The National Christmas Tree

This past weekend, we ventured into the city and met up with our friends, Ben and Kelsey. We took a field trip to the National Christmas Tree at the Ellipse in front of the White House. It's a live blue spruce that was planted in 1978 and every year is decorated with lights, along with 56 smaller trees for the 50 states, one District and 5 U.S. territories. Can you name all 5 territories? I couldn't! The U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands was new to me!

The National Tree

Yule Log burning all day and night until New Year's Day

Each of the 56 trees are decorated with ornaments made by a school, artist, community group, etc from their state.

Ethan and the Virginia tree

I'm with the Washington tree (and the Washington Monument)

My camera is not so great with night photos but here's the White House. It is beautifully decorated, with more than a few Christmas trees in the windows. We could also see the snipers walking on the roof. How festive!

This is the last post until after Christmas. We fly out to Seattle this weekend for a week-long, much-needed visit. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to our family and friends!

Let it Snow

Winter has arrived! We woke up to snowflakes falling this morning. It's been snowing all day and we now have at least 4 inches.

A Via Family Thanksgiving

Ethan and I celebrated our first Thanksgiving in our new house with the Via's. Ethan's brother and his family, along with Ethan's parents traveled to Ashburn for the holiday. We had a fantastic meal - thanks to help from Marcia and Courtney, dinner turned out great! Along with lots of eating, we had fun playing outside, watching movies, cutting down our Christmas tree, visiting the Air and Space Museum and putting in some time on the Wii.

Here's a link to the Thanksgiving photo album:

Thanksgiving 2009