Merry Christmas!! (and Happy New Year!!)

We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Our Christmas day was spent with family at the Strite's house.  Instead of having a "traditional" Christmas meal with turkey and mashed potatoes we did a soup and salad bar!

Hannah brought a delicious broccoli and cheese soup.  I did an Olive Garden chicken gnocchi soup.  Joanna made a wild rice soup and Sis. Joyce made a potato and sausage soup.

all the yummy salad fixin's

lots of delicious desserts...

Micah smoked some pork chops that we cut up and had on our salads as well.

Judah has gotten so big in the past month!  His little grins are just the best!!

I don't have any pictures of us all opening presents, it was all such a flurry of activity!  We each drew names and then bought presents for that person.   It was fun seeing who each person had drawn!

Joshua made this cute little tractor for Kyle that he can pull along behind him.

The boys went outside and shoot their pistols at Justin's new target, (thanks, Jaylon!)

Then they all decided to go quail hunting since they're in season right now.

They got eight nice birds!

Remember the buck Joshua shot a few months back?  

Well it's all mounted and hung in the Strite's living room now!  And it looks great!! :)

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"May the great Christmas Present, the first one 

and the only one and the original and the only one there is,

Jesus Christ, be afresh in your heart tonight."

- Rev. William Marrion Branham

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Merry Christmas everyone!  And may 2016 be filled with many blessings and fond memories for you!

~Kaitlyn

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve, Justin and I went to a little get together at our friends house in Sierra Vista.  There was a sing-a-long after we ate and quite a few people brought their instruments.  I thought I'd share a video of "Silent Night" being played on the violin and guitar by Phillip and Bro. Tim.

Volleyball, Christmas Parties, and the Journey Home

One night we rented the volleyball barn and invited the young people from church for a night of fun.

At first it was just us so we had fun bumping the ball around, warming up.

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The day before we left for home we drove down to Pop-pop and Mom-mom's house in Maryland and celebrated Christmas with family there.  (I don't have any pictures from that get together, sadly!)
Then we left and drove up to Lebanon for the annual Sanger Family Christmas Dinner.

cousins playing UNO

It was so nice to be with the cousins again!

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We left early Sunday morning and began the 33 hour drive home.

You see interesting things while driving!  

Like this water tower painted like a basket of apples!

Driving in Texas, boy its a big state when you drive the whole way across it!!

I'm sure you are wondering what is going on in the above photo!

Well, the gas stations are few and far between in Texas...  We had just passed the last gas station for the next 30 miles when our gas light came on.  Justin looked on his phone and found the next gas station so we stopped there.  Unfortunately, they were running tests on all their pumps so there was no way we were going to be able to get gas there!  Justin looked on his phone again and found the next gas station to be another 20 miles further down the highway.  So we hopped back in our car and prayed we could make it there.  Well, we're put-putting along down the highway when we ran completely out of gas!!  So here we are, five miles away from the Mexico border, coasting along the shoulder of I-20 with our four ways blinking, trying to get as close to this gas station as we could!  We were still 3 miles away from it though :(  So out of the car we go, carrying our orange juice jugs we had filled with drinking water for the drive home.  We walked about a mile on the freeway and then off the exit, it was still another 2 miles down towards Mexico to the gas station.  We're walking along, laughing at our predicament, when Justin stops in his tracks and goes, "Oh no!  I forgot my wallet in the car!"  So now when we get to this gas station how are we even going to pay for the gas?!?!  Not even thirty seconds go by and a Border Patrol drives past.  We waved him down and asked him if he could take us down to the gas station.  He was so kind and took us back to our car and actually just gave us about a gallon of gas that he had in the back of his truck!

About an hour after the whole episode started, we were back on the road!

One more state to go through and we would be in ARIZONA!!!!

I snapped this picture through the window so there is a bit of a glare but I thought the rock formations were so pretty against the blue sky!

WELCOME TO ARIZONA!!!!  We were finally in our home state!!

As we got closer to home we could see there was snow on the Chiricahua mountains!

{a timelapse video from when we were traveling}

We are so grateful to the Lord for His traveling mercies as we drove home.  It's always fun to go away for a few days, but the saying is true, "There is no place like home." :)

Ice Skating & The Choo Choo Barn

Ice skating has always been one of my favorite things to do during the winter season.  One day we all went ice skating at the Lancaster Ice Rink and had so much fun!  It was only Justin's second time to go but he was really good!

David and his cone :)  The rink has them avalible for kids learning to skate.  They're easy to push across the ice and it warns other skaters that a newbie is coming through!!

Benjamin got a ride around the rink by standing on David's cone and getting pushed by Hope! :)

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After ice skating we went to the Choo Choo Barn in Strasburg.  

During December if you come on a Friday and bring a canned good you can go through for free! 

The little details in the winter scenes are so cool!!  I love how they have a mini Turkey Hill cow getting pulled on the trailer! :P

 Looks like these zoo animals are ready for Christmas! lol

About every 10 minutes or so all the lights go dim so you can see everything "at night".  All the little town streetlights and Christmas lights at the houses come on.  It's really neat!

Benjamin had a good view of everything perched on Joshua's shoulders! :)

 Anyone need anything at the rummage sale?

An Amish schoolhouse

Looks like an Amish family is getting a new barn!

Justin thought this was funny, two guys racing their hot rods on a back road!

Some boys playing ball in the park...

 I thought this little store was cute :)

 Uh oh!  There's been an accident!

 This little mini Turkey Hill gas station even has the gas prices on their sign!

I love little details so here are a few videos I took of ones I thought were cool.


This car even has it's left turning signal blinking!


See the Amish man plowing his field?

There is a Dutch Wonderland set up, and the rides are ones that are actually at the theme park!

A boy enjoying his ride on a tire swing :)

Longwood Gardens

One day while we were in PA we went to Longwood Gardens.  Grandpoppy and Grandmommy drove up from Delaware and met us there!  We had a wonderful time walking the trails and admiring all the beautiful flowers.

I thought this fountain was so cute :)

Since it is Christmas time, there were poinsettias everywhere!

I think their feet were beginning to get a little tired!

One of the rooms we went through had all these "Bonsai"  trees in it.

Bonsai is a Japanese term which means, "planted in a container".  

When I looked up the meaning of the word "Bonsai" this is what I found.  

bänˈsī,ˈbänsī/

noun

an ornamental tree or shrub grown in a pot and

artificially prevented from reaching its normal size.

In another room there were a few Christmas trees that had been decorated by local schools.
I thought these two painted ornaments of a wolf and bird were so pretty!

The weather was windy and cold outside but inside with all the plants it felt nice and warm!

This tree is covered with "Tillandsia", also known as "air plants."  Being an air plant means that it doesn't need any soil, but instead, obtains water and nutrients from the air!!

Beautiful Hibiscus flowers...

Grandmommy stopping to "smell the roses" :)

What's that up there?  Bananas??

Yes!  Longwood Gardens likes to grow fruits and veggies to supply their cafe.

I thought this fountain full of succulents was absolutely breath taking!

There are little strings of lights in among the plants as well.

After lunch we went walking on the trails.  There are three different tree houses on the grounds so of course we had to go find each one!

Check out this little guy chomping away on his acorn :)

(sorry, the picture is blurry because I had zoomed in so far on my phone)

Look who's getting a ride with Grandpoppy! :)