Christmas Around the World and December Fun!

Kohler's sweet girlfriend, Suzy Nielson, aka Hermana Nielson, is serving her mission in the Chile, Concepcion South Mission.  They have been writing each other for a long, long time.  These are some fun photos from her mission.  She is a doll and we all can't wait to see her when she comes home in May 2017!!

Kelsey and Kohler made some fun videos of them singing up at our Utah house.  They are priceless to me---I love those two kids!

Here is Hailey and her first experience at the Cheesecake Factory!

Yes, our elf on the shelf, Herbie, seems to follow us no matter where we go!!

 Spencer knows a lot about astronomy and he was helping his college brothers and sisters with their homework!  ha ha!

 Yep - one of my favorite sights to see . . . all 4 together!

 We surprised our kids and took them to see Jim Gaffigan!  

 I always love going up to see Christmas Around the World!  This year I was able to sell my children's book again and it's always so fun to autograph copies for children.

 This is a special photo for me because these people are super special in my life:  Mary Bee Jensen (founder of the Folk Dancers at BYU and is turning 100 this May!), Ed Austin (my artistic director from 1988-1992 and dear friend), and Jeanette Geslison (the current artistic director and we toured together back in the day!)

It was so much fun seeing Ali and her two darling girls, Parker and Hayden at the concert.  We have the best family ever!

 This is what our family gave away to our friends this year.  Holiday Potpourri smells the best!!

 This is my special group of friends---we all attend an Institute Class on Tuesday mornings together and it is SO much fun! (left to right:  Melissa Thatcher, Karen Johnson, Sarah Steck, Rachel Hixon, me, Kris Booker, and Jody Peterson)  I love and admire these women so very much!

 Every year I love our family tradition of putting Christmas Cards Through the Years on my office door.  It's so fun to see how much the kids have grown!

 Hailey is really loving her riding lessons out at Passey Ranch.  Her trainer is Brooke Passey (her sister is Lindsey Sterling!).  She is a very disciplined teacher and is giving Hailey such a great foundation of great riding technique.  Hailey says it is really peaceful out at her ranch.  It's out in San Tan Valley and takes about 45 min. to get there.  But instead of complaining, I decided to make that my special time with Hailey.  We talk about her day at school, watch funny movies, or just listen to music and talk.  I've actually come to love that time with her all to myself!

      

 Here is Spencer after his choir concert. He is in the Men's Choir and is really loving it!

 Here is Hailey performing with Gilbert Youth Choir at her Christmas Concert.  They always do such an amazing job!  

 Mary Kay is the director of the Singer's Company and her daughters performed the other night.  It was really great to go watch them.  I'm super proud of MaryKay.  That is a lot of work!

This is my super fun Zumba group!  We had a holiday party after class one day and it was really special to get to know these ladies.  They aren't members of the church and rarely do I get the chance to interact with people not of my faith.  They are so kind and make me feel so loved each class day.  The teacher, Sasha, is on the far right and she is from Russia.  She is amazing and we all just love her!

Utah all the way to Bangkok!

Tom bought Spencer this cool Cowboy hat!!  Doesn't he look great in it?  Also, here are the kids in front of the new Payson Temple.  It is absolutely gorgeous!

We took our inflatable raft and went out for the day to Silver Lake.

The day we went out on the Razor was SUPER fun because we were able to get to some back country that was absolutely gorgeous!  Hailey even found some snow in June!

Every summer we seem to visit Provo Beach Resort.  Spencer is getting pretty good at it too!  Hailey likes it for a few runs then seems to always be FREEZING!

Spencer and his best friend, Jesse Lowder, are getting together for EFY this year in Provo.  They are going to have such a great time!!!

Guess what we found??  Scott Stirling's Famous Soccer jersey from Studio C!!!

The day Tom had to leave to head back to AZ for work, we decided to take the chairlift up the mountain at Sundance and boy was that a great idea!!  It was eye candy everywhere you looked!

Kelsey had only a few more days before she left for Thailand so we made the best of it and hit CPK for lunch and went to the Scera Shell to see the Little Mermaid.  So fun!

Here is a pic of the day Kelsey left for Thailand.  She was so thrilled and I was happy for her . . . a little nervous to be honest, letting my beautiful daughter go off on an airplane with people she has never met to a foreign country but it ended up being one of the most wonderful experiences of her life!

There she goes!

After we put Kelsey on the plane, Hailey and I decided to slow things down a little and we spend the afternoon feeding a darling little horse some hay over at Wheeler Farms.  It was just the speed I needed with my family being spread all over.  Kohler is in Argentina, Kelsey in Thailand, Tom in  Arizona and Spencer, Hailey and myself in Utah.  It's a funny feeling to have your family spread over three continents!

Hailey and I also did something really fun. . . we went on a horseback trail ride through Sundance Stables up to Stuart Falls and it was SO fun!

Here are some amazing photos from Kelsey's Thailand Trip.  She took a lot of video and photos so this is just a sampling but you get the idea of what an incredible experience this was for her!

 You can tell Kelsey is a photographer because look at the resolution and how awesome the lighting is in each photo!  Her camera is way nicer than my I-phone pics, but truly she has a gift!

Here is Kelsey with Hailey Devine who is the organizer of this trip.  She and her husband are incredible photographers and Kelsey learned SO much from them!