Our Christmas Adventure...

Around the first of November, my husband's sister invited us to her home in Valatie NY, for Christmas. She also invited their older brother from California, and my father in law from Louisiana. So we all descended upon her for the holiday. The three siblings, 2 spouses, grand-kids, 1 future in-law, Grandpa and Meing. It was a houseful when we were all there. My sister in law had room for our family of 6 to sleep there, and my father in law and Meing had a room also. Her kids no longer live at home, so she had the spare room. My brother in law and his wife stayed near Renssalaer, where their daughter attends school. 

Ryan, Jessica, Michael, Grandpa, Chelsea, Alexx, Becca and Steven

All the grand-kids were there except one, who is serving in the Army and is in Colorado Springs.. We did Skype with him... that was awesome.. 

Christmas Eve preparations

Christmas eve found almost everyone in the kitchen doing some kind of preparations, or help. I will be totally honest, I didn't do anything to help cook, but I did try to help clean up some, Meing usually beat me to it. Daryl helped chop veggies, Michael and Steven cooked potato pancakes, Becca helped a LOT... Daryl's sister in law Susan seemed to have it all under control with the Christmas Eve meal, and Christmas Dinner, she was thoughtful enough to even prepare a special vegan rice dish for the vegetarians. 

Christmas day brought a gift exchange, which was quite fun. Our kids didn't get gifts from us, with the trip it just wasn't possible. 

We visited there a few days, then headed out for home. The day we left we drove down to Manhattan,  Jessica had never seen it, and it's been over 20 years since we spent a day there once. We only had the afternoon/evening, as it took a few hours to drive there

Statue of Liberty in background.. That's as close as we got. 

 But we saw the Statue of Liberty from afar (the lines were HORRENDOUS! the wait was over 3 hours) 

Freedom Tower

We saw the 9-11 site, and the new "Freedom Tower" being built. We rode on the NY Subway system...  Ate at the "Hard Rock Cafe" in Times Square..  and also walked through Chinatown.  We actually squeezed in a lot of sights on such a short time frame. I WISH we had much longer, there was so much I wanted to do, but finances, and our time constrictions prevented it. 

Michael, Jessie, Becca, Steven and Daryl outside the Hard Rock in Times Square

We drove from Manhattan down to our hotel in Virginia that evening, it was about a 5 hour drive (took longer due to the fact Lola our GPS,  decided to take us down THROUGH Baltimore, instead of on the highway)  But we got to our hotel, which was AMAZING! Hotels.com did well! It was a Hyatt Suites, Two bedrooms, nice living room with sofa bed, fireplace, flat screen tvs, fully equipped kitchen, I would have loved to have that room for a week-long trip! But we only stayed two nights, and the first one we were SO exhausted from the walking in NY, and long drives we all crashed pretty quick.  

Next day we hit DC... rode the train in from the nearest station to the Hotel, and got off near the Smithsonian Castle. 

Smithsonian Castle 

From there we walked down to the Air and Space Museum.. I think everyone could have spent all day there.. There was SO much to see...

Daryl and I at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum

From there we walked.. and walked.. all the way to the Capitol Building. 

Capitol Building Christmas Tree

Then after viewing it, the reflection pond outside it, taking TONS of photos, we began walking back down to the Smithsonian, so we could visit the American History Museum..  (Would have been awesome to have more time to see the others, especially the Natural History Museum!!!)   But the American History was amazing.. We all kind of separated, Jessie and I went off to the "First Ladies Exhibit" first.. Saw inagural gowns for many of our first ladies, and saw some of the White House China.. 

We also found Julia Childs Kitchen :) fully preserved there in the Smithsonian.. That woman had a LOT of cookware!!!!!! 

It was dark when we left to go find our train to head back to the hotel.. But Daryl took a beautiful shot of the Capitol Building from in front of the American History Museum.. We were almost a mile away at the bottom of the "mall" and it was beautiful..  

We had to check out of the hotel the next day and head home.. But since I had not seen the one thing I REALLY wanted to see, we made a drive back through DC...  on our way to see the Lincoln Memorial, we parked very near the White House. 

And across the street from it, was the Washington Memorial... That was a sight to see!  

This nice couple asked Daryl to take their photo in front of the Washington memorial, and in return they took our entire family's photo for us.. Which was nice, because up until now, we had not all been in a picture together! 

My Family
Steven (31) Becca (16) Michael (24) Me, Daryl, and Jessica (14) 

THEN we got to what I really did not want to miss seeing... The Lincoln Memorial..... and it was everything I expected it to be.. and I was so blessed to have been able to say I was there. 

Immediately after viewing Lincoln, we had to hit the road..  it's a long drive to Texas, and we had reservations in Nashville for that night's stay on our way home.. 

After spending the night in a less than stellar motel in Nashville, (QUITE a letdown after our awesome room in  Virginia) We hit the road for home...  Stopped in Memphis to get a photo of their "Pyramid" right on the Mississippi River.. it was amazing! From what we could gather it's an arena for sporting events. 

We made it home around 9 pm that night..  The girls immediately went off to a New Years Eve party,  Daryl took Steven to go pick up his car, and see Raylen.. .Michael unloaded our van almost completely.. I fell asleep before midnight.. But Daryl and Michael woke me up to ring in the New Year.. 

It was an amazing trip, the first we had EVER gone on with our entire family..