Merry Christmas!

It let me post pictures again! These are the only 

Christmas Photos I have with me (from my phone).

They're blurry but they worked, so I'm happy.

 We were fortunate enough to go to the MoTab 

Christmas concert with Parker and Beth.  It was 

phenomenal, as usual.  I love the spirit that Christmas 

music brings.  I've especially enjoyed it this year.

 Christmas Cloie

 Packer opening presents early.

 

 We watched Hadley dance at the festival of trees, 

and we looked around for a while.  Favorite: Hobbit hole 

gingerbread house :)

 Being so close to Downtown has been great.  We've been able to enjoy the Christmas lights a few times.  We love just sitting in the lobby of the Joseph Smith Building and listening to the piano being played.  

We have had a very full Christmas season and been able to enjoy many wonderful things. There have been a lot of great opportunities for service that have really blessed us and helped make our Christmas more meaningful.  We've also been blessed to spend a lot of time with family. I'm grateful for this season, and for the days ahead to see more family and to reflect on the birth and life of my savior. 

Merry Christmas!!!!!

 

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

I'm grateful for so much this year! 

I'd be very grateful if blogger would let me post pictures, 

we'll just have to wait and see.

We spent Thanksgiving at the Powell cabin in the mountains. The mountains are a great place to spend Thanksgiving with family.  The food was great and it was beautiful and relaxing.

I'm grateful for so much, and our family is at the top of that list.

This year I'm especially grateful for a place of our own, good jobs, and always having what we need.  I'm grateful for our bodies that are healthy and function the way they should.  I'm grateful for the little things that we get to enjoy each day.  And of course, I'm very grateful for my patient husband who makes everything infinitely better.  I'm grateful to my Heavenly Father for blessing me with all these things.

Happy Thanksgiving!    

The rest of the Zoo

Here are the rest of the photos from our
zoo adventure

Creepy toothed goat!

 

Yes, I laughed

 

The new baby giraffe was really cute, but I started to suspect she wasn't real because she didn't move at all...

The small animal building is the most memorable from both of our childrenhoods. This was the first time a bird left a nasty present on my shoulder.

The giant tortoise was inside. 

 

This thing!

 

Sand Kitty

 

This was the first time that most of the animals were awake and alert, especially the reptiles and amphibians, that I can remember.

The wolves are usually hidden from view up the hill, but this one came down when a zoo truck was near.  The eerie thing was that he kept staring at the little children, like he is in this photo.  

This guy was hamming it up.

 

What an odd bird... 

 

They are redoing a lot of the zoo.

I was very upset to learn they no longer have red pandas, at least for now.  This was the only one in the whole zoo :(

 

 

They are turning a lot of space into a new African safari encounters thing.  I'm sure it's going to be great, but it makes me sad to see all of the old stuff they took down to do it.  Steven and I were talking about how the zoo our children will grow up with will be nothing like what we remember.

It was the perfect day for a zoo stroll :)
 

 

 The End
(Yup, I did that)

Da Bears

(We're finally in our own apartment which we love! But we don't have the internet yet so I'm very slow on updating everything)

The great thing about us both working for the same school district is that we get most of the same holidays and other days off.  For U.E.A. we both had Thursday and Friday free to do whatever we pleased.  We planned to go out of town, but then we got a new couch. . . so we had a little staycation instead.

We went to the zoo!

They have a new Rocky Shores exhibit.  I'm so glad they have bears again!  They also have otters and seals too.  We spent a ton of time walking around, but we spent the most time just watching the bears.

 The new exhibit

 

 Grizzly bears

 The polar bear is so funny.  He goes under water, swims to the glass, comes up out of the water, and pushes himself backwards. He does this over and over.  We were by the bears for almost an hour and he did it the whole time.

 You can get right up to the glass, so the kids love it.

 I had the coolest video of it, but I somehow deleted it! 

I guess he does it everyday, so we'll just have to go back and get 

it on video again.

 The grizzlies also have a glass wall you can get right up to.

The bears were awesome to watch.  I'm so glad 

they have them again!