More Adventures

Tis the season... to be so busy and so tired and so overwhelmed and so not in the mood to blog.  But I'm going to blog now.  Here you go.
Last Saturday I had the opportunity to do something Jeremy and I have been talking about for years.  I took Nichole to a ballet.  We went to see The Nutcracker.  It was put on by the Utah Regional Ballet.  It was so great.  We loved it and it was so worth it.  I hadn't been to see a ballet since I was a teenager and Nichole had never been to one.  She's in her third year of ballet classes this year so it was fun to talk with her during intermission about things she was familiar with.
Jeremy and I surprised her with tickets... or rather her ballet bear and her nutcracker surprised her with tickets.

Because of the book, "The Bear Who Went to the Ballet" which Nichole got when she was 5 years old, we brought along her own ballet bear.  The ballet bear in the book got to go to the ballet with the little girl so we wanted to do that, too.

On our way home, Nichole let me know it was a good day.  I agree.

On Monday, we had our annual Polar Express Party.  Jeremy opened "the first gift of Christmas."  It was a new pocket watch to go with his conductor's uniform, but this pocket watch has a train on it.  He was very happy with it.

This year Jeremy set up our long table in the living room for us to sit at while listening to him read the Polar Express.  Nichole blew a whistle at appropriate times (and not appropriate times) and Jr. chimed in with bells at appropriate times (only appropriate times). 

Jeremy also set up Christmas lights along the table for a little added fun and of course we drank hot chocolate while watching the movie.  It's become tradition to get special gourmet flavors of hot cocoa to go with our Polar Express party.  This year the flavors were toasted coconut and chocolate mint truffle.  We also put whipped cream/topping on top and drizzled it with caramel sauce.  Yumm.

Last night, Jeremy stayed up all night to build our balloon Christmas tree.  I slept on the couch while he built it, but he woke me up very early in the morning to show me what it looked like.  This year he put real Christmas lights on it.  I miss real Christmas lights on a Christmas tree.  The tree was beautiful.

I'm excited to see it Christmas morning with all the presents around it.

So, that's a little update on some of our recent adventures.  Now I'm going to bed because there's still so much to do tomorrow.  I still have some presents to wrap and have to make food for our big Christmas Eve dinner.  I hope we don't forget to put out milk and cookies for Santa (I don't often remember), but Jeremy bought cookies this year for it since we knew we wouldn't have time to make cookies.  Have I mentioned we've been busy?