Christmas this year was pretty low key. We did have both sets of grand parents over for the day and did a nice dinner for everyone, but this year just felt a little more mellow than years past. Maybe it’s because Dylan is starting to grow up and doesn’t require as much attention as he has in the past. At any rate, it was a nice day and a nice gathering… Merry Christmas Everyone!
I’m starting to suspect that this is becoming an annual event for my brother and I, but who knows. I do know that Julie and I enjoy the venue and the band, so I guess it’s a good way to ring in the holidays. Here are a couple of photos from Carbon Leaf’s annual Christmas holiday show at the Birchmere Music Hall in Alexandria, VA.
As I said in an earlier post, Julie loves this holiday and makes it a priority to find fun activities for herself, Dylan and I. So here’s a collection of photos from this years Halloween festivities in and around Arlington. There are photos from our walk down ‘Spooky Street’, the Douglas Park Cemetery Trail, and they’re even some photos in the slideshow below from Dylan’s Halloween Parade at the River School in Washington, DC. I hope you enjoy all the photos… Happy Halloween!
Julie’s favorite holiday as we all know is Halloween. Every year she goes out of her way to try and find spooky holiday events to go check out in our local area. Over the years we’ve done haunted hayrides, haunted forests, haunted houses and a favorite of mine is visiting Jackson Street… or Spooky Street as we North Arlington people call it. Another favorite attraction of mine in the haunted trail at Douglas Cemetery Park. This is a local event run by the local area neighbors around Douglas Park. The admission is free if you bring some canned food for their food drive.
This year Julie also added a new attraction to our list of events called GLOW. Jack’s Pumpkin Glow is a leisurely walking tour which takes you through Lake Fairfax Park, where families and friends can marvel at thousands of intricately-carved pumpkins… all of which are illuminated in unique & creative displays. This was our first year attending this event and even though I thought is was a bit long, they did have some very creative and elaborate pumpkin displays. I still think the Douglas Cemetery Trail is the best… it’s so dark back in there, you can’t tell who or what is grabbing you!
Julie’s parents invited the entire family up to St. Michaels, Maryland to getaway for the long weekend and while there, Julies dad arranged a half day fishing charter on the F/V Class Act out of Tilghman Island. It started out somewhat overcast, but as the day went on, the sun came out and the wind died down to make for a very nice day on the water. We were fishing primarily for Stripped Bass, but ended up catching a verity of keepers and had enough for a nice fish dinner for the whole family.
‘Dylan and Julie waiting for the DC fireworks show to start’ – Arlington, VA
Living just minutes from downtown Washington, DC has both it’s advantages and it’s disadvantages. One of the advantages of being so close to the city is having the ability to go to major events like the Capital July 4th Fireworks show which they put on at the mall every year. We’ve gone downtown to see the fireworks on several occasions, but the crowds really aren’t are thing, so most years we just opt to watch them on television.
Another option is to find a tall building in Arlington, just across the river from DC and watch them from the rooftop. This year, since the weather was so clear, we decided at the last minute to drive over to the Ballston Mall parking garage and see if we could see the show from the top parking deck. The fireworks were a long way off, but it was still a good show and it only took us 5 minutes to get home afterwards.
We traveled down to Florida again this year for Easter Vacation and the annual Harbour Ridge grandparents weekend event. As per usual, it was a lot of fun and the weather was great. I don’t know why I didn’t take as many pictures as I usually do, but maybe it was because I was enjoying myself more than normal. I was a well needed relaxing vacation, that’s for sure!
‘The view from the outdoor deck at the Homestead Ski Lodge’ – Hot Springs, VA
Several months ago we were invited to go skiing for the long Presidents Day weekend. Our good friends, the Baur’s, have been going to Hot Springs, Virginia for years and this year they asked us to join them. Nether their son nor ours has ever been on ski’s before, and they have told us that this is a great place for kids to learn to ski. The Omni Homestead Resort, located about 45 minutes southwest of JMU in Hot Springs, is about a three and a half hour drive from DC and surprisingly classy for an older hotel. The rooms are moderately priced go fast, so you have to book well ahead of time to get a holiday weekend reservation. The ski area is small compared to most local ski resorts, but they do have a nice size ski lodge with several fire places, including an outdoor one on the deck, a bar and food service for lunch. There is only one double chair lift which will take you to either the midway-station or the top of the hill. After seeing the operation I would totally agree that for young beginner skiers, this is a perfect place for them to learn. The ski instructors here are young and really good with the kids. We had Dylan and his friend take two lessons and they absolutely loved it! By the end of the second day they were almost ready to go to ride the lift up to the midway-station. Considering this was Dylan’s first time on ski’s ever… I thought he did very well!
Once again, Christmas time is here and as usual my son has waited until the last minute to write his personal letter to Santa Claus. We’ve already taken him to Tyson Mall to see Santa in person, and therefore I’m pretty sure he knows he is on the ‘nice’ list, so making out his gift list and Santa letter are just formalities to him. But Julie makes sure he follows procedure and finishes the letter and puts it out with the milk and cookies before he goes to bed on Christmas eve. Here are some photos from
‘Dylan and I stealing a selfie with Rudolph and the Elf’ – The Gaylord, National Harbour, MD
It feels like we buy tickets to this event every year and every year the ice carvings just keeps getting more impressive. My son, being a true believer in Santa and ultimate fan of the Christmas holidays, absolutely loves these kinds of events. The cool thing about ICE (at least for us) is that the theme of the show changes every year and always follows one of the original children’s Christmas stories. This years theme was from the 1964 classic “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and the ice sculptors really nailed it right down to the very large Abominable Snowman that Dylan and I tried to get a selfie with. As always we had a lot of fun… click the link below to see more photos from this event.
‘Another selfie… this time with the Abominable Snowman!’ – The Gaylord, National Harbour, MD