FIELD TRIP FRIDAY

These are pictures of a field trip we took to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. It has been a draft in my posts so I decided to go ahead and publish it. Enjoy:)

THE FIRST WEEK OF THE YEAR

Our Christmas was really nice. We had my parents, Mike's parents, Mary, and Noah here on Christmas Day. It was so fun and relaxing. We played games and ate and Skyped with Trevor and Jessie. Our church service was so good.

I made some hor d'oeuvres to have after church so that we could eat a little later in the day. I enjoy cooking and fixing stuff ahead of time so things are ready to enjoy.

We ate Christmas dinner about 4:00. I put the potatoes in the crockpot in the morning to cook all day. I love to "bake" potatoes like this because it frees up your oven and you really don't have to even think about them.

Mike grilled 7-8 pounds of steak. They were so perfectly tender and juicy. They were seasoned just right so no steak sauce was needed. The other sides were green beans casserole, caesar salad, roasted San Marzano tomatoes, and dinner rolls. For dessert I made a pumpkin and pecan pie. Mike's mom made a pound cake and peanut butter hershey kiss cookies. My mom made 2 cheesecake pies.

The week after Christmas was nice and relaxing. We didn't have anything on our agenda so we enjoyed all the down time. We didn't drive our van from Christmas Eve til Friday. We have been driving less and less. Most of our errands can be done on our afternoon walks. Our bank, post office, Trader Joe's/Whole Foods, Walgreens, Metro station, and library are within a 10-15 minute walk so there is always somewhere to walk.

My sister wanted to go over to D.C. so on Thursday we caught the subway over to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.


We ended the day at the White House. It was cold out but it didn't keep us from enjoying being together. On the walk back home from the subway we stopped at Starbucks for a treat to warm us up.

New Year's Eve was a nice, relaxing day. We ate subs and watched the ball drop. It was cool to be on Eastern Standard time again. Shelby and Abby tried to stay up but they had stayed up late the night before so they crashed around 11pm. Mike took a little nap while the news was on but woke up to watch the last 30 min of 2011 with me.

Our New Year service was a time of reflection as well as looking forward to 2012. We invited our friends Krisstal and her son, Elias, over for lunch. I am looking forward to digging in and establishing relationships this year.

We started our lessons on Monday and this week has been a very fruitful one. There has been lots of good discussions about explorers and Hippocrates. There were many games of Uno. Plain old Uno. Love it. Music classes and Choir started back this week.

We have goals in place for 2012 and lots of grace to extend to ourselves and others. The most exciting thing for 2012 will be, by far, The Wedding. Gosh, we can hardly wait.