Christmas Eve 2011

12/24/11 - Eric and I have a yearly tradition where we head downtown to Temple Square to see the lights. It's a very local Christmasy thing to do and I enjoy seeing so many lights.
This year, Richard joined us and I think we were the only ones having any real fun while there. There were several families there wandering around, but it was a little bit like they were trying to force a spiritual experience on themselves and their families.
Midway through the picture taking, I realized we were the only ones laughing and enjoying each other's company. Kind of sad, really. Just let the time and spiritual experiences come to you...don't force it....it's a bit disingenuous that way. (just my thought on that).
I always look for the angle or shot I haven't tried before. This being the fourth year, it's hard to find a new shot, but here are the favorite shots I had:

Okay, so it's hard for me to narrow down my list of favorites...and there are many others I wanted to add, but I narrowed it to these. LOL!
It was a very nice night wandering through the lights.
Later, we picked up a family friend and spent the evening at my mom's house munching on goodies, drinking mate and listening to La Misa Criolla (a true family past time).

Dance Recital

12/23/11 - Another drive up North for a dance recital. Elise and Andrew both enjoy dancing and their dance company had their holiday recital at the high school.
I become so much like a melting parent when one of them gets on stage to dance. It's so much fun to see their little facial expressions and to see how much fun they are having.

 

Musical Night

12/15/11 - We went up north to see my nephew Collin play in his school band's holiday musical. It was surprisingly fun. I'm not sure that I expected it to be as good as it was....maybe because I was so proud of him, I suppose.

Before the concert began, his facial expression was very reminiscent of when he was a baby. It made me smile...and a twinge of pain passed through as I realized time is passing by all too quickly!

Gingerbread (Graham Cracker) House

Thanks to pinterest, I found some ideas on how to make a gingerbread house using graham crackers, because who has time or energy to do real gingerbread? (not me)

At work we all brought various candies and decorating ideas and got together and made graham cracker houses.

My coworkers are very much like a family. We get along and fight and get on each other's nerves like siblings.

(as a side note: I donated this graham house to an auction to raise money for the Utah Food Bank. It raised $50. wahoo!)

Lobby Clean Up from Festival of Trees

After helping to set up the lobby at the Festival of Trees, we thought it might be fun and interesting to help take it all down. We headed to the South Towne Expo center one more time, at 9:30 p.m. and waited until we could begin the work.

I'd thought setting up the lobby was hard work, and it was; but this was more labor intensive.

We had to wrap the trees in saran wrap, and it needed to be tight, so we had to do it once and then again really tight. We dragged the trees to the pallets and secured them for use next year.

We were there until 2:00 a.m. and I was exhausted when it was said and done.

My favorite part of this was seeing all the trees that had been on display and purchased, being wrapped and prepared to be delivered to the purchasers of the trees.

Festival of Trees 2011

I love the Festival of Trees. I love going to see the different tree decorations. I'm definitely not one who goes to find ideas, though. I just like seeing the trees!

I do not, however, like people...crowds of people drive me crazy! So when we go, we go on Saturday at 10:00 (right at opening) when there are the fewest amount of people possible.

These trees confused me a bit:
I didn't understand the tire tree, but if you work in a tire shop, I guess it would be perfect, right. It's for a very targeted audience.
I like pink...and I get the theme of Neon Trees, it's just not my cup of tea, I guess.

My favorite trees:
I fell in love with this Mad Hatter tree. I thought the Mad Hatter doll was perfect on the tree. There was a tea set as part of this tree and everything came together so well.
I loved the tree topper for this Up House tree. It was too perfect!
At first I wasn't such a fan of the silver and gold tree. It was one that literally stopped me in my tracks and I found that I was mesmerized by it...I still can't say what it is that I like about it, but I do like it:
This 50s tree was to stinkin' cute!! The cut out figure made the tree. Without it, I wouldn't have liked it as much:
There were amazing gingerbread houses and mini trees and wreaths. I had a moment with a lady who was appalled by my speaking to her. I had no choice but to say something to her about her lack of holiday spirit. She still wasn't happy, but it made me laugh.

Mom's Last Day

A bitter sweet day, no doubt. My mom's last day at work is today. After 26 years, she's hanging up the stethoscope, turning in the scrubs and walking away from the place she has called her second home. The career where she has given her time, energy and emotions.

Her department threw a little party for her and I was there to document the farewells. Most impressive, was that one of the big directors came to express his gratitude for her 26 years.

My mom's coworkers in the dialysis unit:

Festival of Trees Decorating

One way I stay busy (as if I need to add another way to my life) is from Meetup.com. I belong to a couple of groups, one of which is a volunteer group. One of the activities I joined was decorating this year's Festival of Trees Lobby. It was a lot of fun and a lot of work. I will definitely do it again next year.

We arrived in the morning to a very cold building where trucks were pulling into the main building from the opposite side and setting up their trees. Tables and walls went up in a matter of minutes. There were volunteers from all sorts of groups. It was pretty impressive to see.

Heather, the coordinator for PCMC, helped direct us to the pallets holding the saran wrapped Christmas trees. We pulled them off the pallets and 'fluffed' them up. After some fluffing, we placed and arranged them onto the large platforms.

We were all pretty tired when it was all completed, but it was really fun. I was so happy to have my mom with me.

Here are some of the pictures I took between working on trees:

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays because there's such a sober mellowness to it. Christmas is so crazy! Thanksgiving is just mellow and relaxing (unless you are the one making all the food, I guess).

This year, we started out the day at my mom's house for a very small quiet meal: Just me, Eric, Richard and my mom. The food, of course, was amazing. This year my mom brined the turkey and then cooked it with the breast side down to absorb the liquid for moisture. After flipping it over (which was no small task), she broiled it quickly to make the skin crispy. It was amazing!! Truly!
I had to take this picture of my mom and brother asleep on the couch:
After her dinner, we went to Eric's dad's house for another Thanksgiving. Laura's food is always amazing! My favorite is her Bourbon puppies...yum! I need that recipe to post it because it's delicious.
As we were driving to their house, I took this picture of an amazing (and perfect) sunset: This year, I made Eric's family sit down for a picture. I don't think people do this often enough and there are huge gaps in people's lives because no one will allow pictures to be taken of them. I literally made them (and begged them) for a picture:
The rest of the pictures are posted on Flickr.