Rock Creek Holiday Party

Keith's work, Rock Creek, hosted a great party this year at the Hay Adams Hotel, in DC.  It is a classy 1920's hotel that sits directly in front of the White House.

Rock Creek arranged with Uber to provide free rides for employees and their families to and from the party, which made is so much more convenient.  Otherwise, parking in DC is always a challenge.

There were two parties: one for the children and one for the adults.  The kids had a great magician, face painter, balloon artist, caricature artist, kids food and some kids movies.  They even had cookie decorating, although the cookies were a little hard and flavorless.  Surprisingly, some of the people hired to watch the kids, recognized our kids from last year.  Then they had gift bags individual labeled for each child with generous gifts inside.

The adult party had delicious food and beautiful desserts.  Our table was by the window directly overlooking the White House and Washington Monument.



























The view from our table:

Christmas 2017 with Grandma and Grandpa

We were fortunate enough to have Grandma and Grandpa Knight visit us for an early Christmas this year.  We had a wonderful visit with them, then for the actual Christmas day, we have stayed home together watching Christmas movies and playing with some of the gifts.

Chevy Chase Christmas Party

Our church has a nice Christmas party.  Savannah and Tucker were part of the Nativity; Savannah was an Angel and Tucker a Wise-Man.

Tucker's Cub Scout Raingutter Regatta

Each year the Cub Scouts have a Raingutter Regatta.  The Scouts have to design and build their own boats out of recycled materials (things that they would normally have thrown away). 

Christmas Tree Shopping in the City

Shopping for Christmas Trees is an interesting experience in the city.  Parking is always a challenge in the city; even more so with a large SUV.  Whole Foods sells Christmas trees, but our SUV is just about as tall as their parking garage clearance.  But we decided to try anyways.  We barely had enough clearance (I think the tree was scraping the top of the garage as we left), but we survived.

It seems like we regularly meet nice people with their pets when we go out. 

Halloween Costumes

We participated at our church Trunk-or-Treat and also Trick-or-Treated in our neighborhood.

Tucker made his own costume this year:

Tucker used copper wire to bind the seams of his helmet.

Portland, OR / Vancouver, WA

We had a great time visiting with Aunt Andrea in the Portland area.












Powell's city of Books, bookstore:












The Portland LDS Temple:









The Columbia River:









We hike the Columbia River Beacon Rock with Uncle Brent and Aunt Andrea.  It was a fun little hike, but steep with tall drop-offs.














Uncle Brent taught the kids how to start a fire with just chemicals: