More Utah vacation fun

Near the end of our Utah vacation we all listed our favorite moments from the week. This is a compilation:

1. Going to a cabin with Grandma and Grandpa Springer and playing in the snow.  And playing Yahtzee. And getting Grandma and Grandpa to play Yahtzee with us.  And running through the snow to get to a hot tub!

2. Sledding in the snow near Grandma and Grandpa's land in Heber on Christmas Eve.

3. Going to a funny play - a parody of "It's a Wonderful Life" at Desert Start Theater.

4. Playing with cousins and friends.

5. Seeing the Up house in Herriman.

6. Going to a tour of nativities from around the world.

7. Seeing the Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert.

Here are a few more photos. On the 22nd we attended a presentation of nativities from around the world at the home of the Hyde Family in West Jordan. This family provides an amazing service by contracting with artists from impoverished countries to make nativities which reflect their native culture. Then the Hyde family sells them and return the proceeds to the artisans (which greatly increases their ability to support their families). The Hydes don't take any of the profits, but do it as a service. In addition, they open up their home EVERY NIGHT in December for tours of their personal collection of hundreds of nativities. (Think about that for a minute. I'm not sure we are even home any of the nights in December. I can't imagine hosting hundreds of people per night in my home every night during the Christmas season!) Garrick Hyde gives tours every half hour, and he explains much about the different cultures, people, and the nativities they create. It was a truly inspiring activity, and really emphasized the true meaning of Christmas. If you want to read more about the Hyde Family Nativity Project, click here for a story from the Salt Lake Tribune, click here for a story from the Salt Lake Tribune or here for the Nativity Project's website.

 

 

The tiny nativity set on the right side below was Aubrey's favorite. It was carved from Rosewood in Madagascar. Aubrey's good friend Breanne spent the day with us and attended the nativity tour.

This set, made from cornhusks by artisans in the Czech Republic, was the favorite of both me and Bailey. The detail is incredible!

Just before we saw the nativities Aubrey, Joseph, and Breanne presented their own arrangement of Christmas songs, with harmonized vocals and choreography!

Bailey, Aubrey, and Mianna (our cousin) spent time together on two different days. It's great to see that they are still good friends and as goofy as ever!

Field Tripping in Utah - Up House and Children's Museum

 
Did you know that in Herriman, Utah there is an exact replica of the house from the movie Up?  True, and so very cute. We visited one day with Grandma and Grandpa, and we were really captivated by all the details. We had to watch Up a few days later just to point out all the ways the builder made the house perfectly accurate. By the way, the house was recently sold for $400,000 and thus will no longer be open to the public. We're glad we visited - it was charming.

 

Below, the grinder that Carl Fredricksen used to steer the balloons as he guided his house to Paradise
Falls. 

 

 

 

 

Next on our field tripping agenda . . . a trip to downtown Salt Lake City to go to the Children's Museum. We have a lot of fond memories of the original children's museum in SLC before it moved to its new location in Gateway. We decided to see if we liked the new museum as much as we loved the original.  The verdict: it was lots of fun, but we didn't love it quite as much.  Maybe just because of the sentimental appeal of the old location.

 

 Joseph really liked "presenting" the local news on camera at the museum. As he prepared for his broadcast, he said . . . .

"I think I will call this the Local News.  Is that taken?"

 Bailey as co-anchor

 And Aubrey as camerawoman.

 

 

 Our kiddos put on a play of Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf. Bailey and Joseph acted and

 Aubrey was the techie again.

 It was a fun day. Mostly it was great to be together!

Catching up - Christmas

Right now it feels overwhelming to me to catch up all the Christmas happenings, so I'm just going to focus on one small piece per day.  That's doable, I think.

We were lucky to spend a fantastic week in Utah. We left on the 17th of December and returned the morning after Christmas.  So much fun, so much to share.
 
Today I will talk about Temple Square in Salt Lake City.  On Sunday the 18th we spent some quality time there. Dan and I were there twice in one day!

One thing on my list of "really want to do someday" has been to see the taping of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir "Music & The Spoken Word".  Even better, I really, really wanted to see the Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert.  In November, when I knew we were visiting Utah and would be there right when the Christmas concert would be performed for three nights, I called to find out how I could get us tickets to one of the performances.  It turns out you have to put your name into a lottery in October, and then maybe you will be sent tickets for the Christmas performances (and I thought that Mormons didn't believe in playing the lottery - what's with that?).  I tried my best wheedling over the phone (We're only in town this one week, I really, really want to go, pretty please.)  I thought about lying . . . "I'm thinking about investigating the Mormon church, but need to see this concert to decide if I am really interested".  Okay, so I didn't lie, because it was just be sort of wrong to lie to get into see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  But I did beg.  And to no avail - there was no way to get tickets.

The only possible way to get in was the standby ticket line, and our best chance was for the Sunday morning performance, which was a combined Music & Spoken Word taping/Mini Christmas Concert. So, the morning after we arrived in Utah Dan and I braved the bitter cold to go down and stand in line. Many thanks to my Dad, who drove us down to Temple Square from Draper and dropped us off so we wouldn't have to find parking. We knew that on the way back we could take Trax (which wasn't running early Sunday morning)  We didn't take the kids with us, thinking that it would be far too cold for them to wait outside for an hour. 

It turns out that the church has a new system for standby - we lined up outside the Tabernacle and were escorted in an orderly fashion inside, where we were given a number and told to wait to see if there would be room in the Conference Center.  We waited in comfort and warmth until we were taken across the street to our seats.

We were WAY up high in the Conference Center, but hey we were in!  And it was so spectacular. Words cannot describe how great it was.  Just watching the taped broadcast of the Christmas specials is extremely enjoyable, but there was something remarkable about being there. The beauty and intensity of it overwhelmed me multiple times, and I had tears running down my face through much of the performance. The guest narrator was Jane Seymour and the guest soloist was baritone Nathan Gunn.  Both were great, the choir was amazing (of course), and the production value was off the charts (lights and moving sets and dancers and actors and snow falling and so much more).  Wow. So worth it.  This one experience really helped me feel the spirit of Christmas and feel especially excited about the week to come. Oh, and it was fascinating to watch the behind the scenes work of the all the cameramen, who scurry around getting great shots for the taped shows. 

Here is my photo of the choir, taken from our nosebleed seats with my phone.

We rode the Trax back to Sandy and then Dan and I started walking from the Trax station back toward my parent's home, because we knew that they weren't quite out of church. We made it quite a ways (even walking through a homeless encampment) before my Mom caught up with us. It was a nice walk and we could have kept going, except for the fact that the cold and the wind were freezing the tips of our noses and ears.  But who needs ears anyway?

Side humorous note:  to help us stay warm, my parents had dressed us up in all sorts of their dressy winter gear.   We felt like we looked pretty dapper.  Anyway, Mom had Joseph in the car with her as she came to rescue us from our cold walk, and she pointed us out to Joseph.

"Look, there's your Mom and Dad walking down the street."

"No, that's not my parents. That's some 80s people."  In Joseph's eyes, the 1980s were an eternity ago, and calling someone an 80s person is the ultimate insult.  So, maybe we didn't look as cool as we thought we did?

After enjoying a Sunday with my parents, we decided to take the entire group back on the Trax to see the lights on Temple Square.  We all suited up in warm gear and took off for an adventure.
 

 

 The lights were so beautiful . . . . magical, really.

 
 
Walking back to the Trax station - Mom and Dad were just the cutest couple, walking hand in hand the whole way.

Aubrey, Joseph, and Dan stood up on the way back on the Trax train, even though there were seats available. It was very thrilling for them to balance and almost fall. It doesn't take much to entertain us Vancouverites.

And there you go, one day of our Utah Christmas trip.  Oh, and did you notice that there was no snow on the ground?  More to come on that topic . . .