My future lawyer

Saw this ad on a bus the other day. Look at the name. Hee hee.

Christmas in pictures

We spent most of the break having fun and not thinking about our camera but we did get a few shots of some of the stuff we did. Check it out.

Talking to Sam in France

City Hall Tour

Waiting for the light show at Macy's

Dicken's Village. Marley

Ghost of Christmas Future

Ghost of Christmas present

There is love in the air

The picture of everyone

Feelin' the love

The White House

Supreme Court

Cute mom picture

The word "Death" on the wall at the Poe house... found while renovating the house to make it a museum. Pretty creepy

Turtle at the aquarium

Seal at the aquarium

In the Africa exhibit at the aquarium

Skyline view from Camden

Now us

A cold day at the beach

There's snow on the boardwalk

This one is for Megan. Megan's restaurant. And also a sign that says "cute, bright, and available". Totally describes Megan.

The parents with the steel pier in the background

Even Ceasar gets into the spirit of the holidays.

See, doesn't it look like we had a blast? Because we did. Yay Christmas!

Holiday rundown

Wow. We are already 10 days into January. Not really sure how that happened.

We really enjoyed the holidays. Zack's family came to stay with us and we did a ton of fun stuff. I won't give you a detailed play by play, but here is a brief rundown.

-Dec. 24th-- I was off work so we worked all day at home to prepare for the arrival of Zack's parents and sisters. They arrived in the evening.

-Dec. 25th-- We slept in and then opened presents. Sam (Zack's brother) called from France. We had a quiet, warm, relaxing day.

-Dec. 26th-- We went to church. It started to snow right around when church was ending. We stayed in the rest of the day and watched the snow storm from the comfort of our warm apartment.

-Dec. 27th-- We finally decided to brave the weather. It had stopped snowing but it was cold and there was plenty of snow. We went to lunch at Reading Terminal Market, took a tour of City Hall (cool!), saw the light show and Dickens Village at Macy's, saw the light show at the Comcast Center, ate some dinner at Maggiano's, and polished off the evening with Blue Man Group (um... so, so fun). Phew!

-Dec. 28th-- We checked out the President's House, a new display outside the Liberty Bell pavilion about the house where George Washington and John Adams lived during their presidencies. We also saw the new Museum of American Jewish History, which was very well done.

-Dec. 29th-- I worked and then put away all the Christmas decorations while Zack and his fam went to Washington DC.

-Dec. 30th-- Zack's sisters flew home. I worked. Zack and his parents went to see Edgar Allen Poe's house.

-Dec. 31st-- We went to the Camden aquarium, then went and ate fish at Red Lobster. Yum! I went to bed early (had to get up at 5:45 the next day). Z came and woke me up at midnight. I listened to fireworks from my bed then drifted back to sleep.

-Jan. 1st-- I worked. Z and parents went shopping and relaxed.

-Jan. 2nd-- I worked while Z and his parents went to church.

-Jan. 3rd-- We all went to Atlantic City. It was cold and very strange to see snow on the beach. We did some shopping, walked on the boardwalk, checked out the insides of some of the hotel/casinos.

-Jan. 4th-- I worked. Z's parents went home.

So you can see why Z's family had to come to us. I guess that's one of the downsides of being a nurse is that someone has to be there during the holidays, nights, and weekends. So I worked a lot. But we also had a lot of fun and very much enjoyed having them to visit. I'm sad the holidays are over because now we enter the long and dreary stretch of winter that I just hate. But there's always stuff to look forward to-- Valentine's Day, Florida in March, going to Utah for my brother's pre-mission talk in church. I think 2011 is going to be a great year for us.

A Christmas outing

We so enjoy Philadelphia at Christmas. A few weeks ago, we went out with the Becks to check out some of the holiday sights. We walked around the Christmas village near City Hall.

We watched the light show at Macy's. It was crowded, but I think it was the funnest time I have ever had seeing it because we got to see it with a little kid. Oliver was just darling. He kept saying "stars" any time he saw snowflakes, he said "bugs" when the sugar plum fairy lights came on, and he waved at the santa lights. Too cute. We also walked through the Dicken's Village. Oliver got a little nervous at the Ghost of Christmas Past part. And we saw the show at the Comcast center. All in all, a fun night out on the town. Then we came home and Oliver got to open his Christmas present from us.

Isn't he just adorable? And he LOVES cars.

We're so happy to have the Becks as friends.

Christmas

Thanks for sharing your favorite Christmas memories/traditions.

Natalie said:

From my childhood, some of my favorite traditions were based on our parties with our huge extended family - the Christmas Eve gathering, with games and food, lots of singing, and the inevitable, highly anticipated visit from Santa - the Christmas morning re-gathering for breakfast. Good times.

A classic is getting new PJs on Christmas Eve.
Rob and I have celebrated a few on our own, and some of our traditions now are pretty good - we make a delicious meal of rotisserie chicken, loaded mashed potatoes, and stuffed mushrooms, and read parts of A Christmas Carol together, and burn a cinnamon candle. It's nice. :)

From Preethi:

Childhood - cooking Thanksgiving dinner while listening to the first strains of Christmas music, and putting up decorations the next day.

Adult life - participating in Handel's Messiah.

Ellen said:

This may seem strange, but one of my favorite things about Christmas is how we open gifts. This is the scenario: Oldest person (dad) goes under the tree and picks a gift for anyone, that person opens their gift and ohhs and awws along with everyone else and thanks the giver, second oldest person (mom) goes under the tree and picks a gift for someone, that person opens their gift and gushes all over it and hugs the giver, 3rd oldest person goes under the tree and so on and so on and so on until all the gifts are unwrapped, viewed and played with. It can take hours to open presents, sometimes it is even stopped for breakfast inbetween and than back to the gift giving. I love seeing the smiles on the faces of people I give gifts to.

Brittney shared this:

We always got PJs from my mom that she made on Christmas eve and we have gone up to my grandma's house in Logan on Christmas Eve for a family get together and sing-a-long for as long as I can remember. Both have always been fun.

My mom said:

One of my favorites is going to grandma's house and having Tom and Jerry's. I loved seeing my cousins and spending time with family. I still love to go to my mom's and continue this tradition. Love you. Hate the new tradition of you not being here at Christmas.

And from my mom-in-law:

I love reading the Christmas story together upstairs and praying together before going downstairs to open presents on Christmas morning. I love the corny picture we take of everyone coming down the stairs in their pajamas.

This year, I'm going to love being in Philadelphia with you two, having everyone together when Sam calls from France!

It was fun to hear from you all.

And now for a few of my own favorites.

We have always done those advent calendar thingys, where you eat a piece of chocolate every day in December until Christmas. On that same note, my mom has this calendar that has a little mouse that you can move each day to count down until Christmas. When we were kids, we used to fight over who got to move the mouse.

Bing Crosby! Zack doesn't quite get this one, but for me, nothing says Christmas like sitting by the tree looking at the lights and listening to a little Bing. We listened to him growing up and it just stuck.

On Christmas Eve, we used to always go to my great-grandma's house. There were always a ton of relatives there. Many of them I didn't really even know-- only saw them that 1 time every year. Great-grandma was known for getting us weird/random presents. It was so thoughtful of her to get something for every single one of her great grandchildren but it was still always kind of a running joke. Then we would go to my grandma's and have a family party with all my aunts and uncles and cousins. The kids would each get a little stack of presents, we would count down 3-2-1 and then everyone would rip open their gifts in a big frenzy. Often we would get similar gifts as our cousins. One example would be pajamas in different colors. We loved that. Some years we had a talent show too. Good times.

Cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas.

When we were younger, our parents began the tradition of giving us an ornament each year that represented the year in some way. Examples: I have a Peter Pan ornament from the year we did that musical in high school. I have a Barbie ornament from the year I decided I was a princess and redecorated my room all in pink (and, in the interest of full disclosure, and lest you think this happened when I was a small girl, I guess I should include that I was probably 16 or 17 years old at that time). I have a Statue of Liberty ornament from the year my family vacationed in New York. And so on. Zack and I have continued that tradition, with some variation. We collect ornaments when we go on vacation. Sometimes we get one to represent the year, sometimes we get more. It just depends. We also get ornaments to represent some notable events in our lives (such as the Phillies winning the World Series a couple years ago). It is very fun/sentimental to decorate the tree as we reminisce.

I imagine I will not be blogging much in the next 2 weeks or so as I will have family staying with me, and I will still be working a lot. So Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all. I'll be back in 2011.

Halloween newsletter

Well, the end of the year is approaching, which means that the entries from this past year will soon become a book. I know I am a little late on this but I wanted to throw in a scan of our Halloween letter for the year. If you didn't get one, feel free to read it. If you did, then I guess this post is mostly for my own sake. Sorry it's such a crappy scan. Just click on the image to enlarge it.

Let's hear from my 2 readers

Hey guys. Share a comment about a favorite Christmas tradition or memory. I will be posting some of my own later, but it'll be nice to get some input from someone more interesting than I.