I'll Be Home for Christmas 2009

We had a wonderful vacation visiting our families for Christmas and New Years. Here are a few highlights:

We had a movie night at Jared's brother Eric's house. The girls loved dressing up like princesses with their cousins, and we enjoyed their new projection theater room.

We made it to Utah on Christmas Eve. Here is Abby pouring "tea" (apple juice) for her cousins.

My parents cooked us a delicious Palestinian dinner--probably Jared's favorite meal of the year.

Here Nathan and I are with my little sister and her 5 week old baby Christian.

On Christmas morning the girls got an e-mail from Santa with a picture of their doll house (because it was too big to transport in our car) followed by squeals of excitement.

Here is our jolly little elf enjoying his first Christmas.

Maddy riding on Clifford.

The day after Christmas we went up to Salt Lake and enjoyed the Donaldson family Christmas party. It was nice to see all the relatives again, especially great-grandpa Donaldson.

Here are the girls in the cute purple "princess" dresses from their grandma Collett.

Nathan with his Grandpa Donaldson. Don't they look like they could be related?

We all enjoyed spending time with my sister Sarah and her wonderful family.

On Sunday we were able to attend Christian's beautiful baby blessing.

My mom took the grandkids up to Salt Lake to enjoy the Children's museum. As you can see they had a great time.

Abby loved shopping and dressing up as a cow-girl.

Here the girls are with their cousins acting out an interesting version of Robin Hood.

On the 28th we got to celebrate my dad's 60th birthday with a nice dinner at Thanksgiving Point followed by a melodious trolley ride to see the lights. The girls also enjoyed seeing the live Reindeer.

We enjoyed meeting up with our good friends from Philadelphia who were also in town visiting family.

We had a nice time catching up with a few of my old roommates from BYU.

One fun thing about Utah was the snow. Here are the girls all dressed up to go sledding at Rock Canyon Park. So fun!

We drove back to Boise to spend New Years with Jared's family. The girls loved watching Hi Ho (Snow White) with their cousin Courtney.

Maddy and Abby loved the new pink bedspreads for their big girl beds from their Grandma Collett.

I'm sure Nathan will enjoy his train when he gets older. Right now he is busy trying to figure out how to put his whole hand into his mouth.

We had a nice New Years dinner and a great time with Jared's family but unfortunately don't have any more pictures since our battery on our camera was low. So Happy New Year everyone and thanks for the great time.