White Christmas

Merry Christmas! 

Marty and I had a family-filled Christmas this year and it was perfect. Christmas Eve we drove down to my family's house in Sandy. We kept our traditions of Christmas Eve PJs and going for a drive to see Christmas lights. Usually I'm not a big fan of snow, but the having snow fall outside the window while we were cozy inside made me glad that a white Christmas wasn't only in my dreams. 

Of course we had to have a little PJ photo shoot before heading out to look at lights...

The picture on the left is from 2008 and the one on the right is from this Christmas. I sure love my sister Missy and I can't believe how grown up she is! 

We didn't want to leave my missionary brother Bryce out of our picture so we held up his missionary pictures so he could be there in spirit. We got to talk to Elder Boswell on Christmas day and he sounds great! Only 5 more months! Ps. Aren't my parents cute? :) 

The first stop on our Christmas lights tour was to the night before Christmas street (at least that's what we call it). Each house on this street has a sign on their lawn with a different piece of the Night before Christmas poem. My parents have been going to this street on Christmas Eve's long before I was born.

Next, we went to Christmas Street. I loved the quaint little houses that were so tastefully decked out in twinkling lights. I especially liked the Christmas dragon in the bottom middle picture. 

This house was the unanimous favorite-the picture does not do it justice. 

After Christmas Street we experienced one of those moments in life that can only be labeled as an unexpected pleasure. As we were headed east towards the mountains we noticed some lights floating in the sky. Upon further inspection we discovered that they were lanterns like the ones in Tangled. At the next available exit we pulled over and watched in awe as the lanterns blended in with the Christmas stars. 

Then we decided to drive through Sandy and on to Draper. We stopped briefly at Draper park and admired the lights on the trees and the view of the Draper Temple. 

Our final stop before heading home for the night was to the whisper dome. This place was seriously cool! The acoustics of the dome are set up so that whoever is standing across the dome from each other can hear whispers as clear as if they were being whispered directly into their ears. Also, if you speak in the middle of the dome you hear your voice as though you were speaking in a microphone. 

We had a wonderful Christmas Eve! Christmas day we had breakfast with my family, opened presents, talked to my brother on the phone, and ate Christmas lasagna before heading up to Marty's parents house. Christmas evening we had dinner with Bruce and Karen, exchanged gifts, and watched Pongo try to play with Buddy and Jenny. Spending time with our families helped us remember the reason for the season...

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!