Ring in the new

The holidays are officially over and we all have a fresh new start with 2010. We finished out our year with bang and hope to have another good year ahead.

For New Year's Eve we decided to take the kids bowling and then come home and make s'mores using the s'more maker we got for Christmas from Dan's sister. Though perhaps Cade shouldn't have had that much sugar that late (night terrors), we still had a lot of fun. Dan and I stayed up until midnight, drank some sparkly stuff, kissed and headed to bed.

We woke up the next morning realizing we had two full days with nothing planned. If you know anything about our kids you know that you don't want to just sit around the house for two days with nothing to do or someone might get hurt. So at the last minute we decided to take a trip up to Washington D.C. We'd always talked about going up to the Air and Space museum and seeing some sights and this seemed like a good time to do it. At about 10 we started showering and packing and arranging a hotel and were out the door by 12:30. The kids ate lunch in the car and napped while we had a traffic-free drive up to D.C. (which is very unheard of). Our first stop was the Air and Space museum and since it was new year's day it was open until 6:30. We had a good time, but the kids let us know that it was time to get to the hotel.

We found a great deal at the Embassy Suites right smack in downtown D.C. off of Pennsylvania avenue. It was pretty swanky looking and had a pool, the number one requirement of hotels in my opinion! We ordered a pizza and took the boys down to swim. Even though the water was pretty cold we all had a good time. The boys finally conked out around 9 and we watched I am Legend on some HBO channel.

The next morning they had a continental breakfast. But this wasn't like your Best Western continental breakfast with some muffins, cereal and oatmeal packets, this was a full-on buffet of very yummy breakfast goods. The boys had waffles, pancakes, cereal and we had omelettes, breakfast potatoes and some very good hot chocolate. Then Cade got to feed the fish. All of the rooms face in to the atrium of the hotel which is beautifully decorated/landscaped and they have these giant goldfish for the kids to feed every morning.

Of course then it was time to check out of the hotel, but before we could leave Dan had to show Cade what staying in a hotel was really all about. Pillowfights and jumping on the bed! We then made the necessary stop at IKEA on the way home and the kids slept from D.C. to Williamsburg and hardly whined the rest of the way. It really was a fun trip. Cade still says, "I had fun at Cade's other home."!

So this is how we finished up 2009. What will 2010 bring?