Family Fun

I realized that I do a lot of forced family fun. Usually we do end up having fun, but often there is a fair amount of kicking and screaming before we get out the door or have any fun. For instance last weekend I wanted to take them to see the National Christmas tree with the train display and Santa workshop. Fun, right? Well we had all sorts of crying and screaming just getting out of the car! And, as always, I time our visit in line with Obama's commute so the whole area was closed off and we had to wait in the freezing cold with grumpy boys. Carlos and I were baffled why we put ourselves through this in the name of fun for the kids. Once we were actually able to enter we had a lot of fun and Charlie loved Santa's workshop. Diego was freaked out (hence the crying in the picture), but he loved the trains. Charlie told Santa he wanted a 'brown train' for Christmas. Random!

We did however have a great time hunting down our Christmas tree in Middleburg. It was a beautiful day and we hiked all over the farm in search of the perfect tree. Charlie liked finding and nominating potential trees while Diego was mainly taken by the cart. As Carlos cut the tree, Charlie 'helped' by holding Carlos' leg (though he admitted to being worried about getting 'bonked'). Typical Carlos was a little too zealous about the size of the tree we should get and so we ended up with a 10 foot tree that didn't fit in our car. And we still don't have a rack on the car so Carlos tied it on top in some elaborate manner that locked us all in the car. We stopped by Charlie's school to pick up stuff from their holiday sale and I had to exit through the window. Always a nice way to make an entrance...

We are glad to be going to Nevada to see Carlos' family this week for the holidays...and a break. Poor Carlos has had to deal with a lot of my work travel recently and I am exhausted from all the work and travel and guilty feelings about being gone from my kids.