Our Visit to the Burg

Before Christmas, we took a quick trip down to Williamsburg to see some friends...and eat some good food. We stayed with the Lukes for a couple of days where these boys fought like they always do, but had some cute moments too.

These girls made messes of all the bookshelves, and Belén pulled a little side table down and broke a vase, which I still feel really bad about...

 And we had some great adult catch up time with these crazies.

 

We just won't even talk about the BYU game which was one of the main reasons we went down when we did...

We then stayed with the Meldrums for a few days. These two. I just love them. I babysat little Fla-la for quite some time while living in Williamsburg so this girl has a special place in my heart. Plus she was Shae's first "real" friend. It was so fun to see them interact and communicate and see that they hadn't completely forgotten each other after a few months of not seeing each other. (Excuse the weird foggy pictures).

On Sunday we visited our favorite Spanish Branch. We walked in and this girl immediately got swept out of our arms. We didn't get her back until we were leaving the building.

 My kids just love the Richeys. 

The Three Musketeers back together.

Of course we couldn't leave Williamsburg without enjoying some of our favorite restaurants. We made sure to stop at Nawab and El Sabrason (Pupusas!). So so good.

We had high hopes of spending the day in Washington D.C. on our way to my parents house. It ended up being a pretty rainy day and we were all exhausted from staying up late with our friends and sleeping in one room where our children missed the memo that we were supposed to be SLEEPING and that 5 a.m. was not an appropriate hour to wake up. So, sadly, we scratched our DC plans (which was good since it took us 7 hours to get to my parents due to traffic), we'll have other opportunities. We did take a pit stop at the temple to see all the Christmas trees and nativities...and let the kids loose for a bit.

 We're hoping to spend some time in both of these countries (Indonesia and Paraguay) in the coming years so it was fun to find their nativities. 

 

 And of course I just love Argentina for obvious reasons.

I also really loved Tanzania and Thailand. 

I tried...

 

 She's impossible these days.

 And cute.

Random Christmas Vacation pics

Shae is now very familiar with where the toys are at my parent's house. We arrive, he gives hugs, and immediately goes to the attic (which is just a door through Ammon's room) to get toys. To start off this trip he wanted to play puppets...and tools, of course.

 They first used the tools to fix the puppet stand.

 Then put on a puppet show.

 Shae was very excited to help with the cleaning duties.

Belén burst into tears when she saw my dad the night we arrived. A combination of not sleeping much in the car + big black military glasses I suppose. The next day she had some face exploration time with him and felt much better about their relationship. 

 Shae playing soccer with grandma.

 He loved all the play dough letters he got for Christmas.

 We had to barricade Belén in so that she wouldn't get to the stairs. 

 We did our traditional deli sandwiches on Christmas day to keep things easy and did our actual Christmas dinner on Sunday (rather than Christmas Eve since Anna wasn't there yet).

 Everyone was SO excited about this meal. I mean, can you not just feel the excitement emanating from the picture below. 

 That's a little better.

 Enjoying some Christmas candy together:

 

 One night we went to watch the "singing houses."

 And then we gave hugs and said our good-byes.

Until next time.

New Years Day

Anna woke up with the kids on New Years day. Thank you Anna! (Stayed up way too late playing Pitt on New Years Eve. I'm not one for games that are mostly luck based, but I could not stop giggling the entire time we played this game. It was so fun). We woke Shae up (it's a loud game) at about 3 a.m. and that was the end of that. I slept in until 12:30 p.m. that day! 12:30! Darin woke up around 9:30 a.m. to relieve Anna so that she could get some sleep, and I continued to sleep away (with a short wake up or two to feed belen and help her nap). It was amazing. If anyone is ever looking for a cheap gift to give me, just tell me that you will get up with my kids in the morning and I'll be happy as can be.

When I finally got my lazy butt out of bed, Shae and Kuhn Ta were getting ready to go outside and destroy the burn pile. Shae loved working with Kuhn Ta, throwing in the sticks, and eating marshmallows (however, he did NOT like the "burned" or "toasted" ones. He preferred the "regular" ones).

 We checked it out for a couple of minutes, but the smoke and cold got to us quickly.

And that was the extent of the excitement that kicked off our 2016.

New Years Eve

New Years Eve was really fun (minus the fact that Philip had to work late). I was reminded of all kinds of yummy Kretchman food that got me thinking a lot about the power of food in family, tradition, nostalgia, etc. We had cannonballs (sausage, cheese, Bisquick), Pineapple Upside Down Cake, my moms delicious holiday jello, Crab & Pea salad, shrimp with cocktail sauce, and many other snacks that hold less significant meaning to my heart but still hold great favor with my taste buds (candy, chips, crackers, and cheese ball, etc.) I really love the power of food. 

We also enjoyed some delicious flavors of bubbly, Mango Bellini (virgin) being the favorite.

 

 "Chinging" our glasses.

We called Grandma S. and got her involved in the countdown action. We did an early version for Shae using the little countdowns that Netflix put up. Shae LOVED it. After which, true to tradition, my dad brought out the pots and pans and taught Shae to celebrate in true Kretchman fashion. I remember loving this part of NYE as a kid. We would all run outside after the countdown to watch any random fireworks going off and hear everyone else's noise makers and then my dad would run out with pots and pans for us to bang on. The middle of the night, as a kid, banging on pots and pans without a care in the world of how loud we were...it was pretty epic. 

 After Shae went to bed we played games and watched sports (well, Darin watched sports, and my dad a bit). My family is a game family. Give us some games to play together and we're happy. Darin's family is a sports family. Give them a good sports game to watch together and they are happy. It's interesting how something as simple as sports and games can be so important to us, how it becomes a part of who we are. 

I've been thinking a lot the past few days about the traditions that merge when you bring two people together from different families. Two different equally delicious stuffing recipes, two different ways of spending family time together (sports/games), two different ways of passing out presents and opening them, etc. Such small things, but traditions nonetheless that are a part of who we are. I wish I had some grand conclusion to this paragraph about merging traditions and ways of life, but I really don't, just something I've been pondering on... although I do think that I've come to understand traditions in a deeper way. Traditions are not just the events we do around the holidays like frost sugar cookies or go to a pumpkin patch or open a present on Christmas Eve, traditions are the little things that we do each day as a family. They are the food we eat, the things we watch, the things we say, the memories we make, the books we read. They are the special things that bring us comfort and joy, the things that we keep coming back to as we age. They are the little things that we pass down from generation to generation that link us together, that make us who we are...like a stuffing recipe, or sleeping by the Christmas tree, or watching a College Football bowl game, or King Bidgood in his bathtub. I love discovering these little memory nuggets and sharing them with my kids and I love learning what those memory nuggets for Darin and his family are. While I'm sure we'll create many new family traditions on our own, there are so many little things that I want to make sure to keep with us from both sides of our family as well. Guess that means I'd better learn how to sit through an entire football game :).

Midnight family photos:

 First selfie of the new year. Check.

Hears to an epic 2016 where we create new traditions and rediscover old traditions as well.