Our Busy Month

In the last month we have been to Pennsylvania, Utah, Oklahoma, and back to Texas. It's been busy, but tons of fun.
We started out in the middle of November by going to PA. We stayed with Jen and Ryan and Kirsten's little buddy Michael. They were so nice to let us stay with them. I did not take enough pictures, and none of any of Kirsten's other friends or mine for that matter. But I loved seeing so many friends, we miss our PA friends so much and it was great to see them!

I did take some pictures at one of our favorite places, the zoo.










While we were there we saw our favorite Santa Claus. Colton obviously wasn't too thrilled with him.


He's so sweet the way he interacts with the kids. After we walked away from Santa, Kirsten said. "I accidentally told him I like Diego...I was too shy to tell him no when he asked."


On the way to the airport we stopped by Highland Orchards to pet the donkey and the goats and get the best apple cider donuts.




We love Pennsylvania and all of our friends there and LOVED our little trip. By the way for those of you who knew I was planning on running the Philly Marathon while I was there...I wasn't able to do it. About halfway through my training I hurt my knee and wasn't able to recover in time. It was super disappointing. My friend and I are planning on one in April, hopefully this one works out!

While we were in Pennsylvania Jonathan went out to Utah a little early to practice his ski skills. His friends Spencer was there too.


We flew from Pennsylvania to Utah for our little family reunion.
Colton and Bryce...the little twins.


Geoff and Kirsten...




Making pies with Miranda...


Jonathan took Emily on a hike to the Y.


He also took Kirsten skiing.


She wasn't so sure about the skiing.


but loved playing in the snow.


Then we met the rest of my mom's side of the family at the rental house...


Kirsten had so much fun hanging out with my cousin, Melissa's, little kids Cassidy and Kayden.






We played lots of games, watched movies, ate, the boys played football, the girls shopped.






Going on a walk


To see the horses.


Colton discovered how much fun cars are.





It was so fun to spend time with our cousins and grandparents and everyone else.

After 2 weeks of traveling it was sooo nice to be home!

Our friends who watched our house surprised us for when we got back.

For the 3 days we were home we decorated our tree


Kirsten loved playing with this old little nativity.


3 days later my friend Danie and I drove with our 4 kids up to Tulsa to see Emily in the Nutcracker. It was so nice to have a friend on the long drive. We drove through Dallas to stop by Ikea, which is always great!

Brighton and Kirsten had so much fun playing with Emily's dollhouse, playing at the play area in the mall, and jumping on the trampoline. By the end of our weekend Brighton was calling my mom, grandma and my dad, grandpa. It was pretty cute.


Kirsten got dressed up and we headed over to the ballet.


The ballet was wonderful. Emily had a solo and she did such a good job. Kirsten absolutely loved it. During the intermission she asked if it was almost over, I told her "yes", because I thought she was bored. But she said, "why? I don't want it to be over."


We love Emily so much and are so happy we made the trip just to see her.


The next door neighbors invited us to see their horse.
Brighton was a little scared at first but by the end she loved it.


They asked Kirsten if she wanted to sit on the horse with Madison (their daughter), Kirsten kept saying "no" and finally said she wanted to sit on the horse by herself. They asked her if she wanted the horse to walk and she said, "no, she wanted the horse to run."


We had a great little weekend trip. When we got home I had to work really hard to get my enrichment activity together for last Thursday. So it's been super busy and I'm glad I finally feel like we can sort of relax and enjoy this Christmas season.


We did find some time to make this gingerbread house together.