Snow for Christmas

We had quite a bit of excitement over the weekend. Our family has made it a tradition to go to the temple and see the temple lights each Christmas. This past weekend was our trip. First we went to the Smithsonian of Art. We didn't spend too much time there but enjoyed seeing the French and Dutch painters. Some were so talented. We also walked outside and had fun seeing some outdoor sculpture. This cube pyramid was different but we loved the squirrel on top the most.

He's like "Here I am. Squirrel King!" Well that's what it sounded like to me. After that we went to the Visitors Center at the Temple. Every night in December they have someone come perform. On this night it was The Mormon Orchestra of Washington, D.C. They played about an hour. They were amazing and played quite a few songs from the Nutcracker Suite. We had a great time listening to them. Here's the temple on Friday night.

After the performance we ate dinner and headed to our hotel. It started to snow just as we were checking in. Saturday some friends of ours were getting sealed at the temple and Emil was going through with them. Here was our view from the hotel room on Saturday morning.

When I dropped him off at 8am on Saturday this is what the temple looked like.

You may have heard that there was a blizzard in D.C. this weekend. The kids thought it was so cool! Driving in it was a bit harrowing. I dropped Emil off at 8 then drove back to the Hotel to pack up the kids. Everything was closing down because the snow was so bad. We got stuck trying to get back to the temple to pick up Emil at 11am. They ended up getting out late so we got to sit in the car waiting for about a hour and a half. At least we had a movie to watch. Thank Heaven for DVD's.

Here is a little of what our waiting time was like.

We tried to get home but it the interstate was crazy, jackknifed tractor trailers, stuck cars, the snow was so thick on the road you couldn't even see the road or the lines for the lanes for that matter. We decided to play it safe and get a room for the night so we spent the night on Saturday in Woodbridge, VA.

Sunday we took some more pictures of the snow.

I know it totally looks like she's standing up but she's really on her knees.

This one was of Emil on the sidewalk where our car was parked. It was crazy but the kids had fun pelting eachother with snowballs and we finally did get home on Sunday at about 1pm. No snow here at home only... you guessed rain! (Ugh!)

What an adventure!

My Christmas baking has included Cinnamon Buns!

Chocolate covered Turtles, Ginger Crinkles.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread, Bacon,Cheese and Chive Scones.

I still have some baking to do for this week but thankfully I'm mostly done with the gift baking. Wish you were here to help me bake! Have a great week. I'm not doing Christmas Cards this year. It was just one of those things I couldn't bring myself to do but I'll send out a Christmas Blog before Friday I promise. Enjoy the week and remember to "Just Breathe". (I personally have a necklace that someone gave me that says that and I wear it when I need some perspective to remind me of what matters.)