Almost Christmas

The lead-up to Christmas was filled with choir concerts, cooking, shoveling snow, and family time. We also had a great time with the Special Needs Activities folks.

 Jim Calder has cut version of A Christmas Carol 

memorized and presents it extremely well

 Max's concert was great

 She's not reprimanding Max, it's just camera angle

 This years photos by Katy Kathryn are fantastic

 Meg's nose glowed ("like a light bulb") at the ward Christmas party

 Frost on the window reminded me of the windows

of my childhood

Kris helped with the baklava this year

 "TODAY'S GOOD STUDENTS" gave a fine 

Christmas concert

 Oliver David

 Meg Carine

 Elizabeth Tea

 Pleased with all!

 Our desert dwellers arrived safely in the frozen north

 Community shoveling brigade

 We kept right on shoveling up and down the street

with their new kid shovels

 December Hansen cousins' breakfast in SLC at Kreg's 

 Indian food was everyone's first choice

 Post-feast

 The traditional pose that Jayson loves so much: adults only

Christmas was upon us. More will follow, but that's all for now.

OXO

D.

Post-Thanksgiving 2013

Friday following Thanksgiving began with a brisk reverse up-and-over walk with Rob and Anna. The walk included an encounter with the Riries and a run-by fruiting of 2025 N. Oak Lane where I lived until we moved to LA in 1955. We drove north to IKEA to pick up a few things for the Hastings new home before returning home to smash our Halloween/Thanksgiving pumpkins to make way for Christmas decorations. The extended Hastings met up at Cafe Rio and then some returned to our house for a canasta night. 

Saturday, Rob and Anna joined some of her Exploring-Sainthood friends for breakfast in American Fork. We met them there and headed north again to SLC and City Creek Center where they ordered new living room furnishings at West Elm. Macy's have revived the ZCMI tradition of candy windows at Christmas and we took a peek. While A&R tied up all the loose ends, the rest of us lunched at Greek Souvlaki. That afternoon was Dustin and Courtney's Utah reception at Thanksgiving Point, so we drove north one more time.

Sunday morning in fair weather, the Renoites headed west to a major moving project. Within a couple of days the weather changed and we received our first valley storm of the year. We had about a foot of snow from a storm that didn't let up for almost two days. Fortunately, we bought our tree before the storm started and now all is ready for Christmas.

 Rock Canyon in the rear

 Built by Henry and Alta in the late 1940s

 Two cool coolies at IKEA

 Smashing pumpkins

 Ditto

 Ditto

 Courtney, Ever, and Whitney

 Encore de canasta 

 Grammy working Clara over

 The troops begin to assemble in SLC

 Joined by Grammy

 Joined by the Colvers, Madeline, and Louisiana

 Katy Kathryn entertaining binkers at West Elm

 Making choices

 SLC Main Street at City Creek

 Macy's windows

 I remember the ZCMI windows as being more special, but 

memories are tricky

 Good Greek food

 The Homers

 Louisiana with the Ensigns

 Joined by Milski

 The boys had lots of hot chocolate

 The snows have begun

Ready for Christmas

Lots of fun adventures with more to follow as December unwinds. That's all for now.

OXO

D.

Thanksgiving 2013

Anna and her family drove from Reno, arriving the day before Thanksgiving; Rob flew in Thursday morning. Courtney's Utah Reception was scheduled for the weekend, so the extended Hastings family was in town as well. Meagan's mom was also in town and all gathered at our house for supper on Wednesday. Thursday morning there was a pre-dinner  mini turkey bowl in the park. Dinner was a bit different (imagine that!). At Katy Greendoor's invitation, we met with some of her family and the Taylor cousins who were in town at the Startup Building. The logistics were dicey, but the space was large and all had a good time. That night we had a walk in the dark to ward off the effects of overeating and the kids played canasta until the wee hours.

 In the end all four Hastings kids were on her lap

 Cheering on the football players

 Turkey bowl

 Kiwanis Park

 Andews and Tortney checking on their bees

 Colvers and Hastings at the Startup Building

 Anders, Anna, Tucker, and Tom

 Katy Greendoor and her brother Greg

 Dinner time

 Annie and Opa

Photo bomb

 Jamie showing Clara how capoeira is done

 The girlies pulling the "sword" from the stone at the Clyde Building

 Late-night canasta

Lots of good together time, plenty of good food, a fun holiday. That's all for now.

OXO

D.