A few scenes from Christmas...

Gavin's gift for us

Gavin and the other children in his class have been working for two weeks on a "special box" to give to their parents.

We received it today ...

...inside was a piece of artwork Gavin did...

...along with his thoughts on the upcoming holiday as told to his teachers...

...cue Mommy and Daddy with tears in their eyes. There are no words other than to say what a special boy we are lucky enough to have.

Visit from Santa

Gavin's friend Claire has an "in" at the North Pole, which meant a visit today from the big guy. She and her parents were nice enough to invite some other friends over for the fun. Gavin decided to keep his distance, but we assured him Santa will come even though he did not have a one-on-one chat about what he hopes to see under the tree on Christmas morning.

Jingle Bells!

Thanksgiving weekend in D.C.

We were in the D.C. area over the weekend visiting with Don's family -- brother Chris and sister-in-law Kathy live in Virginia and we enjoyed taking a trip into the city on Friday to stroll on the national mall (rather than go to the other kind of mall). If you look by the Capitol building, you can see that not only are they decorating the Christmas tree, they are also building the grandstand for the upcoming inauguration on Jan. 20!