#choltschristmas2016

Merry Christmas 2016!

How lucky we felt to have had the Chapman family (Byron, Stephanie, Chloe, Cayden and Colton) come in from California to spend a week with us for the Christmas Holidays! We had such a fabulous time, and 'burnt' the candle from both ends! It took us a week to recover from our "vacation!" I think the thing that made it really wonderful was that the Chapman's are just plain fun, kind, adventurous people! The kids all got along so well and just laughed and laughed. 

(It's also pretty great when the dads are off work and the kids out of school, and able to be a part of all the action.) 

This is my favorite picture of the group. I will tell about it more later. :)

Swiss Alps, tobogganing

When the Chapmans arrived, we went over to Windsor and walked around the castle 

and Eton College and then went and had burgers at the "Flaming Cow."

This pic represents a better memory than actual photo..

It started to rain and it came down HARD! BUT, 
it only lasted for the space of the time the picture was being taken! haha! It was ironically funny.

Recovering from the cold evening. 

3rd Annual Christmas Eve Football Match!

 Our family and the Chapman's (plus we got the Frost kids (Tyler, Caitee, Trevor and Anne) 

and Emily Carroll) out to play the annual football match.

Team Elves

Team Reindeer

Team Captains 

Team Holt

Team liabilities :) 

Christmas Eve Dinner! It was scrumptious! 

The McCluckies and Will Vosler were able to come over for the evening's activities! Oh we just love them!!

Starting the talent show and ringing the Christmas Bells.

Ty on the piano

Colton singing

 We gave Baby Sienna a cash register and she loved it! 

 Joshy on the violin!

 Chloe and Cayden tore it up on the dance floor!

 The kids performed another AMAZING number together with rockin dance moves!

I love their friendship together!

 Will gave me a beautiful scarf for Christmas. 
It was so fun having him again this year. 

NATIVITY!!!!!!!

Steph and I worked hard on these Christmas jammies and we thought they turned out pretty magical!

Cholt stands for CHapman/hOLT = Cholt!

Christmas Morning! 

 All the kids waking up and waiting "patiently", while singing Christmas carols, in their rooms. 

They were trying to wake the parents up to go downstairs to open Christmas presents.

 Josh and Ty finally got their bikes from Santa.

 Anne got her wish...a new camera, and Ike his...

a soccer-Garreth Bale jersey and a basketball-Chris Paul jersey. 

 Sleepy but happy parents!

 Hersey's syrup never looked so good!! Yay Colton!

 Cayden and Chloe happy with their treasures. :)

 Anne went all out this year making beautiful homemade gifts for each member of the family. They were all so thoughtful and our favorite gifts. She is the ultimate gift-giver. 

 This is the game Joshy really wanted for us to be able to play together. 

 Spence and Byron helping to set up for Christmas breakfast!

Getting ready for Sunday church meetings

A candid shot...

Because all kids look like this before they leave for church... haha! 

Beautiful girls who became sisterly-close this trip! 

Why do our oldest have to grow up so fast?! 

Off to Strasbourg, France! 

 Getting ready to board the underground - totally incognito group...

 We literally caused a blockage in the section of the tube we were in. 

We had so much luggage, but we were excited for our trip to France!

 Eurostar Trains

Our family has never taken the Eurostar from St. Pancreas, London to France, but we did this time! 

We drug our bags through the tubes and rode the many stops to get onto the Eurostar from London to France. 

It is a very slick way to travel and so fun to be able to rest and chat all the way. 

The journey got a little long...

Arriving in Strasbourg! We pulled our luggage about a mile to through the city looking for our hotel.
Spencer prefers to "keep it real" by walking...taxies are for wimps...haha

City Centre Square in Strasbourg

We came to Strasbourg specifically to see the Christmas Markets. Unfortunately, when we arrived, they had closed them all down! We were panicking! They closed them one week early because of the terror attack in Berlin the week prior and the city didn't feel they had the security to keep it open. Howeverrrrrr...the lady at the train station told us about a neighboring city, Colman, who still had their Christmas Markets open. Whew!!

We decided to go check it out. 

Christmas Markets in Colman!

The whole village was a Christmas Wonderland

These are actual houses and stores--NOT decorated! SOOOO charming xx

We were blown away! This was the most picturesque village I've ever seen. It was so perfect and I'm SO glad we had the opportunity to go. What a fabulous day. I think it was probably better than Strasbourg! 

The entire village was transformed into a Christmas wonderland with all the shop windows and store fronts decked out with decorations and Christmas charm. It was so much fun just looking and shopping. We all picked names for Secret Santa gifts and bought things for each other to exchange that night. 

The Christmas Market in Colman were the best I think we've seen. It was truly magical. 

BIKE TOUR of Strasbourg!

Part of the bike tour landed us by the Barrage Vauban - 

a beautiful outlook point of the city in the ancient city of Petite France.

The half-timbered houses were so adorable throughout the medieval streets in the city. 

This corner was particularly fabulous.

Biking through the streets!

This was part of the Roman wall built hundreds of years ago.

In 1871, when Strasbourg became the capital of Reichsland of Alsace-Lorraine, 

Neustadt was built to join the old city with the new city as it was growing. 

At the top of the street Rue Munch in front of the serene chapel called

Paroisse Protestante Saint-Guillaume.

Looking over the River L'ill running through the city's centre. 

Rohan Palace

Spiderman Ty to the rescue!

Loved watching the kids walk through the streets.

Peaking at Cathedral Notre Dame de Strasbourg

Cathedral Notre Dame de Strasbourg

This cathedral is such a striking, Gothic style building. At 142 metres (466 feet), it was the worlds tallest building from 1647 to 1874. The Cathedral became a point of great distress to the people as it represented inequality. They were going to tear the spire down in protest, but decided against destroying the building, and instead designed a massive red cap to go over the spire to show the equality between the people and the church leaders. This was part of the French revolution. 

On our way back from our days adventure.

The kids were exhausted by the end of our fun day.

Now...Off to SWITZERLAND!

We piled into a big van for the day and drove to Switzerland to go tobogganing! 

We took the Chapman's to the fun place we discovered last year..

GRINDERWALD! 

Few things compare to the thrill and beauty of tobogganing the Swiss Alps! 

WHAAAAAHOOOOOO!

Spencer captured some fun shots as we sped down the mountain!

Ty

Ike

Anne

Josh

Steph and Byron bringing their sleds in for the next run! 

We were able to exchange gifts from the Christmas Market this night and had the most fun seeing what everyone found for each other! Everyone was so thoughtful in their gifts!

The kids were so funny and happy with everything they received. 

Off we go back home!

Today was Anne's 13th birthday and we "took" her to Paris! 

Why does she have to grow up so fast?!!!

Anne is simply magical. She surprises us daily with her creativity, kindness, determination and talents. We are so blessed to have her in our family. Anne we love you and hope you always know that. xxxx

She got a delicious French tart and chocolate pastry as her birthday treat! 

Another wonderful thing about Anne is that she is always grateful for the small things. 

ARRIVING BACK IN LONDON

We landed at Kings Cross in London and had to go check out Harry Potter's Platform 9 3/4's!

Peter Pan Panto in Greenwich! 

We got tickets to Peter Pan because we felt the Chapman's needed to see a proper panto.

In front of the Greenwich Theatre

One of the funniest things was watching the kids laugh and laugh through the production. 

After the Panto, we happen to run into "Mr. Smeed", while eating the 
best sausages and mash at Heap's and got to take pictures with him! 

Chloe and Cayden practicing their proper cocoa tea-cup holding etiquette.

Standing in front of the Royal observatory and "watching the ball drop".

Standing on the Prime Meridian 

Just down from the little pub I ate at with my mom and dad last time I was there - Plume of Feathers

These beautiful girls making homemade pretzels for New Years Eve. They were DELICIOUS! 

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2017!!!