Christmas in Staunton!

Sal left us little pots and "seeds" of Starlight mints, which once planted have begun to grow into candy canes!!!

Graham had a "Polar Express" Day at school, which included hot chocolate, cookies, and watching the movie!  It happened to fall on one of my work days, so I happily joined in in my pjs too :)

Silly Sal hid in one of our favorite spots from last year: hanging from the vent in Mommy and Daddy's bedroom!

Jackson's Gingerbread House creation from school!

We packed up and headed for Staunton for the Smith Family Christmas, but we made a stop at Gramma J's first, and look who showed up after naptime!!!

Pure magic :)

Gramma always has ice cream ready for a treat :)

Jackson and Josh took turns adding different elemtnst to this fun picture!

I always love visiting Larry and Murph, but in the winter is my favorite because of the fire!  

Helping Aunt Murph take the seeds out of a pomegranate

It was messy work!

These two love going to visit Yoki!

Especially, this big guy :)

This warmer weather sure is strange, but we were able to enjoy the morning at Gypsy Hill Park feeding the ducks!

The night before, we drove around enjoying all of the light displays set up through the park, so today, the boys had fun posing with a few!

Getting in a little exercise!

We headed back to Windjammer for a delicious lunch, some present opening, and a little more visiting before heading back to Dumfries to see Mimi and Bampa

A Weekend in Staunton

A cool painting on the wall outside of the restaurant where we met for dinner!

We headed to Staunton for the weekend!  Our visit started off with dinner with Aunt Murph and Uncle Larry at an awesome restaurant that included a grassy outdoor eating area with picnic tables.  It was perfect for these two monkey who had been in the car for a while!  And, Aunt Murph brought some presents to help with the entertainment :)

Ice cream at The Split Banana to continue the fun!

Aunt Murph and Uncle Larry were good sports, and we all enjoyed a walk around downtown Staunton (and some extra nooks and crannies) to find several geocaches.  It was a really nice night!

With Uncle Larry

Our little family :)

Family photo by a train car we encountered while caching

Way up high over Staunton!

These boys kept up on our adventure!  They had already had a long day, it was past bedtime, and it was hot.  But, it was such a fun way to wander around town!

I feel like I'm missing some of my pictures, because Saturday is not documented at all!  We spent the morning at Gramma J's before going back to the Smurphs for a delicious dinner to celebrate Aunt Jeannie's birthday!  As always, the food was yummy, and it was so nice to spend time together!

These two LOVE Yoki!  

Uncle Larry and Daddy took off for golfing, so Aunt Murph and I took the boys to Gypsy Hill Park to feed the ducks and play at the playground.

Graham loved watching the ducks follow the food!

I'm glad he's not actually this tall...yet!!!

I just love this boy!

Aunt Murph playing on the equipment with Jackson

This seriously is the most amazing park!  There is also a really NICE exercise area with functioning equipment!

The boys had to try it all out

While Grahammers napped off the morning, Jackson got to play one of Yoki's favorite games and turn on the hose!

After Daddy returned home and Graham was up from his nap, we packed up for out last stop: Charlottesville!!!  We met some good friends there, Andy and Charron, and we wandered around grounds finding some caches.  Andy even found his first one ever!

This was a back

Our beautiful Rotunda under construction!

Listening to the recording at Edgar Allen Poe's room 

Our adventurers...!

We spied this backyard while we wandering around hunting for geocaches--so welcoming and peaceful!

Just hanging around Grounds... ;)

Josh showed the boys one of the classrooms!  This is where his astronomy class met his fourth year.  We always have such a good time when we go back to visit Charlottesville :)  We made our way over to The Corner for a little shopping at Mincers (Graham needed an upgraded t-shirt and Josh wanted a shirt celebrating the baseball teams amazing season) and dinner at Mellow Mushroom--so yummy!  

Mid-Winter Visit to the Valley

We used part of Jackson's long-weekend to end the 2nd quarter of Kindergarten to visit Gramma, Aunt Murph, Uncle Larry, Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Wayne!  Our first stop was Gramma!

 Jackson reading TO Gramma :)

 Even our littlest guy knew that you always get ice cream at Gramma's :)

 Coloring :)

 LOVE this picture!  Gramma made us a delicious lunch of spaghetti and meatballs, fed us ice cream treats, and just hung out for the first part of the day.  After a little down time for Jackson, a short nap for Graham and us trying to help her set up her Kindle, we took off for our next stop.

 We got to Aunt Murph and Uncle Larry's with some time to hang out before dinner.  Graham always loves checking out pictures of himself on other people's phones ;)

 Snacking as Aunt Murph got ready for dinner.

 Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Wayne joined us for dinner and hanging out afterwards!!!

 The Smiths and the Haysletts

 We spent the night at Aunt Murph and Uncle Larry's, and the boys thoroughly enjoyed watching Uncle Larry fill the birdfeeders... and the results!

 We headed out to Gypsy Hill Park for a little fresh air and to burn off some energy.  I LOVE this park and so wish we had something just like it near our house...  Aunt Murph sent the boys with a couple of quarters to feed the ducks--it was a hit!

 They all flocked right over once the boys threw the first pellets in!

 Sweetness :)

 Swinging!

 Not to be left out!

 The firepole is one of Jackson's more recent accomplishments at the playground, and he loves showing it off!

 Our own Spiderman!

 King of the rock wall!

 Aunt Murph and Uncle Larry met us for lunch before we hit the road for home!

Back at home snuggling under their new blankets (we did a little belated Christmas celebrating!)  :)  We had a great time catching up, and luckily the weather behaved to help us enjoy ourselves!