This & That

 Tessa had her Christmas choir concert. They sounded great and we really enjoyed listening.

It was fun to hear Finlee sing a solo.

Damon had his Christmas choir concert the next night. 

They always do such fun songs. I think their choir and orchestra are amazing, especially for an elementary school!

Amy went to the assembly earlier in the day where the choir and orchestra perform for the school. She sent me a picture of Damon and Sawyer. We love that they're such great friends!

Tessa and I pass this van almost every day around the corner from her gym. We've said for a long time that we should take a picture of her by the TT van. Everyone at Young Womens calls Tessa TT (Tiny Tessa). We were early to gym one day this week, so Tessa said now was our chance to take a picture with it. Right as she walked up to it, she said, "Wouldn't that be freaky if there was someone in it?!" At that moment, the back doors of the van slammed shut and a man went walking away from the back. It scared us both so bad and we yelled, "Run!" and went sprinting back to our car. We were laughing so hard!!

I told Tess that I thought I clicked on the camera in my shock, and we laughed even harder when we looked at the picture I caught! The look of shock on her face is priceless! It was so funny!!

Hayden had an early hockey game in Provo Saturday morning so he came down Friday night and spent the night here. It was so fun to have him spend some time with us!

Rockwell had his Cross Country Banquet. It was fun to celebrate the good season the kids had.

Rockwell earned a Varsity Letter, the Timpanogos Scholar Athlete, a Tough Stuff T-Wolf medal, and 9th All-Time fastest time for the school for his race at Border Wars. Way to go Rockwell!!

Tessa went to a couple White Elephant gift parties last weekend. Her friends love to throw parties!

Bridger threw a Christmas party too. They were put into groups and did a gingerbread house contest. Rockwell, Er, and Kimmie made "The Border." The US side of the border wall looked lovely. :) They thought theirs was very funny!

Kyler got this cardboard man for his white elephant gift. He and Rockwell had fun driving home with it on the back of Kyler's truck.

I went to the Christmas Sing at Damon's school. This is always a really fun program.

Tessa and I went to Hallee's concert where she sang a solo. She sang Mary Did You Know and dedicated it to Grandma Ham. It was 3 months exactly since Grandma passed away, and this was one of her favorite songs. Hallee did so good!

Everyday Adventures

 Matt and Marissa came over to visit while they were in town. Asher and Liam love coloring right now and want to do it all the time. 

Tessa and Damon played games with the boys outside and in the basement, and Tessa also got some good time to play with Cleo. It was fun to hang out with the Cheney's!

Grandpa came over to watch a BYU football game with us. We grilled some hamburgers during half time and enjoyed watching the Cougars win!

Tessa did some Christmas nails for me. I can't believe she can free-hand the cutest little details like that!

We had our stake His Hands activity the first week of December. It felt a little less overwhelming this year now that we know what we're doing. But we were still just as exhausted when the night was over! We were all laughing the next morning at our presidency meeting at how bone-tired we were when we got home that night. 

Tessa and Brynn shopped for a baby and they loved picking out fun toys and cute clothes for him.

It's very cool how many families we are able to supply Christmas gifts for. The youth absolutely love this activity, and we were glad it ran so smoothly this year!

NXR & Brooks West XC Championships

 Rockwell's cross country team drove down to Arizona for the NXR race. They stopped at the Grand Canyon. Joel posted a few pictures on the GroupMe of their time there. :)

They've been having a lot of fun with Photoshop lately. Haha!

Rockwell said it was really cool to spend time at the Grand Canyon. It was snowing and cloudy, which was very different from the 100 degrees and sweltering sun that he experienced when he hiked the Canyon a couple years ago.

Rockwell's race went really good in Mesa! He said he could breathe fine and felt really good. He finished in 16:39.2, which was his PR for the season. He was thrilled to actually feel good!!

Rockwell finished 5th on his team. We asked him about he and Luke finishing at the exact same time. He said that they were joking before the race that it would be amazing if they finished together and held hands across the finish line. They haven't really been near each other in races, so it was just a joke. But then they happened to meet up for the last mile and were going the same pace, and so they really did hold hands for the final stretch and crossed the finish line like that. Haha! They said it slowed down their time since they couldn't really pass anyone in the final stretch, but it was totally worth it. So funny! Paul and I wish we could have seen that!

The Senior boys go to California for a final race each year. It's not part of the team season, it's just kind of like a senior trip the boys decide to do on their own. They invited Rockwell to come with them this year. It's a very senior-heavy team this year. Rockwell loves these boys and is going to miss them next year!

The race was called Brooks West XC Championships. There were people from all the western states there. Rockwell ran the Junior race because it was closer in start time to the Senior race. He said the course was really fun and different. It was dirt and gravel so they didn't wear spikes, and there were a lot of hills with names like Switchbacks and Poop Out Hill. :) He said it reminded him of the courses in the movie McFarland USA.

He had a blast on the trip! They went shopping at outlet malls, watched The Office, and spent a day at the beach. He said it was his favorite trip ever!!

Thanksgiving

 We had an early Thanksgiving celebration with the Clark side of the family.

Dinner was delicious and we got to play some games afterward. It was really fun!

We hosted dinner at our house on Thanksgiving day. We had all the usual yummy food, and I added a couple loaves of sour dough bread as well.

The Loosli's, Alexys, and Grandpa Ham came.

The holidays have been quite hard without Grandma here. We miss her so much. It helped to be with the family though. I'm so glad they could come celebrate with us.

Grandpa got an after-dinner nap in while the rest of us played Panda Royale.

Tessa and Hallee got a little silly and were walking around like this. They looked like turkeys. :)

Grandpa joined us for a few rounds of Scum. It was a really fun day and I'm so glad we could celebrate Thanksgiving with both sides of our family!