First Week of December Craziness!

Well, Thanksgiving was fun! It was nice to be with family. We buzzed over to my brother's place across town in Sandy, where we met up with Hyrum's little clan, and 3 of our other brothers. 2 had flown up from Phoenix, and Matthew drove up from just over the point of the mountain, in Alpine. He had to wrap a few things up, technicalities with his Doctorate from BYU, and then he and Mark were off to DC!  United States Navy, here we come! Mark flew up from Meckeeko last Friday so they could drive out together.

Anyway, we had fun on Turkey Day. Good times! I was grateful to be there at Hyrum's and Kim's, with so many of my original family members. Five of us siblings, and then Mark made 6! : ) The 2 little buggers won't venture out of Kirksville, the pansies. : ) It's nice that Nathaniel and Benj have no problem traveling. . . Saturday, the 5 boys went down to visit Grandpa Tanner in Springville, and Grandma Bartholomew in Provo. If we'd known about it, we could've hooked up with them, since we were picking Clint up from Spanish Fork anyway. . .

Saturday night Charlie and I went out on the town. Yay! It was his birthday on Sunday, so we figured we'd better party it up the night before. Dinner and a movie, a restaurant with Western decor, a familiar ambiance. . . And it was fun driving around. Unfortunately, I had to do sharing time the next day in Primary, at church, so we couldn't stay out late, which was a bummer. However, I've found, in my old age, that I don't mind so much getting to bed early. Say, eleven or so. . . Snicker.

Monday we put up our Christmas tree, and made it a Family Home Evening activity. It was fun seeing Charlie and the kids drag out the big, gigantic cereal box, pull out the faux evergreen boughs, sort the branches, and then see the tree take shape. Sigh. : ) Hmmm. . . Christmas! With all it's magic and romance. . All we need now is hot chocolate! With marshmallows. Except Charlie and I are trying out this no carb diet just now. . . Yuck.

Tuesday Uncle Mark came over and spent a couple of hours helping Laena with her college applications. . . He brought a Christmas present for the family, the first to go under the tree. : )

Wednesday, Laena, Aleia, Diego, Stephanie, and I drove up to the girls' Choir performance downtown at Temple Square. They got to sing there at the Assembly Hall. It was amazing. Sadly, they don't allow photography, or video taping of any kind. I was rather put out. Not happy about that at all! But it was amazing to watch. I drank in the waves of rich, acoustically perfect sound. The kids passionate singing was just . . . breathtaking! Ear candy. I was on cloud nine! And to top it all off, Scott finally remembered Charlie's cupcakes! : )

Thursday, I went out to lunch with Charlie and his co-workers, to celebrate his belated birthday. My mother called just before we left. Apparently Matthew and Mark had left for Washington, and were hitting Lincoln, Nebraska right about then. . . We had a good time at lunch. : ) Charlie was cute, with his Burger King - Birthday Boy crown somebody had picked up. . . It was fun seeing the gang from the office. On a different note, Thursday night, the hubby man had his Physics final. It'll be nice to be done with that class. 

Friday, for whatever reason, I was really pretty stressed out. . Something about the Binky snatching the ornaments off of the tree repeatedly and throwing them to the ground, maybe. . . We were thinking about going to the Festival of Trees that night, but I was too dang frazzled, so we ended up hitting Costco instead. Chuckle. I don't know how that's really any different, but ne'er the less, there we were. : )

I still want some of that wild mushroom soup from Zupas. . . That was soooo yummy! Mmmmm. . . : )

Saturday was just a whirlwind of Winter madness. We had about 5 activities to juggle that evening. . . pretty much all at the same time. Saturday morning Charlie and Eric dropped off a huge load of canned goods, etc, at the Food Bank. Then, later that afternoon, Lea went caroling with the Activity Days girlies. 'Bout this same time, after shopping and getting the little kids' pictures taken with Santa Claus, I had to get ready for the big Coca-Cola Company Christmas party. Charlie sent all the young'uns off to play at the neighbors', so we girlies could have some peace and quiet. He even got me flowers and a card. What a sweet guy!  : ) Then the real craziness began.

Saturday evening, Laena had a Choir gig, turns out at Keith and Marcia's ward Christmas party, and I was supposed so look fabulous, so we both had a lot of hair and make up to do. It's fun, once a year, to dress up nice. : ) And then we were off! It was a mad dash. Clint had to work, we dropped Eric off at the theatre, stopped by the Sundberg's surprise birthday shindig, picked up the Olschewski's, and headed up to the hotel downtown. (Is that a contradiction in terms. . ?) And the party was on, Baby. Wahoo! Saturday night grown-up time. Fun, fun, fun!  : )

Now all we have to do is figure out whether or not we want to drive halfway across the country for Christmas! Oh, and details for the big New York trip this weekend. . . Yiiiiiiipe!