Washington is full of burglars

Instead of going to Washington for Christmas this year, we decided to go at the beginning of December so that we could be there at the same time as Kristen and Rick. It was such a fun little vacation! Luckily Stori fell in love with her cousins and played hide and seek the whole time. (Dan isn't sure that she understands that the twins, Nick and Joseph, are actually 2 different kids). The twins were so cute with her and always asked her to play with them. They even let her play with all their cars and trains! She's a sucker for toy cars!

We were definitely excited to go to Costco! This was Sylvie's first trip, so of course I had to document it! :) Stori enjoyed riding in SJ's carseat, so we let her lay there while we shopped. Then she decided to hold Sylvie. They both loved it.

We had lunch at Bruchi's... Sylvie fell asleep in Marisa's arms right after this photo! She's a perfect aunt!

We also went and visited Santa and his reindeer. Unfortunately, Santa charges $7 just to see him and $20 if you want to take a picture. So we just waved and that was that. 

We also enjoyed many delicious meals and several rounds of Mafia. It's always great to be with family.

We were suppose to head home early Monday morning but we decided to stay one more day. Why oh why did we stay?  Don't get me wrong, Monday night was one of our favorite nights there. We went to Vern and Nicoles for dinner and FHE. We had popcorn and watched "A Christmas Carol." Then we went for a drive to the Temple and to look at Christmas lights. Super fun right? Well we got home late and started the 'loading the car' process. I thought about that idea and asked Dan to wait until morning.

Then Tuesday morning happened.

We got up bright and early to make the 9 hour drive back to Rexburg. Dan walked out to start loading the car and noticed that the back hatch was open and the dome light was on. He tried to unlock the door with our remote but it wasn't working so he had to unlock it with the key. 

THEN the car wouldn't start. Battery was dead. So he went to Walmart with his Dad to buy jumper cables. They got it started and continued to load the car when he noticed his camera bag was missing. We looked for about an hour and even called his sister to see if we left it there. Then we noticed our iPod and his Moms phone were also missing. 

We had been robbed.

We called the police and found out that we were the 12th car theft of the morning. Awesome. 

After we made our statement and gave them the pen the robber had dropped, we managed to get in the car and start our journey. It was a very depressing ride. We felt violated and just plain sad! $4,000 worth of camera equipment was now gone. We only have liability on our car, so our car insurance wouldn't cover it. We don't have renters insurance, so that won't cover it either. Our only hope lies with his parents home owner insurance.

 I sure hope those filthy animals felt good about having to crawl over 2 car seats to take our stuff. 

Any pictures we had taken on our trip are now lost and gone forever. 

all of us were sad^^^

 We have to wait for the police report to submit the claim to the insurance company. Let's hope it get's covered!! Dan had a positive outlook on it though. He's very glad they didn't take the guns---if they took them and committed a crime, they would trace the guns back to Dan. We are also very glad that they were 'good at thieving.' If they would have broken the glass to get in we would have had to pay for that out of pocket and drive home in the cold. So that's good I guess! :)

These last 2 pictures were in Idaho. We took Stori to see Santa and I got this picture before the elf said I wasn't allowed to take pictures. So that's lucky! :)

And I just love this picture of Stori. She has a rough life. 

Kickin back eating her 'white' ice cream cone after an afternoon of playing on the toys at Arctic Circle! :)

 

Hopefully the next time I post, we will have good news to report: both about Sylvie and the camera.