Christmas 2009

For Christmas this year, we traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina to be with Tamara's family. We were there for a little over a week, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

We arrived on Saturday afternoon, and began our week of relaxation. It was so nice to be able to go to church with family, and have a little help with Kylie during Sacrament Meeting. She is so active these days, she keeps us busy.




On Wednesday, December 23rd, we took Kylie to the Charlotte Nature Museum. This museum focuses on nature-based learning, in a fun atmosphere.

Kylie got to see a snake up close

and an owl

There is also a butterfly exhibit at the Nature Mesuem. To our delight, as soon as we entered the exhibit, a butterfly landed on Kylie. We coached her to hold still, and just watch the butterfly. She did such a good job.

It landed on her shoulder

And then came in for a closer look

We also got to see a turle eat his lunch

The museum put on a puppet show that was about 15 minutes long (which is perfect) on bears hibernating during the winter. It incorporated Christmas and Santa into the show, which was pretty creative if you ask me.

The bear decided to wake up during the winter so he wouldn't miss Christmas (this was upon the advice of his friend Beaver).

Later on that afternoon, Steve and I snuck away for an overnight trip to celebrate our four year wedding anniversary. Dad and Mom watched Kylie for us, which we greatly appreciated. We stayed at the Westin Hotel, in downtown Charlotte (which locals refer to as Uptown). Upon checking in, we were informed that we had been upgraded to the Presidential Suite. As we went to our room, we had to take pictures, since we figured we would never stay in such a nice suite again.

To explain, when you walked in the marble foyer upon entering our rooms, there was a room to the left, which was the bedroom. It had views of downtown Charlotte, which was beautiful if you opened all of the curtains.

To the right of the entry was an entertaining room, with sofas and a big screen. This made Steve very happy. Which made me happy.

The bathroom attached to the bedroom had a wonderful jacuzzi tub, which was like heaven.

The bedroom



The bathroom

Entertaining Room

We walked to dinner that night, our restaurant (Ruth's Chris Steakhouse) was only about 10 minutes away from our hotel. We went by an outdoor ice skating rink, and got to watch people skating for a few minutes, that was so fun. We had a momentous anniversary, and I can't believe four years has went by so fast.

This Christmas, Kylie really got into opening gifts. She opened her own gifts and everyone else's too. Here are a few pictures:

Enjoying the fire with Aunt Julie Anna

On Saturday we went to Ray's Splash Planet, which is a kid-geared water park. Kylie wasn't really into going down the slides, but she enjoyed playing around as long as someone was holding her.

Having fun with Dad

and Mom

and Grandma Rosie

Saturday night Ben and Susannah came up from Columbia to hang out. We went on a double date, to a restaurant called Firebirds. Delicious! Before we left, Kylie enjoyed playing around with Uncle Ben a lot.

We truly had a Merry Christmas