Winter Wonderland

For the Christmas holiday, Derek, Van and I left the snow covered Portland for beautiful 60°weather in AZ. The trip down was a LONG one! We got to the airport without trouble and found that we had an hour delay. When we were finally allowed to get on the plane, where we waited another hour+ before finally taking off. We waited so long due to bad weather in other parts of the US (that day Vegas had to shut down their airport due to snow). While sitting on the plane, bags from other flights were put on our plane and because it had begun to snow, they had to de-ice (very interesting to watch--Van however, did not find all of this waiting very interesting).

Once we arrived in AZ we had a great time visiting with Derek's side of the family consisting of his mom, dad, brother and his family of 6, and sister and her family of 3.

Van had lots of fun playing with his cousins (from oldest to youngest) Kelley, Katie, Zane, Abby, and Eli.

We went to many different fun places while there, we saw a huge train display, went to a train park, sat on several different types of horses, reinacted the birth of our Savior, opened and played with presents, and had a great time!

train display: Van loved watching them

train park: rode fun rides...

and found muddy puddles

rode a stuffed horse, a metal horse, and a real horse

we fed the real one and pointed out all the other

types of animals we saw

Van played Joseph and Abby played Mary. Eli was baby

Jesus. Kelley was the Angel and Katie played a wise man.

We had a much easier trip back home...no delays. Thank goodness! We had a great time visiting family and are glad to be back home. Hope all of you had an excellent holiday! We came home on the 26th...just in time for our 5th Anniversary on the 27th!