Holiday recap

The last six weeks have been filled to the brim with fun activities and many days of wonderful family time.  Our "holidays" began on November 20 when Claire, Lizzie and Will came to town.

• we attended a BYU basketball game
• and the next day a BYU football game
• went to the BYU dinosaur museum
• went to the BYU museum of art to see the Norman Rockwell exhibit (marvelous!)
• Brick Oven lunch
• visited Grandpa R's work
• early Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma Pat's with an appearance by the lederhosen boy (Will wore the lederhosen that Claire wore when she was his size...so cute!!)
• swimming at the Orem Rec Center enjoying the "blob"
• shopping at the Outlets at Traverse Mountain (someone didn't love this trip as much as the others)
• enjoying a trip to Krispy Kreme with cousin Kate

R, Andy and Chelsea came to town (A&C arrived a day early and really surprised us!)

• Thanksgiving dinner at home, making rolls with Lizzie, invited my friend Cydnee to attend
• hooking up with the AZ crew who spent Thanksgiving with Jake's family
• trip to Logan for the BYU-USU game
• helping Mom get her Christmas decorations up
• Mom treating us all to Pizza at Firehouse with the extended family
• Lee and Carol hosting our families at their homes (thanks sissies, you're the BEST!)
• group breakfast at Carol's home, cousin time
• A&C head home after the freezing game

Back home for a day or so

• Cousin time, Christmas PJs given
• everyone heads home

Rick and I enjoyed

• an overnighter at the Marriott hotel in SLC and visiting temple square that was all decked out for Christmas

• a quick trip to AZ for Ellie's baptism, I had the opportunity to speak about the importance of baptism, Rick played the piano, and most important...Jake was able to baptize Ellie!
• watching Lauren perform with her school group at the mall
• making purchases at Last Chance
• watching Ellie play soccer and Lauren play volleyball
• time with the family including those who came from NM 
• the annual polar bear plunge

Activities we enjoyed during the month

• attending the temple in Ogden and completing our goal of visiting all 15 Utah temples in 2015

• attending the Christmas Carol at Hale with G. Pat
• attending the Christmas play at Pioneer theater
• BYU BB games
• MTC Christmas party with the people I serve with there
• attending the Lower Lights concert with Rick's family with dinner at Spaghetti factory with D&D
• an activity I didn't enjoy but needed to do was my 5 year colonoscopy...yuck.
• attending a lovely Christmas dinner with the Cannon/Hinckley group at the Joseph Smith building in SLC with featured guest speaker Elder Quinten L. Cook
• Cleofon dinner at the Provo Marriott
• hosting my UVU mentee girls at our home, making some crepes with hot fudge, caramel popcorn and a cheese ball

Dave, Courtney, Charlie and Margaret come to town, I picked them up from the airport on a very snowy day

• we enjoyed some great fun days with the children making gingerbread houses, making and decorating sugar cookies, reading Christmas books and just hanging out
• Dave and Courtney attended the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert
• Rick and Dave headed to Las Vegas to the BYU bowl game against the U of U.  They meet up with R, Jake, and Andy and had a guy fest.  The outcome of the game wasn't the greatest, but they had a great time being together.

• Charlie and Courtney went to a BYU basketball game
• My friend Sue B. and I attended the Mormon Tabernacle choir Christmas concert in SLC on another evening.  It was amazing!
• went to Thanksgiving Point Dinosaur museum with G. Pat, ate lunch there
• saw two reindeer Sven and Comet and Charlie was especially delighted
• more shopping at the outlets
• Dave and Courtney headed to her parents home and Rick and I headed to Logan

While in Logan

• my brother Gary and his wife Nancy hosted a family Christmas party which was a lot of fun and of course we enjoyed wonderful food
• my sister Carol invited us over with mom for Christmas eve dinner which was delicious
• visited my niece Stacey and her family who were in town and another niece Jamie and her family - shared our Christmas cookies
• spent Christmas with my mom.  She was so happy to have us there and she really enjoyed being in her own home.  It was such a sweet experience to have her all to ourselves and to give her the time and attention that she deserves.  We had a great time.
• woke up Christmas morning to stockings from Santa for us all and gifts under the tree.  My stocking contained a great surprise!  Tickets to see Adele in LA in August!
• enjoyed spending the morning with mom, making breakfast and working on a puzzle

Headed back towards home

• enjoyed a Christmas dinner later that evening with Pat and Rick's extended family.  Lovely food, lovely evening.
• Jordan and Jake arrived with their family
• Dave and Courtney and family returned
• attended church, got ready to host our friends for dinner
• hosted 35 for dinner on Sunday night and enjoyed visiting with our dear friends the P. family

• went sledding
• went bowling at BYU (oh, and I got 5 strikes BTW and got the highest score!)
• ate dinner at Cubby's
• watched movies, played games, played with the Wii
• everyone left Wednesday morning the 30th, our Holiday celebration came to an end
• Rick and I went to see several movies over a couple of days
• enjoyed dinner with Rick on NYE at Texas Roadhouse and a movie and then a quiet New Year's eve at home.  I finished reading the Book of Mormon while Rick watched football. We went to bed before midnight!
• time to clean up and put the decorations away

Another Christmas season has come and gone.  We drove six times to SLC, two times to Logan, a trip to Ogden, a flight to AZ, and a a trip to Las Vegas.  We were on the road a lot and feel blessed that we were able to travel on some bad weather days safely.  We bought, prepared and ate some wonderful holiday meals.  Not everything went without a hitch since some family members were sick with colds, some little children didn't sleep well (and consequently neither did their parents) at night and Jake had to start his next round of chemo while at our house.  We provided the 12 days of Christmas for a family in our ward and enjoyed doing that for them very much.  We did some anonymous giving and tried to help out here and there. My car got a flat tire that I ruined by driving on it (unaware) and had to buy a new tire.  Our Christmas holiday was filled with life's - ups and downs and everything in-between. And joy...a lot of joy and gratitude that Jake is still with his family and that we could just be together.  We feel so richly blessed.

It was a wonderful year to celebrate the birth of our Savior through special events and being with those we love.  I love our children and their spouses and our eight darling grand children so very much. Rick and I are truly blessed, and we know it.