Nana and Papa visit

 Brian's dad and stepmom came to visit in January just for 2 days.  The kids got to stay home from school and hang out with Nana and Papa. They played ball together, had a dance party, watched a movie, and Papa taught them a new card game called golf.  My kids love to play it and it helps with math skills too.  They brought some Christmas presents which included a make a doll kit for Piper and Nana and Piper had fun making the doll together.  Papa and Nana got to be a part of their first basketball games and Christian's pine wood derby.  Then we went downtown and just gave a quick tour of DC before they had to go home.  We enjoyed their short visit and can't wait for them to come back for a long one.

The golf card game

White House

Christian's boy scout troop has a great leaders that love to go on field trips.  They planned a tour of the White House in January.  So we got up really early on a Saturday and headed into DC.  We all had to get background checks and go through 2 security points to get in the White House.  It is funny because Brian years ago remembers driving down the street in front of the White House where now there are gates and guards.  The White House was really pretty and interesting that you see so many of these rooms on the news when he is doing briefings and interviews.  It was way more tasteful than Buckingham Palace, which I got to tour in 1994.  According to one of the secret service said now if you thought this was hard to get into try and get into Buckingham now.  The kids liked doing a few of the games in the room like finding all the eagles.  I really want to go at Christmas time so that is a project to go then.  You can't take pictures inside, but here are few outside.

 The Boys scouts

We went to Starbucks after with a few other couples and this was a plaque of  the founder of the boy scouts.

Going to Kansas

So the kids had a four day weekend for Martin Luther King Jr. weekend and Brian has a lot of miles on a partner for United that will expire in a year or so... so me and the kids got tickets to go to Kansas for the long weekend.  We left Thursday afternoon and finally got there Thursday night after a delay in Chicago.  We had to change gates 2 times and walk the length of O'Hare a couple of times.  It was the first time the kids had been on a non direct flight and I don't think they want to do it again.  We made it to my parent's house!  We went to Salina to have lunch with Joyce a family friend and pick up my niece for the weekend.  My brothers came down later to spend the weekend with us.  The kids had a great time see Grandma and Papa's new house that they are renovating, playing at the creek, feeding animals, and just having fun with their cousins.  My mom made donuts with the kids and fixed them what they called the best dinner ever-Cheetos, strawberries with sugar to dip them in, mac and cheese, with little smokies.  I am usually a big picture taker at family events, but Piper ended up with a fever the last day and the whole way home on the plane so didn't get a lot of pictures in.  We had a lot of fun and can't wait to go back again!

 Love the rolling backpack and I could stack all of our carry ons.  After going through Chicago from one end to the other the kids got tired of carrying their backpacks.

 My parents new house

 We were going to see if the bald eagles were home and started to walk down to the creek and didn't get very far because they were digging in the road.

 The playhouse they built from things they found

Happy New Year

There are not many New Year's Eve and New Years Day that we don't spend with my family since that is when we celebrate Christmas, but this year we just couldn't make it home.  So we had our own little New Year's Eve celebration.  Piper and I went out that day and got some fun glasses and sparkling grape juice and fun party favors.  The kids had planned shows for us to come to.  Christian did a comedy act and Piper did a magic show.  We watched a Indiana Jones and watched the ball drop at midnight.  The kids were so excited to stay up till midnight! At my house we always had a good luck lunch or dinner on New Years Day and had Ham, cabbage, and black eyed pea, and crepes.  So we had crepes for breakfast, the kids thought they were OK and had Ham and black eyed peas, but I am still not a fan of cabbage.  So we are hoping for a great and happy New Year in 2013.

Richmond-to see Uncle Buck

The day after Christmas we decided to head down to see Brian's Uncle Buck and Aunt Terri.  It had snowed that night and so the kids got to play in the snow a little while we loaded up.  It took us a little longer to get there with the snow and lots of traffic.  We got to see Brian's cousin Kaitlin too.    We went to Petersburg battlefield and going with Uncle Buck, who is a big civil war person, was so fascinating and he knew things that I would never get out of the museum.  He told us all about how the union had built a tunnel in order to take dynamite and blow through their line and how it back fired a little on them.  He knew about every cannon and about how far it would shoot and so many more facts.  It was a lot of fun!  We sent to see Buck's horse and friends and the kids got to feed the horses too.  Brian and Buck got to play their guitars together and just have a little jam session.