NYE

I ended up driving up to the temple with a few friends on New Year's Eve.  It was a gross rainy day, so I was glad that Anita volunteered to drive.  Brittney and Brianne were nice and let me ride shotgun, which is good for my motion sickness, so it doesn't get much better than that!  We didn't hit any traffic (wha--???) and got there pretty early, something Craig and I rarely manage to do, so we didn't need to freak out rushing around!  And that meant I had time to take this great picture:

Ghost Temple

I ran into my friend Betsy from Manassas, so that was really fun-- Betsy was the first person I met when we moved to Virginia!  She was the Relief Society president, and she and her husband Rick bought us dinner at Bob Evans and then ward members came to our new apartment to help us unload our U-Haul.  I was 7 months pregnant with Bentley and so relieved to be done with my master's thesis and to get moved in and settled.  I look back now on that tiny apartment and our meager possessions (mostly we had a bed, a table with only two chairs, and a really crappy couch) and what a wild ride that was and I can hardly believe how far I've come!

Anyway.  Sorry for that little trip down memory lane!  It was great seeing Betsy again and made that temple trip even more special!  Betsy shared this picture she'd gotten from earlier in the morning:

I do love the DC temple.  But I sure will be excited when I can drive just an hour to Richmond!

Anyway!  Our session was lovely.  And Kate joined us, too, which was great.  She's the one who teaches my kids' seminary class in our basement these days, and I joke that she's holding our ward together: she's also a temple worker and plays the organ whenever needed, and occasionally steps in as pianist in primary.  AND she knows my friend Nancy Minster-- it's such a small world in the church!

After the temple we all had lunch at Cafe Rio, and planned to stop at the Moo-Thru, too, but it was closed for the holiday.  Boo.  Craig got me big metal straws so I can actually drink my super-thick milkshakes, so I was excited to test drive one!  But not that night.

By the time I got home, around 5pm, I was so exhausted I headed straight to my room and took a 20 minute nap.  THEN I was ready to have NYE fun with the kids.  We did our usual fondue (bless Craig, he'd chopped everything up so all we had to do next was mostly melt the cheese) and then shortly after that chocolate fondue, too.  In between, we screencast pictures from the year on the TV so we could all remember everything we'd done in 2022.

Kendra had gone to a party, so she missed out on fondue.  But since the mom at the party is a professional baker, I'm pretty sure she got some good stuff, too.  (Bentley was also invited to the party, but he'd gone to a dance the night before with all these kids and decided that was enough for him.)

There she is with her back to the camera, along with Madeline, Emily, Ben, Topher, Brogan, and Joe

We pretty much went to bed right after midnight.  Church was coming early the next morning, and with it, a new batch of sunbeams in my primary!  And that's plenty of excitement for me!