Great day in DC

We had a good time with Michael and Claudia in Washington, DC, today.
We rode the Metro in, wandered around the National Mall, and went
through the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. The kids really
enjoyed the dinosaur exhibit and the 3D Imax movie about sharks at the
museum. We ended the day with pizza and crab cakes at Boxhill
Pizzaria. What a great day!

In DC today

We had a great ride in on the Metro and are now wandering around our
nation's capital taking in the sites. Whee!

Having fun in Maryland

We're having a great time visiting my brother and his family in Maryland
this week! Today we went to Havre de Grace, the town that almost became
our nations capital instead of it's curent location. Then we drove up
to Wilmington, Delaware, and visited the Brandywine Park and Zoo, though
we only saw a bird as the zoo closed when we got there :-( We then ate
a delicious seafood dinner at Baldwin's in Maryland - the crab cake was
awesome! Tomorrow we plan on going to Washington, DC, and showing
Michael and Claudia the ropes on getting around via the Metro down
there. It should be fun!

Happy New Year!

We rang in 2007 with my parents at our house last night, playing Mexican
Train dominoes and eating seafood all evening - it was fun! As the
peach dropped we went out and banged on pots yelling "Happy New Year" on
the front porch, then we all fell quickly asleep in our beds. Jacob
comes home today from his retreat, and then this evening we're going to
fix tacos and chillout for a while. We hope you're having a good time
doing what you're doing, and wish you safety and prosperity in 2007!

Ice Skating in Atlanta

We had a great time tonight ice skating in downtown Atlanta. We went with our friends the Campbells, and had a great time. We all got out on the ice, and their boys helped Stephen and Kevin figure out how to skate and get going. Everyone went around the rink many, many times and no one fell down. It was great! Afterwards we enjoyed hot chocolate and walking around the park enjoying the Christmas lights. It was cool doing all this in the shadow of CNN Center, the Georgia Aquarium, and the various hotels in the area. What fun!

Merry Christma!

We enjoyed the morning and evening church services at our church on Christmas Eve, and spent the evening at home after the service. Then we spent Christmas morning at home opening presents and relaxing, which was a lot of fun! The rain kind of prevented us from playing with the big toy the family got - a trampoline! Well, we'll get to it soon enough.

We hope you are having a great Christmas celebration, and wish you a happy and prosperous new year!

Return to Bethlehem

We are involved as a family in the "Return to Bethlehem" project at our church. It's a "walk-through nativity" where our church has recreated the village of Bethlehem, and we have a cast that makes up the people of the village. There are fires, roasting food, shopkeepers trying to get people to buy their wares, Roman soldiers pushing people around, and of course Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus. Tonight was the first night, and even though it was cold with a strong wind (windchill around 20!) everyone did a great job with their parts. Many thanks to the Buttril and Fields families for all their hard work, and to everyone else that worked so hard to make this a reality. It was a lot of fun! (And thanks, Mom, for making the outfits for us!) Now we get to do it Friday night and Saturday night...

You can learn more about "Return to Bethlehem" at http://www.returntobethlehem.com.