Merry Christmas!

Pre-Christmas festivities included meeting up with my college roommate Stephanie and her family who were in town from Texas!  So fun to see her again!

And lots more fun with our elves.  Sorry to see them go back to the North Pole today....

We all worked, went to school and early morning seminary right up until Christmas Eve.  But alas Christmas Eve finally arrived!  We went over to Nana and Grandpa's house and did a small gift exchange with Dave's side of the family.

And then we watched our traditional Christmas Eve movie.  This year, we saw Encanto.

And again keeping with tradition, we had our Chicago -style pizza dinner.  This year, we ate the Lou Malnatis pizzas that my parents sent us as a Christmas gift.

Yum!

Then we went out to see the lights.  And we of course stopped by our favorite Christmas tree!

I think I saw some mistletoe...

Then we came home and checked the Santa radar to see where he was and then got the kiddos to bed!  Again, as per tradition, they all slept together.  I love their Christmas Eve sibling sleepover!

And then Santa's elves got busy!

Thanks for the milk and cookies, Strom kids!

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Good Morning!

Lining up youngest to oldest....

Merry Christmas!

Roller skates for Ella!

The kids drew names to get each other gifts. Ella loved the football Tanner got her!

And Tanner loved Riley's gift too!

Lacey hugs Ella Thank you for the beautiful earrings!

Love all the sibling hugs 💚🎄

Matching fingerless gloves for the older two!

Lol dolls and Nerlie for Riley!

Post-Christmas carnage.

Thank you, Maricarmen for the generous thoughtful gifts!  Another Christmas tradition!  We sure love and appreciate you!!

 

Christmas Cookies and Scavenger Hunts

 

We started out this week with our annual cookie baking/decorating tradition!

And Dave made these Christmas Cookie Trees for all of his coworkers. 

We've sent and received several packages this week.  This one in particular intrigued me.... what could it be?

My parents sent us meals from Lou Malnatis and Portiolls!  A taste of home! #nailedit 🍕🌭

Yes please!

Our elves have been up to their daily tricks.  This is one they do every year and it's always a kid favorite! 🤣💩

And we also hosted our annual Scavenger Hunt Christmas Party (that we missed doing last year due to Covid).  This is the only picture I got (of me starting to set up for it) because as I got going finishing up getting the house and party ready and then hosting all night, I plum forgot about my camera and taking pictures!  We invited 16 families and 8 of them ended up coming.  We had a total of 42 people here.  It was a houseful!  But it was fun and a great way to get into the holiday Spirit!  Admittedly it's a lot of time, effort and money to do but I look at it as my gift to our friends.  What we do is, at a specific time, we send out a list of Christmas decoration that people need to find.  As families, they can drive around town looking at Christmas lights and decorations and mark off their list as they go.  They have to report to our house no later than 7:30pm.  I give out prizes to the top three winners and then we just listen to Christmas music, eat Christmas treats and apps and visit and celebrate another year of friendship!

And last, but not least, Lacey and her three buddies Audrey, Charlotte and Elise used their Six Flags Annual Pass one last time and had a great time!  They celebrated their finale of the year by getting matching artwork on their hands.  Pretty cool!

Andrea Bocelli

 

I fell in love with Andrea Bocelli's voice when I was just 23 years old.  I was living in Las Vegas, just starting out my career as a Dietitian.  I lived just minutes away from the Bellagio and I went there every chance I got to see their Fountain Shows while colored fountains synchronized to music went off every 15 minutes.  I could sit there for hours and never get bored.  I loved it!  In fact, it's still one of my favorite things to do whenever I get the chance to go to Vegas.  But hands down my very favorite of all the songs ever played there was Time to Say Goodbye, which was a duet by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman (the original Christine in Phantom of the Opera).  That is when I first heard of  Andrea Bocelli and I have been following him ever since, hoping that one day I could hear him sing in person!

Well, that day finally arrived!  For one day only, he was performing here in DC and I jumped at the chance!  Dave and I enjoyed almost two hours of listening to that beautiful operatic tenor voice.  He also has a young daughter (9 years old) Virginia who performed a duet with him and he also has a son Matteo (Age 24), who also sang a duet with him.

Singing with his 9 year old daughter  Virginia.

Not a great quality pic, but here he is at the end of his concert holding his son's hand on one side and his daughter's hand on the other.  Very sweet. 

What was also sweet was having a live orchestra and choir accompany him the entire time.  I've missed live music these last couple of years and appreciate it now all the more!