The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Here's a quick look at some of the fun things we did during the Christmas season.

We went to the Alpine Living Nativity again this year to get a little taste of what Bethlehem may have been like the night Christ was born...

And then my phone died right as we were about to see the Baby Jesus.  Sigh...  It was a fun night!  Glad we could go!

Mike and I were able to get dressed up and have a fun evening at The Grand America for his work Christmas party...

Hot chocolate instead of ice cream with this cute son of mine...

We saw the newest Star Wars movie, and ran into some Jedi at the movie theatre...

We also ran into R2-D2...

Mike and I went to Ruth's Chris for our 17th anniversary.  It's always a favorite of ours...

And I like to title these last couple pictures "Playing iPad by Christmas Tree Glow"...

Porter Rockwell would be proud, wouldn't he?  Haha!

We had a wonderful Christmas season!  --Lindsay

All I Want for Christmas...

These cute little cousins rocked their Christmas dance recital!  They danced to "All I Want For Christmas is You" and they looked cute as can be doing it...

We were kind of disappointed in a decision their dance studio made this session.  Vivvie and Ella ended up being the only girls in their class after a few dropped out.  There was another class of 3- and 4-year-olds that only had three girls in it held at the same time, so they decided to just combine the classes.  How can you combine 3- and 4-year-olds with 7- and 8-year-olds???  They are at such different levels.  Their teacher tried to give our girls harder things to do than the little girls, but we still kind of felt like it was a wasted couple of months for Viv and Ella.  Anyway, here they are on stage with the 3- and 4-year-olds doing their dance number, which was really cute...

And here's a picture of them all together with their teacher after the recital...

We moved Vivvie and Ella to another class for the next session of lessons, where they fit in a little better.  Haha!  --Lindsay

Connor's First Cross Country Season

Connor joined the Cross Country Team at school when he began as a Freshman.  His inaugural season was a good one.  He grew so much as a runner, and as a person as he learned that he could do extremely hard things.  Here are some of the pictures I took throughout his first season.

Highland Invitational (2.9 mile course with some killer hills).  This was Connor's first XC meet ever...

He finished with a time of 21 minutes, 43 seconds.  Here he is with his friend Caden after the race...

The Freshman boys team and their coach, Jamie Alvizo...

Westlake Invitational (a 2 mile course with hay bale hurdles).  Connor's team always says a quick prayer before beginning their race.  I think it's awesome that they do this.  The boys choose to do it themselves, and I absolutely love that they do it...

BYU Autumn Classic (a 3 mile course)...

Connor did fantastic in this race!  Ran it in 19 minutes, 17 seconds...smashing his old PR by over two minutes.  And Grandpa Rick was in town to watch him do it...

Red Devil Invitational (a 3 mile course at Springville High School)...

Region 8 Championships (a 3 mile course at Scera Park)...

Connor did amazing in this race too.  He got another PR of 19:03...

The Freshman team at the end of the regular season.  They are such a great group of boys!  They push each other to do better every single week...

Connor also had the opportunity to go on a couple away meets for XC as well.  He went to the Bob Firman Nike 5k Invitational in Boise in September, and went to the Footlocker XC Championships in SoCal in December.  I don't have any pictures of the Bob Firman Invitational, but I did get a few pictures from a mom that went to California for Footlocker.  Here's Connor getting ready to leave for Footlocker...

With some of his team mates and his principal who also went down to California for the race...

This is a notoriously hard course with lots of hills.  Connor still did really great with a time of 19 minutes, and 58 seconds...

After the race, the entire team went to the beach for the afternoon and evening.  Connor sent us a selfie to make us jealous as we were freezing at home...

Connor ended up lettering in Cross Country as well!  He acted like it was no big deal, but it is!  Not everyone letters in Cross Country...especially their Freshman year...so we were very proud of him for that...

Connor had a great inaugural season of XC!  Since I'm really behind on blogging, we're already in the throws of his Sophomore season and he has grown leaps and bounds from his Freshman season!  Here's to many more miles ahead!  --Lindsay