Christmas

Christmas this year was low key and enjoyable, we were able to fly home to AZ to spend it with my family.  It was a very short trip of just a few days and a lot of traveling ( 1 hr to Baltimore airport, 4-5 hour flight, 4 1/2 hour drive to parents' house/hometown) but it was still well worth it. It was also great to be able to enjoy a short visit with my Aunt, Uncle, Cousin, and Grandpa. Grandpa has been in the hospital recently, but luckily was able to go home a little before Christmas thanks to my loving and supportive family members.

What happened to when we were students and had 3 weeks off to enjoy the Christmas season?  I feel like it came and went in a blink of an eye.  I still have our small amount of Christmas decorations up, and sometimes still listen to Christmas music- don't judge!  Not to mention I went a little crazy in post-Christmas shopping for Christmas decorations, and I'm excited for next year's decorating!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas with your loved ones.

This weekend: DC and the temple

This past Saturday we finally made our way back to DC for round two!  We hopped on the metro and off we went, this time our destination was The Capitol, The Library of Congress, and Botanical Gardens.

Started off at the botanical gardens, which was kinda cool. Made us feel like we were in a mini concrete Hawaii, haha. They had some sort of toy train exhibit that had a big line to see; If my dad were there with us I knew he would have loved it, but since he wasn't, we didn't bother doing that part.

Next (and next door)  was The Capitol.  It was beautiful and massive!  Much better than the White House, although I'm sure I would think differently maybe if you could get closer to it (white house). I think we went at the perfect time of day, because the lighting was nice as the sun was going down, and we got to enjoy the big Christmas tree in the front too.  We also enjoyed walking around in the Library of Congress!  That was absolutely beautiful.  I only wish that we could have gone in the actual library part! You could only observe it through a high floor through glass, like a creeper.  I don't believe that it is open to the public, plus it was close to closing time, so we didn't have much time to find out anyway.  Oh well, we can always go back another time.

While in the Library of Congress, we went in the "Ancient America" (or something close to it) exhibit, which was pretty cool.  Sorry no pictures, because it wasn't allowed.  But I have to say that I was in heaven, because there were so many historic MAPS!  In case you don't know, I'm currently obsessed with maps and globes. I told Wolfgang if we were ridiculously rich, I would potentially collect maps and globes as a weird hobby.

I just love how the lighting turned out on this one 

Library of Congress

Then yesterday, we took some missionaries to the "Festival of Lights" at the DC temple, where we enjoyed the newly done hip and tech savvy visitor's center, some Christmas music, nativities from all over the world, etc. It was a pretty night with some fog hanging around the spires of the temple.

So, are you convinced to come visit me yet?

Smile, It's Christmas time.

You're Welcome.

Dear Family,

Dear Extended Family,

I meant to add to the post about wrapping...

...I apologize in advance for the wrapping job on your presents this year. No, a 4 year old didn't wrap them,

I did.