2013 Round Up

AKA why we've been too busy to blog....

So we left off with David and Nicholas's birthdays.  Since then we celebrated Christy's birthday by a date night at Mintwood Place in Adams Morgan followed by an engagement party for some friends, and brownies with candy corn instead of a cake.  We went to 4 or 5 different pumpkin patches, in both Ohio and Virginia, rode on numerous hayrides, and raked lots of leaves in our yard.  We had apple cider, pumpkin everything, and Whitehouse farm donuts.  Boo at the Zoo was a lot of fun, and we had our neighborhood Halloween parade as well as trick or treating.  In November our baby girl turned 2!  We had a quiet Thanksgiving at home followed by Christy's first trip to Kosovo for work.  This somewhat put a wrench in the Christmas decorating/planning/card sending since we lost a week in December, so we didn't end up going to cut down a real tree this year.  We still had three artificial ones in the house (one big, two mini) so it wasn't all for naught but we only used a fraction of our ornaments this year.  We did pull out the rest of the decorations though and had a nice snow day during which we made a snowman, had a snowball fight, baked Christmas cookies, drank hot chocolate, and did a Christmas craft.  We spent the week of Christmas in Ohio, which included our annual trip to see the Christmas tree display and Santa at Kraynak's, wedding soup and pieroghies on Christmas Eve, and LOTS of presents from Santa, as well as an evening in Pittsburgh for Christy and David (date night #2!).  Back home for New Year's, we pulled out the fondue pot for a chocolate dessert, and enjoyed oyster and shrimp appetizers and traditional pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day with a friend over. We are excited to see what 2014 has to bring.

The rest of 2013 in pictures:

 National Children's Museum - Columbus Day weekend

 Ohio pancakes for Columbus Day

 Carousel at Clemyjontri Park

 lots of leaves

 White House Farms pumpkin patch

 pony rides at White House farms

Yes, there is a special line for the donuts!

 Nicholas drew the face for Daddy to carve all by himself!

 Boo at the Zoo

 We visited Dinosaur Land and took a short hike in Skyline Drive over Veteran's Day weekend

 Thanksgiving dinner

 our Christmas tree

 Season's Greenings at the National Botanical Gardens

 New play kitchen

 more Christmas decorating

 visit with the Patton's

 Zoo Lights

 Kraynak's

 Christmas Eve

 too cool for school

 leaving cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer

 hula hoops were the big request for Santa this year

 Daddy and son chain saws

 Claire loved her sleeping bag so much she wanted to be in it while opening the rest of her presents!

 model train

 puppets!

 Christmas Eve fondue

 Pork and sauerkraut--Happy New Year's!

We used the good china!

We wish all our family and friends a wonderful New Year!

Birthday Week

 Grandma and PapPap came to Virginia to celebrate Nicholas and David's birthdays.  Beautiful weather (it is now pouring down rain as I type but we enjoyed a good 2 weeks of sunshine and 70 degree temperatures) and we took full advantage.

We finally made good on Mommy's promise to Nicholas to camp out in the back yard:

And visited Mt. Vernon:

 (Nicholas was our navigator)

they are looking at the sheep.  Claire kept saying, "Baa!  Baa!)

And of course, celebrated birthdays:

 Mommy made dragon cupcakes for Nicholas for school.

 Waffles for dinner.  A birthday tradition?

 and David's favorite, plum dumplings!

 Grandma came through with the dragon-themed birthday:  balloons...

 and cake!

 Nicholas got lots of cool presents

 for David's birthday, we celebrated with a grown-up night at Capitol Prague in Georgetown--yummy Czech food

Labor Day Traditions

Yes, Labor Day Traditions.  It's not normally a holiday for traditions, but every year we've been in America, we've joined in David's childhood tradition for Labor Day weekend:  The Machak Family Reunion and the Canfield Fair.  Last year, Nicholas talked about the fair for a good 6 months afterwards.  This year, he got to go on rides as well as see all the animals.  Lots of fun!  It was a little tough jumping right back into work after a weekend away, but we managed to have a little energy left over for some fun last weekend.  We enjoyed a family day at the annual Taste of Falls Church Festival, and then Christy and David had date night with another couple at DC's Beer Fest at National's Park.   We are looking forward to a visit from Grandma and PapPap and some birthday festivities!

 Canfield Fair tractors

Claire liked her particular pony and did not want to switch.

Grandma braved the spinning dragons with Nicholas!

ice cream treat!

PapPap rented a scooter to make it easier to get around all day, but everyone took turns.  Nicholas and Claire thought it was a blast.

 We have pictures in some of these same places last year so it's fun to see how they've grown.

The Machak Family reunion was a beautiful day and a success.  

This year the first day of school was a breeze.  No tears this time!

In addition to tasting, the Taste of Falls Church had a kids area with all sorts of fun bouncy houses, and pony rides!  A first for Claire, she loved it.

they also had a fire truck, that was pretty cool.

Finally, Beer Fest!  Those are mustaches, by the way.  The mustache beer is actually pretty good too.