Kyle understands puns

Merry Christmas! Today Kyle finally understood puns. This was after he made a pun joke himself. In a Gallatin Montana BBQ joint after a harrowing late night drive on Christmas Day, the kids were admiring a sign which charged $0.10 for complaining and $0.20 for whining. Jeff reminding the kids (boys) that they have to lift the seat when they pee. Kyle says "yes, it's a standing rule". Jeff and I about spit out our beer. He gets it!
We exclaim our surprise that after 12 years he understands a pun. The best part was his explanation: yes, it's a correlation! Oh Kyle

Montana

For Hanukkah, we decided we would all go to Big Sky, Montana for some family skiing. Another perk of our home ski pass is discounts on other mountains to try them out. Big Sky did not disappoint. It was amazing - huge and wide open and so many runs. We had a great time skiing and dog sledding. 

We celebrated Christmas Day and then hit the road. The drive there was uneventful until we were about 2 hours out when it became whiteout conditions on windy, icy roads with no shoulder and signs to be aware for crossing wildlife and no lighting. I was driving but could not find a safe place to pull over to switch driving. We eventually got just outside of Yellowstone at a gas station where we could change up drivers. When we made it into town, it was late and we were all very hungry. We stopped at a great saloon that was very lively and warm and very welcoming. 

First day skiing was awesome with loads of powder. Nevermind it was 20 below zero. Lots of hot chocolate helped though it was absolutely frigid. But great skiing. Nevermind the locals said it wasn't great skiing because they hadn't had huge dumps of snow yet. Good enough for us. 

We also went dog sledding while in Montana. Those dogs are work horses! The kids all got to drive the sleds for a little bit as well. 

The drive home also had its own white out conditions. Not an easy drive at all.

December holidays

We had a fun December around Utah for the holidays. The lights up in Temple Square were pretty amazing. 

Kyle and Emily had a holiday concert at school. 

Emily and I went to a cookie decorating class (not much in the way of teaching more just supplies and time together decorating fancy cookies). 

My dad's sauerkraut bread recipe adapted from an old Slovak cookbook from his church, I believe.

Dinner with Aaron while the kids were at a bar mitzvah

Happy Hanukkah!

Christmas quiche, made in the monkey cake tin. 

Sweet sweatshirts from Grandma

Sleeping Jeff

Working hard or hardly working... 

Opening ski season

Jeff and I had planned days off for opening day for ski season. Unfortunately, as soon as we landed for Thanksgiving, we received the notice that opening day was moved up a week because of the great snow conditions. So our opening day would have to wait for the originally scheduled opening day. And so we went. Though we got to the top of the mountain and Jeff realized he grabbed Emily's boots (both were red) so he had to turn around and go back home to get his. Eventually we were both there and got to ski together and enjoy early season skiing. And then we took the kids over the weekend. Great thing about living in a ski city, you can go whenever it suits you and for however long. Of course you can do that on vacation as well, but we prefer the ski for a few hours or longer if it's great and to be able to just come and go as we please.  

Aaron sleeping

More in the series of Aaron sleeping anywhere. In a car anytime between noon and 6pm and he's out. In our bed because he loves to sleep in our bed.