We're dreaming of a white Christmas

We were lucky enough to spend Christmas in UT with my family this year!! The trip was SO SO much fun, AND I got my very first white Christmas! : ) We were also fortunate enough to see family and friends, including Brad and Andrea (which we forgot to get a photo). Heres a little run down of our trip! (as usual, these are just some of the photos. The hardest part of blogging is deciding which of the hundreds of photos to post. haha)

Landing in UT and experiencing the first snowfall of the trip! 

I was SO excited, I ran out of the rental car building to be in the falling snow! : ) 

Brody and I had called ahead to set up a horse and carriage ride for Christmas Eve. It was such a beautiful night for it! It tour took us by all the Christmas lights in downtown Salt Lake. I have been wanting to take one of these in Salt Lake since I was a little girl. It was such a fun experience to finally do it...and on Christmas eve!! : ) 

After the carriage ride, we all spent some time on Temple Square, and enjoyed the narrated nativity.

(The person in the top photo, in the center holding up the camera is Brody. The photo below, is what he took) : )  

We all spent A LOT of time on the square! It's hard not to, s many reasons we love it! We haven't been in years, and it was fun to be in Lauren's mission (while she was on her out bound in CO) and get to meet some of her campaions. 

Late Christmas eve we went back to the hotel, got some hot chocolate and settled in. We had brought a little tree with us for our gifts, and to add some Christmas spirit to our room. We opened our big gift to ourselves, the GoPro and some fun accessories for it. Read the Christmas Story from the scriptures, and watched a whole lot of The Christmas Story movie marathon on TV. : ) 

Christmas Day we all had breakfast at the Little America. It was SO good! 

And then stopped by to see one of our favorite families, the Dallins! : ) We checked out all their fun Christmas toys, played with them and just enjoyed seeing everyone again! 

This ferris wheel was inside a sporting goods store.

We got to visit the Owens and see their cute new home after moving from CA recently. 

...and they introduced us all to a new place in Salt Lake called Moochies. Which we later saw was featured on Food Network. 

More time in the beautiful snowy city! 

We all ate at The Roof one night before seeing the play Savior of the World at the conference center.

Could you imagine a better view anywhere?!? I was in heaven!! 

Such a great/fun dinner! : ) 

Then we walked over covered in snowflakes and watched Savior of the World. It was AMAZING! If you ever have the chance to see it, do not miss out! So well done and so moving. 

: ) This photo just makes me so happy!

We ended up finding Brody's Grandfather grave site, along with some other ancestors. 

Visiting The Grand America, where we stayed after our wedding. Such a beautiful hotel, with fun little shops and bakeries. : ) 

More Temple Square beautifulness : ) 

We all got a little addicted to the vending machines in the basement of the Joseph Smith building for different reasons. One of ours was that we found Creamys! Yum! 

Park City! 

It's always so fun to explore Park City and eat at our family favorite, the Pizza & Noodle Co. 

Me playing in the snow, haha! 

And even more Temple Square beauty! 

It was such a wonderful trip, we were sad for it to come to an end. I know I'm missing some photos and events, but I think this covers the big stuff. Can't wait to head back!! It really felt like Christmas with all the snow, lights and friends and family we don't get to see enough of! : )  

Go BYU!

Before our family trip to UT for Christmas we were all going to go to the BYU football game in San Diego. Then sadly Dad got the cold that has been going around, so the 3 of us still went down. Brody had found us all these great tickets online, and it was pretty fun to walk down to field level. : ) 

Before the game they had a flyover. Which I LOVE!! For some reason I LOVE watching those jets! 

Brody down at field level

Pano view with my phone, of the view from our seats

Maybe a better view photo ; ) 

Brody got a new hat and I got a blue crystal headband : ) 

Cosmo was running around with the fans and we caught a photo with him! Pretty fun!! 

The crowd when things started to go our way in the game! : ) 

It was a nice chilly night, but not as cold as we were ready for. 

The fireworks were AMAZING!! They were HUGE, and kind made Disneylands seem like child's play, haha. 

Here are photos of our TV, because we got some screen time on ESPN!! We were at the game when Dad sent us all a text of ourselves on TV, so fun! : ) And our 2nd time on TV for a sports broadcast for Brody and I (years ago we got on Fox at an Angels game). : ) 

It was the best footfall game experience we've had! You can't get a much better crowd than BYU families. ; ) 

AND, we won!! : ) 

Queen Mary's CHILL

A week or so before Christmas we went up to Long Beach to the Queen Mary. They had an exhibit their next to the ship (where the Spruce Goose used to be held) called, CHILL. A huge tent that housed  large ice sculpture displays! The rooms were around 6 degrees, so to insure you stayed as warm as possible they had you put on these large blue parkas....which helped, but it was still FREEZING!! 

At the top of the ice Queen Mary there were ice slides you could go down. They were kinda short, but it was really fun! : ) 

The detail and clearness of some of the ice was just so beautiful! 

I loved the ice penguins : ) 

The Nativity 

It was so neat to see a big ice rink in front of the Queen Mary. 

They took our photo before going into the ice rooms, and told us to act cold....so this is what we came up with. haha. We didn't know they would put us in a snow globe. It's kinda cute! : ) 

It was a really fun experience! I hope they do it again. : ) 

Del Mar Christmas Lights

On our way out of CHILL, they handed us some flyers for other events. One of them was for this Christmas light display drive around the Del Mar Race track in San Diego. We thought it sounded fun, but didn't know if we would have a chance to go down there before it was over. A couple days before the our vacation I drove Brody all around to some of his accounts to make visits and drop off Christmas goodies to them. We started by heading out to Palm Springs and ended our day in San Diego, not far from Del Mar. 

Since we were so close and it was only about an hour till it opened, we got a nice dinner at The Fish Market that is right next to it, and then drove in! It was so fun!! It was all dark pulling up except for all the Christmas lights. They had signs telling us to turn off our headlights, drive at no more then about 5mph and turn our radio to 97.7 FM for their Christmas music! 

We pulled in and filled in with the rest of the dark cars, going nice and slow....sometimes stopping to try to get photos. And the Christmas music they had playing was hilarious, we had never heard most of the songs! It was a crack up! 

All which eating fish shaped chocolate mints from Fish Market 

(the only fish I approve of in life so far. haha)

After making our first round, there was a sign that gave us a choice of going again or leaving...so of course we made another round! : ) The lights were so pretty!

(We only had our phones to take photos with)

This lighted tunnel was the best part!! And Brody took such a great photo of it here with the fish eye lens for the iPhone! : ) 

The sign says "Holiday of Lights, Del Mar" with a race horse jumping 

It was SUCH a fun way to end a really long day of driving! : )