It always surprises me that Christmas actually comes…I guess just because we talk about it so far in advance! As always, our family had a really nice Christmas. Actually every year we have 2 Christmas Days…one with Alan’s parents the Saturday before and then of course Christmas Day at our house.
This year I particularly enjoyed having our house decorated. It seemed especially cozy…I think we had the fire burning morning and night (pretty easy when all you have to do is flip the switch!)
New tradition in our family…get up early on a beautiful summer morning in August, head down to the nearby park and watch 15 hot air balloons inflate and take off! Oh, and then head a little further down the street for some Hagerman’s Bakery french toast. Fun and yummy.
All the kids came up from Provo and Alan’s parents came over for Father’s Day Sunday dinner. It is still wonderful after 5 years of missionaries, to have the whole family together for special occasions.
After many many rehearsals, our stake put on three performances of Broadway Our Way; a collection of various numbers from several well known Broadway musicals (see playbill). The people in charge did an excellent job and definitely had a lot of vision! I’m still impressed with how well they pulled the whole thing off. They built a revolving stage and an additional stage out on the gym floor with surround seating.
In Fiddler on the Roof, Alan, Clark and I were townspeople (a papa, a mama, and a son). Clark was front and center linking arms with another guy as they took turns tossing each other into the air.
In The Music Man, Alan and I were in the opening scene when Harold Hill first arrives in River City on the train. (We both had speaking parts!) Then we were all townspeople and then Alan turned into a quartet member and I turned into a Pick-a-Little lady where I got to do a lot of fast singing and dancing (not easy for an old lady like me!)
Clark was also in the Freedom number from Shenandoah, where he got to dance barefoot and swing a cute girl around, eventually landing her on his hip!
It was very fun and we are glad we did it, but it was also very time consuming with 3 rehearsals a week. The best part was meeting and making new friends throughout the stake. Thanks to all the family and friends who came to see us!
Madeleine is no longer a teenager! She hit the big 20 this year! You know your kids are grown up when they ask for things like a voice recorder and the Chicago Manual of Style for their birthday and actually get super excited when they get them!
As we often do, we celebrated Madeleine’s and Alan’s birthdays together — this time on Madeleine’s actual birthday. But I did make Alan halusky (his favorite dinner) closer to his birthday — which by the way started out with four inches of snow on the ground!
And so I’m older. But I guess that’s good, because that means I am still here – right?! Aside from being sick in bed with bronchitis the whole week before my birthday, for the most part, I enjoy really good health. I feel lucky that at this point everything still seems to be “working” for me. My birthday weekend we decided to have “get-a-way” by staying here and sending the boys down to Provo to play with their sibs. I didn’t feel great, but we enjoyed watching movies, eating yummy food, reading and resting.
We also worked on finishing up some family history work and getting some names ready for temple work. It was nice to spend the weekend together on our own, but it also made me a bit sad to realize that we are getting closer and closer to living in this house all by ourselves. I was kind of glad to have the boys come home :). We celebrated my birthday on President’s Day and the Provo kids came up for another round of dinner and presents. It’s always fun to have everyone here for a few hours.
