December 2015 - The Christmas Season Begins and Star Wars

We started off the Christmas season right by going to see the lights at the Riverwoods. Their lights are so fun and always impressive. We love the little fire pits and stopping at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for some caramel apples. We totally lucked out because Santa was there in his little house! There was no line! I was in complete shock. It was perfect. And we could take pictures for free. We totally lucked out. It was a very fun way to start off the season.

Shortly after that we had another holiday event. We attended our Ward Christmas Party. It was very fun. We had great food and listened to some very talented singers and musicians in our ward.

And so began the Christmas events. We attended the annual Christmas Party with my work, Pinnacle Quality Insight. They reserved an entire theater at Jordan Commons to see Good Dinosaur. This time we took Charlie while Colson stayed with my parents in Draper. They gave us meal vouchers to get whatever food we would like from the concessions. Charlie was loving it, chowing down on his quesadilla and fries...and lots of ketchup to himself. I won a prize in the raffle! I won a Food Saver, but I have yet to actually use it. I just need to take the time to learn how to use it. For now, it is more of a space killer than a food saver. But I am determined to put it to use soon! This was the second movie Charlie has ever been to, but we were especially excited because he would actually understand what was going on this time and we knew he would enjoy it. He enjoyed it, however, it was such a dramatic and scary movie for him! The little dinosaur in the movie is scared of everything, so the whole movie was a roller coaster ride of emotions. Poor Charlie spent a good amount of the movie being freaked out. Even the Pixar short before the movie started was horrifying. It was the scariest one I have seen. It is the one with all of the Hindu gods that fight a three headed monster. I’m pretty sure he was traumatized. I will never forget the look of horror and shock on his face as he sat there frozen and wide-eyed. We thought for sure we would have to take him out at some point during the movie. There were a handful of times that he actually screamed out. Somehow he made it through the movie, and in the days that followed he mentioned wanting to go see the “big movie” again.

We had a couple of game nights with friends. We invited over the Carvers from our ward and another night we had Amy and Johnny over. We loved these times with friends.

We went to Kangaroo Zoo with some of our PG friends for a playdate. It was great! The kids loved it. After trying the big slide, Charlie kept it low key after that. He wasn't about to climb up those stairs again for a terror ride. It's a pretty steep slide! All of the kids that went down it were sprawled out laying on their backs with their arms and legs wide as if they were flying squirrels trying to slow down their fall. It was pretty dang funny.

We had a Christmas party with Jason’s high school friends at the Cook’s House. We had pizza, did a white elephant exchange, and played Schamoo. It was really fun.

We sold the family heirloom! That's right, we said our goodbyes to the old Explorer. May you have safe journeys with your new owners (quite the motley crew).

The day for Star Wars finally came! We went with my family and the Phillips cousins the Saturday after it opened. We were so stoked for the day to finally arrive, and we were even more thrilled that the movie surpassed our expectations. We thought it was great and just lots of fun. After the movie we went to Culvers for dinner. Such a fun night.

And here is a look at some more of our Christmas season preparations: