This week we divided our time between Provo and the cabin in Donnelly.  I love the road-trip time with my companion (and XM-radio too).   Not much to comment on in the first part of the week at Provo, just a few BYU meetings.  The Springhill Suites should just assign us a memorial room.  While there, however, we had a friend comment to us that after years of writing in his journal with S.W.Kimball-type diligence, he had quit the traditional and was now logging his life via blogs only.  The public/private aspect difference of blog/paper journals is enough to keep blogs from being a total replacement, in my opinion.  But, in the absence of a normal journal anyways, this is certainly an improvement.  At least it will remain legible.

We spent the end of the week at at the cabin.  Doug & Kevin Wallace joined us for a bit.  Jeff & Brittney came up to celebrate his 25th birthday.  A bit foggy and a little snow, it was just nice to get away.  We caught up on a couple of older movies (“Tootsie“, “Mr. Mom“,  ”The Firm (cleanflix)“) read a bit, and ate too well.

I’m reasonably sure the McCall Ice Festival will never qualify as a destination event, but it serves well as a getaway excuse.

No captions really necessary below.  I liked the ice bathroom.  Reminded me of Korea.  We had to include the Forest Service one for Blaine & Mary Ann — we missed them this year.

We couldn’t determine a theme for this year, as in previous ones, but it was fun.

We are SOOO slow. But in our defense Doug had surgery right as everyone was leaving town. Things have calmed down a bit now.

Christmas Eve was a lot of fun (as you saw from the video Lynn put up). We started out with dinner at Bob and Barbara’s. There was a TON of great food and no one went hungry. Here are the pictures from dinner.

Then we headed back to our house. Shortly after we got home Santa made a visit. Brennan wasn’t shy at all and after giving him a hug he showed him to his seat and was anxious to see what was in his bag. Each child got a pair of Christmas jammies and a book (I LOVE children’s books). Then we watched “Polar Express” and the kids headed to bed.

In what is (hopefully) the first installment of many Christmas Eves to come, our household and Grandchildren were pleasantly surprised by a visit from the Jolly Ol’ Elf himself:

We hope we’re good enough to deserve a visit next year!  We’ll just have to hope for Grandchildren.  I doubt that Sandy/I would deserve a visit by ourselves…

We had so much happening over the Christmas vacation that we’re going to have to post several blogs. We’ll start with December 17th–the day Adam and Nadine came into town. It was foggy so we were lucky they were able to land. Brian had a piano concert and one of his numbers was a duet with Nadine on her flute. Brian is quite a good piano player and Nadine is an amazing flutist. After the concert we headed to see the big Christmas light display. Here are some pictures.

The next morning we headed to the cabin. We went to the hot springs (it was dark and we didn’t take pictures) and the next day we went to the opening day at The Activity Barn tubing hill. Alexis looked adorable (and hilarious) in her furry coat. The snow wasn’t the best, but we enjoyed it anyway. Everyone played in the snow and had a great time.

I had a goal this year–I wanted to see if I could keep a flower outside alive until December. Doug took this first picture for me on December 1st. I think 2 days later it was a goner, but I had a begonia alive outside until December 3rd. The rest of the pictures were taken today–Saturday December 12th.  Quite a difference! Come on Christmas!