So Much Christmas Fun!

You are going to be shocked by this, but December so far has been really busy!  We're talking, stuff happening almost every night kind of busy!  I'm sure you're not that busy, right?  Hardly anything happening in your lives during this magical holiday season, amiright?

Okay, okay.  Everyone is busy.  I get it.  We're not that special.  But I still have to document as much as I can!  Because even though I do hate being busy, most of the stuff we've been doing has been pretty darn fun, so I definitely want to remember it all...

This is from the ward Christmas party.  Poor Craig had a rough go of it-- they first picked a date and began announcing it, only to discover that the YSA ward was having their Christmas party that same night!  So he picked a new date and the activity committee posted flyers and... the Spanish Branch had claimed that date!  The third date finally worked, though.  And the activity committee leader's daughter managed to not give birth to her twins until after the party, so it all worked out! 😅 (Use the stake calendar, people!!!)

Kendra is festive for school!

Unfortunately, we had some 24-hour stomach bug go through a few of us-- it started with Camille, and then hit Ryder and Colton a few days later.  Lots of kids up in the night informing me that they'd just thrown up, which is always fun.  Fortunately, most of it was in fairly easy-to-clean places.  Props for that, kids.  Everyone else has stayed healthy so far, knock on wood...

A few weeks ago the weather turned warm again so we dragged Adam to the park with us!  He was much nicer about actually playing with the kids-- I always use that time to read!

Kendra's school put on A Christmas Carol and she got to play Mrs. Cratchit, so that was very fun to see and she did a great job!  I was very impressed with all these students saying these complicated lines through their masks!

Meeting up with her admiring fans after!  (Craig thought to buy her flowers-- what a good dad!)

This is from the ward Christmas party-- I just love this picture!

My choir concerts went off without a hitch and I was very relieved to have them done with!  I did feel bad that Craig and his parents and Kendra couldn't see me at all from where they were sitting-- that was a pretty lame mistake to have made on my part...  It was very nice to be back singing on stage again.  And-- I think thanks to all the weddings I've worked?-- the standing around for hours didn't even bother me!  So that was a nice surprise!

We've started playing "Among Us" live-- where we draw cards to see who the imposter is and that person has to double-tap people to assassinate them.  We turn off most of the lights and its vaguely creepy and VERY fun.  And it's even MORE fun if you wear a whacky hat like in the game!

We got this VERY sweet note from Camille's new teacher.  Her old one quit the week before (which is so completely weird, both because it was two weeks before Christmas break AND because it was only her first year teaching!  There is a big old story there, and I doubt I'll ever know it, and that just kills me....) and she has been loving her new teacher, even though she was sad the other one left.  Anyway, I'm glad her new teacher has picked up on the love Camille showers on everyone around her!

Craig's hairstyle occasionally gets away from him and I LOVE it-- when did big hair become so fun?

Kendra ALSO had her band concert!  The first one in two years!!!  

Our wonderful neighbors, the Palmers, have made it a tradition to take Colton and Camille with them to get hot chocolate at the downtown mall and then have a movie night, so they did that on Monday.  And the rest of us took advantage of C&C being gone to go see the new Spider-Man movie, which I LOVED.  So everyone had a wonderful evening!

And then YESTERDAY, we went to Busch Gardens to see their Christmas Town!  We had a lot of fun, in spite of the cold, and were very grateful that the predicted rain mostly held off!  It was especially fun going to BG because it's quite a bit nicer than Kings Dominion, so we got to enjoy that feeling of being upgraded, along with all the Christmas sights!  We didn't do too many rides-- Craig took the big kids on a roller coaster right away and it left them so freezing, we didn't really make that our priority.  Mostly we tried to hit all the shows that looked interesting, and that turned out to be a great strategy!

Everyone loved this polar bear bench

Kiddie roller coaster in Sesame Street place!

"Celtic Fyre" featured some wonderful Irish dancing-- I was in heaven!

Seeing the famous Anheuser-Busch clydesdales!  They're SO BIG.

This ride wasn't running, but the lights all over it were stunning!

I said it would be too hard to get a decent picture with this tree, so Craig had to prove me wrong

Can you tell that these guys are up WAAAAAAAAY past their bedtime?

And the highlight of the day, for me, was seeing Elvis Stojko perform!  He didn't do any quadruple axels, but I don't think anyone can spin as fast as that man-- it was such a treat to watch him skate live!

We left the park around 10pm, which meant we didn't get home until after midnight, so it was a LONG day.  But I was still good and got up for FiA.  And then I REALLY enjoyed taking a hot shower and going back to sleep for a couple more hours.

Yay for December!