This year we spent Christmas in Denver with Justin's family. Unfortunately, our trip started off a bit rocky with a long flight delay in the Washington-Dulles airport. We tried to get little Nolan to fall asleep (it was already 1.5 hours past his bedtime when we landed in D.C.), but this kid was full of energy. He ran through the nearly empty airport...
...we munched on pretzels,
...and gave press conferences with the President.
And when we had exhausted those options, Justin introduced Nolan to the escalator.
Oh, how he loved the escalator!
So we rode the escalator and let him run through the airport until our plane finally boarded (at 12:30am).
Nolan mostly slept though the plane ride, but it was bumpy and he got a little airsick. Around 6 am eastern time, we finally arrived at home and got into bed.
Once recovered, we went to the Streets at South Glenn to meet Santa in the afternoon.
Nolan was not impressed. Santa couldn't even entice Nolan with a candy cane. The Santa was very nice, and there wasn't a mall photographer with a big price list, so it was a positive experience for me.
We walked quickly around the stores, but it was windy and chilly and so we left for home.
On our way back, we stopped at Justin's uncle/aunt's place and chatted with them for a while. Justin's uncle loves to decorate their house with Christmas lights and accessories--it has become a city favorite. No electrical socket goes unused.
Friday morning we went bowling with Justin's parents. Nolan was impressed by the racks of bowling balls, and everyone else was impressed by my bowling skills. Not that I am a terrific bowler, but I did win 3 of the 4 games we played.
Perfect form.
Saturday Justin and Nolan both woke up in the middle of the night not feeling very well.
They were both throwing up, but luckily it just lasted about a day for them.
Unfortunately, Justin's siblings got sick on Sunday.
When everyone was feeling a little better, we made gingerbread houses. Justin's mom baked the gingerbread and cut out mini houses for each of the couples.
There was no lack of creativity at the table--there was a skating rink, a gingerbread man murder, and a gumdrop snowman.
I approach gingerbread decorating a little differently than Justin and although he wasn't so sure our gingerbread house needed a theme/order or much planning, he eventually accepted my ways. We created a gingerbread house dedicated to the Denver Broncos (and Peyton Manning), with a little hint of the Dallas Cowboys (the silver star).
Nolan got his own gingerbread house to decorate.
He did well placing the candy on the frosting and had a great time.
Christmas Eve we had their traditional dinner. Afterward, we read the Nativity from the scriptures and other Christmas stories from a binder created by their Aunt Linda.
We all went to bed early (not really) so Santa could come
and woke up hungry for a wonderful crepe breakfast.
Nolan loved Christmas morning and became surprisingly adept at opening presents.
Christmas Eve brought snow and we played outside in the powder.
Nolan was a bit hesitant at first, but had to be dragged back inside when it came time to turn in.
Christmas day we also got to Skype with Justin's brother who is currently serving a mission in Peru.
The rest of the time we had a lot of fun hanging around the house doing puzzles,
...playing football on the PS3,
...and just sitting around relaxing.
It was a wonderful Christmas, and the time went by far too quickly.
Looks like a fun vacation in the snow! I've still never had a "white christmas". Nolan is so funny with his expressions. The pictures with Santa are hilarious.
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