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. 

Thanksgiving

I only have just a few pictures from Thanksgiving with our families, but needless to say it was a lot of fun with loads of cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, great grandparents and food. 

Aaron in November

Just some pictures of Aaron in November. Such a handsome little love. 

Hike

Snow and Utah ... This was from a hike in early November where it went from clear and sunny to a path with loads of snow. 

Solitude

Today marked 17 years since my dad passed away. I took the morning off to go for a hike in the mountains, on a trail, aptly, to Lake Solitude. What was supposed to be a 3 mile hike turned into 6 because the trail was not well marked. Or it could have been because of all the snow... 

Joy

Jeff's babysitter from when he was young has always been in touch with his family as she was part of his family. She was coming to Utah with her sister for an event and knew we lived there so she decided to stop in. It had been many years (decades) since Jeff last saw her and of course the kids had never met her either. We had a great time catching up on life with her and getting to know one another. It was really special to meet her and hear more fun stories of Jeff growing up. 

Globetrotters

Today was Aaron's last basketball game for the fall season. He had a great coach that really worked the fundamentals with the kids. He also coordinated a trip to the Harlem Globetrotters. As a kid growing up playing basketball, I dreamed of being a globetrotter one day. While that didn't happen, I still enjoy watching them so it was a treat to take Aaron to see the globetrotters. As part of the experience, his coach had the kids down on the court for pregame warmups. Pretty amazing!

Halloween

Halloween in Utah isn't quite the same as it was in North Carolina, but it is still fun. Emily & Kyle had a school Halloween concert, we carved pumpkins, and lit one on fire after a YouTube video Jeff and Aaron found and wanted to replicate. It was pretty cool.

Halloween

For probably the 3rd or 4th year in a row, Aaron is Yoda for Halloween. I mean, when you are the cutest Yoda out there, why not repeat it? Kyle was Kyle Ren and Emily made her witch costume. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of them because they were off with their friends to trick or treat. We did run into them briefly when we were taking Aaron trick or treating. 

Campfire

Jeff and the kids really wanted to go camping. I don't recall why they ended up not camping, but they still had the fun with the campfire part of the camping and made everyone a good campfire dinner. 

Arthur visit

Jeff's friend from North Carolina came out to visit this month. We had a great time catching up with him and Jeff had some great guy time. We also learned a new fact about Utah... when you are in a restaurant that serves beer (note not a bar), you may NOT stand up with said beer. You must be sitting down to drink that beer. Odd. But Utah... 

Cross Country champs

Kyle and Emily ran in the district championships and made their mark. Both have had excellent seasons and their team has been consistently awesome. Emily finished 23rd for JV girls in the district. Kyle finished 10th in the district for varsity boys. Both of their teams were the 1st place teams. Way to go!