The first night we were there, we went to the Kiley's ward Christmas party. It was really interesting to see how other wards do it differently! This party included a play by the primary, LOTS of caroling, and ended with a visit from Santa. We stayed (at the insistence of Connor) until Santa came, which wasn't until after 9:00 PM. (That's pretty late for our little girls anyway, not to mention the 8 hour drive earlier in the day!) When Santa came in, to the cheers of all of the children, Connor squealed and was ready to go home. She refused to sit on his lap, or even wait in line for a candy cane...but we had to stay the extra hour just to see the man. At least she was happy.
Saturday morning we went to a craft store (where the theft incident occurred, see the previous post if you're curious.) Ate lunch at Wendy's. And then visited Monocacy National Battlefield. Scott loves battle fields and everything that goes along with them. Just to give you an idea of how intense he is about this sort of thing, we went to Gettysburg on our honeymoon where he did a self narrated tour for me of the whole place. Anyway, we did enjoy learning about a little known civil war battle at Monocacy.
Sunday we went to church, had a wonderful ham dinner, and then went to visit Scott's aunt Beverly and her family who live nearby. It was good to visit with them because we really don't see them very often. Connor especially enjoyed playing with the train that Bev and Barry got "for the grand kids." And Emily was thrilled at the fruit Christmas tree centerpiece (handmade by Beverly herself!)
Monday we visited Gettysburg, to the jubilation of Scott. It was actually pretty neat because we found the monuments to the regiments that our ancestors fought with. Interestingly enough, they were on opposite sides of the battle of Gettysburg. We toured the museum after freezing out on the battlefield, then went to a Chinese buffet for lunch. Nothing says "America" like touring Civil War battlefields and Chinese food.
After lunch, we went to the best stop of all. We visited Scott's Great Grandma. It is so neat that our girls get to visit with their great great grandmother! We had a good visit and took lots of cute pictures of them together.
So, as you can see, we had a great trip. This is only parts of it. I apologize for the length of this, but it's for me, not for you! ;-) We took lots of pictures, and had a really great visit with the Kileys. It was fun to have them all to ourselves!