Christmas in Colorado

We went to Colorado for Christmas this year, by way of Wichita Falls and Amarillo, TX. It had been a while since we had seen Jason's siblings, so we made a round of it, including where Jason spent most of his childhood days in Wichita Falls and Burkburnett, TX. Thomas and his family live in Amarillo, which is only 6 hours from Jason's parents, so not too far off the beaten path.

Our Explorer is awesome and just moved us along so much better than the Freestar ever did. We listened to the 3rd and 4th Harry Potter books out and back, so that made for much more tolerable travel. Some Bingo cards from the dollar store, lots of snacks, and some time on their own screens made us very good travelers! It helped to have nice hotels where we have lots of points built up and which also gave us free breakfasts and swimming pools to enjoy.

Forts in the car.

Prairie dogs at the last stop before Jason's hometown.

 The kids really enjoyed seeing where Jason used to live and go to Jr. High and High school. Victoria particularly loved the small town feel. We got to go to church in the ward Jason was baptized in! Since it's a military ward, we didn't know anyone, but the service was wonderful and the people were friendly. We saw Jason's brother Thomas and his wife Rebel and their kids later that day, just a few hours from Burkburnett.

They loved being able to walk on train tracks!

A nice park in Burkburnett.

In the background is Jason's high school  and the tennis courts that he played a lot on, which have been redone and are super nice!

Big new playground there.

Such a Texas thing, Texas-shaped waffles at the hotel!

 There's nothing like a pool to get kids who haven't seen each other in 4 or 5 years to bond! Thomas' house is being redone, so we just hung out with them at the hotel pool and ate meals with them. It was great!

Lots of chicken fights.

We played some games in the lobby.

Ate pizza for dinner

Mexican food for breakfast

 We made it to Gramms and Abuelo's house on Christmas Eve. Victoria helped Gramms make a Puerto Rican dinner when we arrived.

The key board was a big hit!

The boys decorated the tree.

We brought our stockings and they match the ones I made for Will and Kay for Victoria's first Christmas.

Santa found us in Colorado Springs!

 That afternoon we went to Jason's sister Auburn's house. She and her husband, Jason, made some delicious American and Puerto Rican food.

Big cookies for dessert from Gramms!

 Bonus: our friends, the Looslis, recently moved 5 minutes from Jason's parents, so we got to see them! It turned out that Victor (6) was sick the day we were supposed to spend the day at their house, so we went to a couple of places with most of the kids. Our kids got to play at their house a couple hours two days later when he was better, so we got to see everyone!

A little stage at Focus on the Family Center.

Most of the girls from both families.

The weather was wonderful, so we hiked around Garden of the Gods.

These deer weren't too far from the path!

We ended the night with Dallin coming over to show Austin his new game.

On Thursday we went skiing, well, most of us. Austin insisted on snow boarding, so he did. He spent a lot of time on his behind, but he had fun. It was Erik's first time, so I mostly skied with him between my legs, but he started to get the hang of it. It was very busy! My last run I took the girls down a harder slope from the top of the mountain. They managed it, barely! It wasn't very hard, just long. Not something they're used to yet.

On our last full day we went to see Mary Poppins Returns with Auburn and her family, and Gramms and Abuelo. We also celebrated Karissa's 12th birthday, since we would be in the car for it the next day, after attending sacrament meeting. It was a fun celebration with family, pizza, cake, games, and gifts for the birthday girl. She always gets to see other family members on her birthday. Lucky girl!

On the way home, Erik finally lost his second front tooth, about 6 days too late to sing the Christmas song. We tried to convince him that popping it out on Christmas Eve would mean the tooth fairy and Santa would come that night, but he wasn't willing to twist it that hard.

He's our big Nebraska fan. We stayed in Lincoln, Nebraska on Karissa's birthday and he was so excited when we went by the stadium!

Happy New Year! (People over 40 have a hard time smiling right for selfies!!)

Joy to the World!

This has definitely been a more meaningful Christmas season for me. I'm not sure if it's because I've been reading a lot of the Book of Mormon every day and focusing on Christ as I read, or because we've tried to focus more on the Light the World campaign the Church is encouraging us to do. It's probably both and the fact that my kids have really been helpful with all the service we've tried to provide to the world, the community, and our family.

It's definitely been busy, like always, but I have tried to focus less on the secular, as well as manage my time better.

Here are some of the meaningful experiences we've had.

Starting back over Thanksgiving, my girls and I (Grandma helped then too) made pillows for all the cousins

We raked leaves for a widow.

We rang the Salvation Army bell for 2 hours.

The lady in the picture with us has a connection to Church members in Africa. They need ties and short sleeved white shirts for the men for church. We donated a bunch of ties for her to send back with her in-laws, who live there right now.

Austin helped put up the Christmas lights- a first.

The girls and I made 5 batches of cookies to deliver to all of our neighbors and others in our community.

We decorated them too!

Karissa, Austin, and Erik participated in the Nativity at the Church. Karissa was the narrator. 

Victoria did every one's hair on Sunday, two weeks ago, including mine!

And they were so happy to be together!

Just a cute picture of Leia with Austin. 

We ate meaningful Sunday dinners with our new-to-us Christmas dishes. 

Austin learned to tie his own tie from watching YouTube, since Jason is always at church early, and Erik even dressed himself up all nice, for a change!

We opened gifts the kids bought for each other so we don't have to bring them all to Colorado.

Austin loves the Go Pro Victoria gave him (re-gifted)

Erik is always bouncing on this ball that Victoria gave him.

Victoria got to deliver gift baskets to people in the Ward who needed some holiday cheer and Karissa went caroling at a nursing home with the Activity Day girls as her very last activity with them.

The best part of all this were the memories we created being together. What a great season!

Music in the Air

We are surrounded by music and I love it! Not only do we get to listen to beautiful Christmas music, but I get to hear my children make it. Victoria and I convinced Karissa to join orchestra, now that she's in middle school. She plays the viola. She really likes it, especially because Olivia is in her class. We also convinced her to join the choir at her school She's an alto, which surprised me because her talking voice isn't that low, but she using her diaphragm that she has developed through cheer, so it comes out nice and low.

It's the smallest viola I've ever seen!

Her good friend Sarah.

Karissa being in orchestra makes our life a little easier. Jason takes both girls to the high school for orchestra and then they take their shuttle buses to their two different middle schools . Plus, we had only one orchestra concert to go to! However, we do have to go to two different choir concerts at Discovery and East. Discovery has 4 concerts a year, so they had one in October and will have another one on the 20, which is the night before we go to Colorado, so I won't post that one, but East had their December concert already.

Before the orchestra concert.

Victoria and Sabrina, violin buddies!

Karissa and Olivia, viola buddies.

Victoria right before the concert.

Victoria and Rayven. New members of Select Ensemble in choir this year!

A special, unplanned, professional event occurred over Thanksgiving weekend. Someone in our ward couldn't make it to the Nutcracker at the Detroit Opera House and Victoria and I got to go instead! We enjoyed the music, dancing, and decor there.

My ballerina!

I love all these chances to enjoy supporting the talents of my children and celebrating Christmas through music.

Here are some clips of the concerts.

(Victoria is halfway covered by the conductor;)