all the hotel staff for a day.

The night before the storm we made to the DC temple to check out the Christmas lights. It was really really cool. Inside the visitor's center they had several enormous Christmas trees and nativitys from all over the world. That's when we actually like the beautiful snow falling everywhere. Before it became madness!!! :)

Christmas Morning #1

At the end of the semester Daniel and I had Christmas #1 of 3. These were just the gifts from one to the other that we wanted to take on our East Coast trip. Daniel picked out this coat so it wasn't much a surprise, but he was very anxious to get it. It's perfect for the freezing cold of Rexburg.
Apparently the theme for this Christmas was the "gift of warmth" because Daniel gave me a beautiful DKNY coat that I love, along with a cute hat and a scarf to add to my enormous collection. :) A girl can never have enough scarves.

Daniel also got the new AFI CD, a hat, and a scarf.

After church we had a great dinner with some friends. I made my very first ham, and thanks to the crazy, yet talented, Martha Stewart, it was delicious. It was a great first Christmas together.