Holidays With The Washburns

Brian and I were so blessed for the holidays this year.  Because of my work schedule we weren't able to travel home for the holiday, so our families came to see us!!  It isn't easy to travel during the holiday season, so we were so thankful to have our family with us.

We started the holiday season off by decorating our tree!! We have continued the Barrand family tradition of getting a new ornament every year that symbolizes what we did that year.  This year we had a lot of new ornaments.  We have a cute little "Just Married" car (since we got married), I dried my wedding bouquet and put some of the flowers in an ornament, and Brian got a hand painted Ironman 140.6 Coeur d'Alene ornament for completing his first full Ironman!

We put our tree up a little bit early this year because my parents were coming in for Thanksgiving!  They drove all the way across the country (because they are retired and can take all the time they want).  They stopping in Chicago to pick up John and then headed into Pittsburgh.  

My mom made learn how to cook Thanksgiving dinner this year!  I'm fine with the cooking, but there was no way I was sticking my hand in that turkey. 

Brian got in on the cooking action and helped cut the turkey!

 John trying to serve my dad with some sparkling cider

 My mom's favorite part about being in Pittsburgh?  They have Tasty Kakes!! 

We decided that while my parents were in town, we should check out one of the museums.  My mom chose the Heinz History Center.  It was a cool place to see and we had fun looking around!

To top off the whole trip, we ate at Primanti Brothers - a very Pittsburgh place to eat. 

It was so nice to have my parents here for Thanksgiving and it was hard to say good-bye again, but we knew that in a few short weeks April would be here to help us celebrate Christmas!!

April was here for about 5 days, most of which I had to work.  So Brian got to spend a lot of quality time with his mom!! Here are some of the things they did!

 Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water

 On their way to see Falling Water, they passed this house with a ridiculous amount of Christmas decorations in the yard. 

 Brian took her on a little tour of the Pitt campus and then up to Mount Washington to see the city!

 They were also able to drive out to the Flight 93 Memorial.

 On Christmas Eve we all went downtown to check out some the lights and see the giant Christmas tree at PPG Place.

After looking at all the lights, we went home to start our Christmas Eve!! We are keeping up the Barrand tradition of "The Night Before Christmas pass around gift game."  

Christmas morning started with a new Washburn tradition. In France, the people leave shoes out for Santa to fill.  We didn't have nice Christmas shoes to leave out, so we left our normal shoes out on the fireplace.  To my surprise, Santa filled out shoes!!

We had tons of fun opening gifts! We were truly blessed this year!!

Our next traditions!! Cinnamon rolls for Christmas breakfast!

Thanks to April we had Honey Baked Ham for our Christmas dinner! It was perfect!

After dinner we decided to take a walking tour of Pittsburgh.  Brian has a book that gives a lot of facts about the buildings in downtown Pittsburgh, and it was really interesting to learn so much about the city we live in.

Every year PPG Place has a gingerbread house and train display.  We decided to get out of the cold and take a look around at all the gingerbread houses.  They also have different Santa's from all over the world. 

I ended Christmas by FaceTiming with my family and the little ones in Idaho.  My favorite thing to do!!

We were a little apprehensive about Christmas this year.  It is our first time being away from our families for Christmas, but with April here it made the holidays so great!! It was the perfect way to end the year!