Our Morning with Alan

Sarah got to enjoy watching Rapunzell while Uncle Alan prepared breakfast.  Ben tried to undecorate their Christmas tree!

Alan was nice enough to make us Grandpa's famous waffles...

The kids had Eggo's, since we didn't think they'd appreciate all the hard work going into those waffles

Phillip looking all grown up, reading the newspaper!

Grandma was supervising...

I had to document this delicious feast... These waffles were so good!

Uncle Alan is such a good host. He made sure we were full!

I wanted to get a picture of Grandma with the kids.  I love it! Except it is missing Ben.  He wouldn't cooperate.

Grandma said, "Just take a picture of his fit."  So I did.

The kids were loving the stairs. I decided to take a picture of them but obviously it was more than Ben could handle!

After breakfast, Alan took us up to the Pentagon Memorial.  It was amazing and heartbreaking all at the same time.  He showed us around and told us about the events of that day from his point of view. (He works at the Pentagon)

Alan took this picture for us. Hopefully we don't get arrested... (you're not supposed to take pictures of the Pentagon... and a corner of it is in our picture!) Maddy was rebelling and turned away for the picture. Ben was just bundled up really good!

You can see the benches to the right of the picture.  Each bench represents a person.  If it is facing the Pentagon, it represents a person killed on the plane.  If it faces away from the Pentagon, it represents a person inside the Pentagon.  Each bench is arranged by birth year, and has the person's name on it.  There is also a reflecting pool just under the bench that lights up at night.  The youngest person was born in 1998, and the oldest in 1930 if I remember correctly. 
It truely was a very humbling experience, and we were grateful to Alan for giving us a tour.

Walking back to the car
The kids LOVED the tunnel that lead to the parkinglot
Left to right: Grandma, Alan (my dad's oldest brother) Phillip and Ben

The girls ran the whole way!  It was pretty exciting for them!

We headed back to Alan's to eat some lunch and say our goodbyes.  I really hope to see them more often. We really enjoyed getting to know them better.  We love you guys!

We loaded up the car and began our journey to Andrew's house in Richmond.  He had the rest of the day planned with Christmas festivities!

Trip To Virginia!

The week of Thanksgiving I found out that my grandma (from Utah) was spending the holiday at my Uncle Alan's house in Virginia.  I haven't seen her since my Grandpa's funeral back in March, and I don't know when I'll make it back to Utah.  I decided to round up my family and make a trip up there to see her the week after Thanksgiving.  We picked up Phillip on our way, and Andrew was going to meet us up there.

 We decided to make a stop along the way to visit some old friends from our days in Albuquerque. The Savages!! (And the Kites!)  I hadn't seen them since my wedding reception 7 1/2 years ago.  It was so nice to see Heather and meet her husband and their boys.  My kids enjoyed playing with them too.  Her parents are fantastic too, and it was so great to be able to catch up.

Me and Heather

 We visited for a couple hours and then headed up to the Washington D.C. Temple, to see the Christmas lights. 

 Andrew was going to meet us there, but ended up not being able to come.  He was missed!  Christmas lights have always made me think of Andrew so I missed sharing that with him!  The lights were amazing though!  As a kid I was able to see the light display at Temple Square several times, and I had forgotten how breath taking it is, and how much I miss it...  Being at the D.C. Temple brought it all back to me!  I really enjoyed reliving those long forgotten memories.

Posing for a picture!  The kids were in awe...

We went inside the visitors center and got to see nativities from around the world. There were so many of them!  We also had one of the sweet Sister Missionaries take a picture of us!
Left to right: Uncle Phillip, Ben, Me, Sarah, Joseph and Maddy

I took so many pictures of these Nativities... but I only posted a few.

The Temple, surrounded by lights... Only the visitor's center grounds have lights around them. This is the view from there, with the Temple in the background.

They had a beautiful nativity outside, with a narritive playing through a speaker for everyone to hear.

We finished up at the Temple and loaded up in the car to drive to my uncle Alan's house to visit with him and see my Grandma.  He lives in Alexandria, so we had a little drive ahead of us.  Now, we have never been to D.C. before.  We got the brilliant idea to drive through downtown and see some sights on our way.
Anyone who's been there knows how incredibly foolish that was!  My Uncle will never let me live that down.  (Can I plead tourist??)  We did succeed, but with lots of stress and LOTS of time.  Who knew traffic lights only stay green for 5 seconds in D.C.!!

All of these pictures were taken from a moving car... I had to include them since it was such an ordeal to see them!

 

The White House

 The Capitol Building

The Washington Monument!  Well, the bottom half anyway!! haha

We arrived LATE to my Uncles house, where he and his wife Denise were nice enough to still feed us dinner... 

We really enjoyed staying up late to visit and eat "digestives" and icecream!  I learned a few new things about my dad as a child...  And it was fun to see my Grandma. 

I'll post a few more pics from our trip on the next post!

Family Overload!

Joseph and I are lucky enough to live close to our families. We love to spend time with them, but it gets a bit overwhelming to cram it all into the same day!! This Thanksgiving was the Jennings "big" year, where extended family comes for a reunion. I was asked to make one of two turkeys as well as some sweet potatoes. It was also going to be a "big" year for my side of the family, with Andrew, Phillip and their families reuniting with the brood we have here already. I had my assignments for the meal with them as well! Plus I was playing hostess (I'm afraid I'm no good at that... Sorry guys!) It was a LONG day, I'm not sure that any side of the family got the best side of me. I'm thinking next year we are going to do one family, and the next year we'll do the other. That way we can spend some quality time with family and relax and have time to think about all we have to be grateful for instead of keeping an eye on the clock.

Two Thanksgiving meals later we found ourselves at home. But I didn't stay long! My sister-in-law accompanied me to walmart for a black friday shopping attempt. One LONG line later, we returned home with what I went for! A new camera! (Nevermind the fact that later on that day it was available on the internet...)

The next day I proceeded to take an insane amount of pictures. When you have 2 parents with 10 of their 11 children, and 11 grandchildren, plus spouses and some great-grandparents, there are many pictures to be taken!!

We started Friday afternoon at the Conway Riverwalk

Addison, Sarah and Maddy

Benjamin confined to the swing... at least he doesn't realize it!

Sarah, Sophie, Maddy, Abbie and Scott

That would be my daughter, with her cousin, sister, cousin and Uncle

(it is so hard to give everyone their correct title..)

Jumping up and down on the bridge

I love those big blue eyes!

I wish I continued to take pictures, but I couldn't because I was involved in what might have been the largest freeze tag game known to man. 9 of my siblings, and 9 of the grandkids and my sister-in-law and my dad, all running around this playground. Once you were tagged you had to freeze until someone crawled under your legs to free you. I don't even think you can imagine correctly the scene unfolding on the playground. One by stander asked my mom if we were a church group... SO funny!

After our game we strolled around the riverwalk and headed back to my grandparents for Thanksgiving left overs.

The kids set up in the backyard, the weather was gorgeous! They colored while they waited for their food.

Maddy with her Aunt Allie (yup, my youngest sister!)

Jake (Andrew's son)

My sare-bear

Porter getting his chub on hard core!! (Steph's son)

My neice Addison (Phillip's daughter) with her Uncle Reagan (my second youngest brother) her cousin Sarah (my daughter) and cousin Noah (Andrew's oldest son) playing with the turkeys that Mamacheri made out of pinecones

Ben with Aunt Neenee

Phillip (my brother just older than me) and his lovely wife Stefani

My mom's dad. We like to call him Papa

At a very young age, Porter has learned to defend himself against his cousin Ben

Phillip and Andrew catching up (my oldest brothers)

Porter and his mama Stephanie (not to be confused with Stefani)

Mom's mom, or Mama as we call her, busy cooking!

Abbie (Andrew's oldest)

Cooper (Phillip's son) although he looks like he could be mine with all that red hair!

My youngest sister Erynn with her niece Addison

Cousins! Sophie (Andrew's second oldest) and Maddy

Concentrating on the game Andrew was explaining

When I was young my mom started a tradition of giving us Christmas Pj's and an ornament on Thanksgiving. It is still going strong, and my older siblings who have their own children have continued the tradition...

Abbie and Erynn are both rockin' their jammies!

My oldest brother Andrew

He always has the best games for us to play when we all get together!

Obviously the game was not interesting for Porter!

Me and Molly (Andrew's youngest) She is so stinkin' cute!!

My mom, Sophie, and her mom Sarah (Andrew's wife, not to be confused with my daughter!!

We have a few duplicate names... makes things really fun!

Scott was rebelling and hiding in his room while the rest of us played downstairs...

Ben and Molly still don't know if they like eachother or not!

The next Phillip and Stef headed home and the rest of us headed to the boardwalk in Myrtle Beach. We are quite the group of people too! So many kids! Mom jokingly said that we should count off to make sure everyone was there, but then someone pointed out how well that worked in Home Alone... we all laughed and crossed the street and began our walk on the boardwalk. Mom was telling me something about a friend of Ryan's and wasn't sure if she had the facts right. She turned around to ask him, and he was missing! He had fallen alseep in the van and we had left him! It was pretty funny. (he is 13, so it really wasn't so bad!) We stopped our walk and the kids played on the beach until Ryan was recovered...

My little sand thrower

Who would have thought it could bring him so much joy?

This was our grumpy clan... they would walk faster than all of us and then sit down on a bench and wait until we passed them. Then they'd walk fast and pass us and sit down again...

Weirdos!

Check out the Sky Wheel! Nice to look at, but I'm not paying

$12 bucks to ride it!

We walked out onto the pier and hung out for a little bit. What a beautiful view!

After the pier we headed back to Mama and Papa's for Thanksgiving part 3... then Andrew and Sarah headed home. It was a great weekend! The only thing missing was Kevin. Christmas week will be great because we will all be together for the first time in YEARS!!