DC or Bust!! (Having fun in spite of the snow)

It's been quite a winter. The big snow that we got just before Christmas was a type of things to come, I guess. Although our church ward has not had to cancel church again since that big storm, other local congregations have not been so lucky. We have had three other major snow events this year and are expecting a minor one (about six inches) tomorrow. There is actually a patch of snow next to our driveway that never quite melted after the original storm and it is still well covered. Crazy year.

We had made plans last fall to go to Washington DC over President's Day weekend. As the time grew near to going, they got hit down there with even more snow than we had. The national government pretty much shut down. But we were determined. We delayed our departure by a half a day to allow for snow removal here and then took off on Friday morning. Because a storm had come in on Tuesday night, the kids ended up missing Wednesday and Thursday because of snow and then Friday because of our planned trip. Luckily the things down in DC and the National Aquarium in Baltimore opened up in time for us and we ended up having a great trip after all. The crowds were even thinner because of the weather. Bonus!!

( We actually took this cool photo of a jelly fish)

We took in the aquarium on the way down, spent Saturday and part of Sunday in the museums of the Smithsonian,

and stopped at the DC Temple on the way home on Monday so that Megan and Nathan could do some family file baptisms It was Nathan's first temple trip to Washington.

(Evan by the Christus statue in the visitor's center)

We also caught Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief on Saturday night. Nate is a big fan of the book series. Sunday, before going to the museums, we attended church at the Capitol Ward. The brothers and sisters there had missed the two previous weeks of church due to snow and it was very interesting to hear of their adventures. Over all......just a great trip. Even though we couldn't escape the snow, we had some great family time together and saw some parts of Washington we had not seen before.

Some Fun Trips

At the end of December I took Emily and five of her good friends down to the Washington DC Temple. These are some of Emily's friends from high school who are not members of our church but who have seen the temple and been curious to visit and learn a little more about what temples are for and about our church, in general.We watched the film, Joseph Smith and the Restoration, looked at the different displays and, of course, saw the beautiful Christmas lights.

Then we stopped on the way home and got Mexican food at Chevy's. Thanks for a great day....Emily, Kelly, Heather, Kathy, Devon, and Julia. It was so much fun!!

Then.......

For Steve's birthday, he and I took the day and went to NYC. We were able to attend a session at the Manhattan temple and then saw WICKED.

It was Steve's first time seeing the play and he loved it. Afterwards we tried a great little restaurant called Swizz and enjoyed a delicious dinner. Couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day in the city....just a wonderful, relaxing getaway. Happy 50th, hun.

Merry Christmas

As always, Christmas is a much anticipated time at our house. Now that we have children away from home, we especially look forward to the return of children from college. We were without two of our kids this year because Janelle, Scott, and baby Alan traveled to Oregon to be with his family and Geoffrey was, of course, in Albania on his mission.

We missed them all, but were glad that they were where they were supposed to be this year.

We anxiously awaited the day when Stephanie and Emily would come home for Christmas break from BYU. Unfortunately their arrival was delayed by a HUGE snow storm which technically arrived after they were due in. But the airlines were good enough to cancel their flight anyway. We got them home two days late, but safely. Church was cancelled due to the snow, and we worked awfully hard that day to clear our way and our neighbor's way out of the snow. We were very thankful for our snow blower. We got over 2 feet of snow in the storm.

It was so nice to be together as a family and enjoy the music, food, and fun of the season. There is nothing like family.

Our "traditional" Nativity on Christmas Eve

(Check out the wise man...or should I say wise guy)

Waiting on the stairs on Christmas morning....

.....and checking out the loot!!!
Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!!

A Fun Foulk Thanksgiving

This was the first year that we had Thanksgiving officially at our house. It was a wonderful day. Our college kids were in Idaho and Geoffrey was on his mission, but we still had a very nice group of family and friends here. In addition to our little family we had Grandma Foulk, Tracey and Chuck, Joe and Eloise, and our friend Linda. We also had some family that we had never met before, the Harmons from Delaware. They are from Arizona originally but are here in the East, working for a law firm. They have three little kids and it was so fun to meet them and get to know them.

The kids did the traditional Domino Turkey, too. Way fun!!!

Our Disney Adventure

On Halloween, Steve, Jill, Megan, Nate, and Evan traveled to Florida (by plane for the first time) to go to Disney World. We were there for a week and had a wonderful time at the parks, swimming, and watching Phillies games. The weather was beautiful and it was such a nice break from the routine. We stayed in a timeshare which had plenty of room and gave us the ability to cook for ourselves and relax at the end of the day. Great, great, fun!!!!!

We went to Epcot the first day and believe it or not, Mickey Mouse was the first character we saw. What luck!!

The next day was our only day at Hollywood Studios. We found out that some of the rides were a little scary for Evan. But he started the day off with Tower of Terror and insisted that he wasn't that scared on it.....check out the photo and see what you think..



We also checked out the Nemo exhibit........



and the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids playgroud. Nathan and Evan loved the playground, while Megan and Steve saw an opportunity to get a little rest.

Later that day, Evan tried his hand at the Jedi training academy. He did fine until Darth Vador appeared. After some coaching by the assistant, Ev finallay got her to help him off with his robe and he made an early exit. I guess being a super tough guy only goes so far.

Our favorite ride, by far, was the Toy story interactive ride/game. It was a new one since we were there last. Afterwards, we got to meet the famous Woody and Buzz. Funny story, apparenty Woody is a big Phillies fan and Buzz is a BYU fan...Who knew?

The third day we did a fun character breakfast at the Crystal Palace in the Magic Kingdom. The Winnie the Pooh characters were there....here are just a couple of the pics from breakfast. The food was phenominal!!!

Our fourth day was Animal Kingdom. We got to go to the Lion King show and the safari and met some great characters, again. Everest was a big hit with Meg and Nate while Evan really enjoyed digging for bones in DinoLand. We even got to be a special helper family during the Lion King show with scored us front row seats. COOL!! A great day.

Since we had been to each of the parks once, we had to decide which ones to go to for a second day. We had onoly spent about 1/2 a day in Epcot the first day, so we went back there for another day. This time we spent some more time back in the area with the different countries. Also, we were very excited to see Daisy Duck at the entrance that day. For some reason, she was the character that Evan most wanted to meet before we left. We had caught a glimpse of her on our way into the magic kingdom, but were hurrying to our breakfast appointment so we couldnt stop. We were so happy when we saw her as we headed into Epcot. Whew!!! We sampled a little bit of food from a lot of the countries as we went around instead of buying a lunch at one place. It was delicious.

Our last day was spent in Magic Kingdom. There just wasn't enough time to see all we wanted to in one day. When we arrived, we noticed that between Tuesday and Friday, they had totally decorated for Christmas. What a transformation. I am sure they will continue to add to the decoration, but the amount of decorations that had taken place in that short time was amazing. We got to see the fireworks that night and just had a wonderful day. All in all a wonderful trip that we will remember for a long time.

Happy Fall and Halloween?

Fall has always been my favorite time of year. Living in the woods makes for a lot of leaf raking, but it sure is a pretty setting in all the colorful trees. Walking in from the bus the other day, I was struck with how beautiful our home looked so I snapped a quick photo.

Halloween at the Foulk house was a little scaled down this year. When we scheduled our trip to Disney and planned to leave the morning of Halloween, we thought our children would be understanding since we had a ward Trunk-or-Treat scheduled for the Wednesday night beforehand. But then the ward changed their event to actually be on Halloween and our kids ended up with no trick-or-treating this year :( They do have special trick-or-treating down in Disney, but at 70 bucks a kid.....we decided to take a pass. We just bought a huge bag of candy and everyone shared. A little lame, but it had to do for this year. Evan did get to participate in the annual elementary school Halloween parade. Meg dressed up for school, too, but I neglected to get a photo. So here are a few pictures of Evan in his mighty knight costume.

Happy Halloween 2009!!!

Janelle and Alan Come to New Jersey!!

We were so excited to have Janelle and Baby Alan come visit us in early October.
Evan and Nathan were especially excited to finally meet their little nephew.
And Grandma Foulk got to meet her first great-grandchild, too.


We went to the Apple Festival, the Cape May Zoo,





and the Jersey shore.




It was so fun to be able to give Alan baths and just play with him.

He was a very good boy. We really hated to see them go back to Utah....but I think daddy was pretty excited to have them back.
Keep cheering for those Phillies, Alan, like we taught you!