Christmas Lights at Temple Square

Our family and Brian and Nicole's family met up with Mike and Janna's family at Temple Square.  I hadn't been to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square since Chelsey was two months old -- it was definitely time! I hope our kids can remember the beautiful spirit we could feel there that night. This was the end of our fun little family trip. What a great way to start off the Christmas season!

Our family in front of the fountain at the the new outdoor mall near Temple Square

 The kids with the beautiful lights and temple

A truly beautiful temple

Standing outside the Tabernacle enjoying the beautiful music

Gingerbread Houses and Nativities

There was an awesome gingerbread display at a building pretty close to Brian and Nicole's house.  We saw some amazing and really fun gingerbread houses!  After seeing the gingerbread, we drove to nearby Midway, Utah, and saw the nativity displays at the Homestead Resort and Spa. There were an amazing variety which I was thoroughly enjoying until Ryan knocked a velvet divider over, missing a beautiful glass nativity set by millimeters, so after that I firmly held on to his hand and didn't take any more pictures.  It was awesome, though! Thanks, Nicole, for a fun day!!

Ryan and Madison

Emily

Chelsey

Emily by the amazing Tangled display

The kids by the first place winner

 At the Homestead in Midway, Utah, is this really cool lava mound we climbed.

You could look down through this grate and see people taking scuba diving lessons in the warm water.

(This place was featured on The Bachelor during Ben's season. ABC paid a royalty to the Homestead to use this site for filming, and these are the improvements which were made with the money.)

The steep staircase

My favorite nativity - I want someone with woodworking abilities to pretty-please make this for me for my front porch.

"Mom, take our picture by this random frog!"

Zoo Lights at Hogle Zoo

We had a great little family trip in November to Utah.  Jason had tickets to see The Killers with Lindsay and Brian, and Nicole kindly planned some great activities for us to see to start off our Christmas season!

While Jason went to the concert, we headed to Hogle Zoo, where on November 30th there was a special member-only viewing of the Zoo Lights, a beautiful display of Christmas lights and music, complete with visits with Santa and the reindeer and carousel rides.  It was a wet, wet night, but we had a great time anyway!  Thanks, Nicole, for taking us!

Emily, just a little wet

Seriously, the lights were AMAZING!

 After waiting in the rainy line to meet Santa for twenty minutes without moving,

we decided a picture with his lights would be good enough!

 Cute Chelsey with Santa

Killers Concert

Jason, Lindsay, and Brian enjoyed seeing The Killers! (I enjoyed not having to go and just hanging out with Nicole and all of our kids!)

Molly Eating a Graham Cracker - "Where'd It Go?!?"