DECEMBER 2022

DECEMBER would not be complete without going to Carolyn's Chauntenettes Christmas Concert.  She was happy to be able to sing again after 2 years away.

We took Dad to meet her at the concert in the nice Orem Auditorium at the City Center.  It was a very nice evening!

Something NOT SO NICE was coming out to my car to find someone had broken into it in hopes of finding a purse or wallet and they only found tissues, mints and sanitizer!

You can see how close I parked to the front of the Rec Center and how bold they were!  It was an awful experience and an unwelcome expense to us.

Meanwhile, Scott was in Colombia for work covering meetings with Elder Renlund who met remotely from Colombia with Venezuelan leaders.

His big excitement was getting bumped up to one of the lie-flat seats on his return flight!

I took Lori and Carole with our kids to see "A Christmas Carol" at Hale Center Theater in Orem.  This has been a family tradition in our rotation of holiday activities for a long time.  It was wonderful as usual!

Scott likes to visit my class sometimes and just be silly...but the kiddos love it!!

We did as much birding as weather would allow.  This fine Scrub Jay was in eastern Provo.  

These fine Acorn Woodpeckers were in Oregon.

Scott and I planned a birding trip with Mitch and Jennifer for the middle of the month when school was done.

They took us on a 2 day trip along parts of Oregon and then up the Oregon coast.

My favorite was finding the Western Bluebirds.  I had wanted to see these since we started birding.  

We found a sports pub in CORVALLIS, OREGON, my birthplace!!  Here we had dinner and watched the BYU vs SMU bowl game and were delighted with the win!

Here are the bird nerds along the coast.

All of us at the beach near Yaquina Head Lighthouse.

At Yaquina Head.

Then we were able to drive up to spend a couple nights at Austin and Laura's home in Duvall, WA.

All the kids had a blast making gingerbread houses including CLARA...

...EVAN...

...MACKENZIE...

...and BROOKLYN

We also had a fun watercolor afternoon...the kids were super creative!

BROOKLYN

MACKENZIE

More MACKENZIE

We were so grateful to be able to not only visit Mitch and Jen, but to sneak in a quick visit to our Duvall family!  Who knew it was that close?  We foresee many more dual visits in the future!

CHRISTMAS DAY means it is time for a SANTA HAT WALK!

Scott and I went out in the morning to Skipper Bay to look for birds.

We found so many adorable Downy Woodpeckers!  They look so Christmasy like us!

And our kids humor us each year and go out on a SANTA HAT WALK as well!  It was a beautiful afternoon and we had a lovely dinner and so much fun talking and playing and opening gifts!

Then, on the 29th, I flew up to Billings to be with Amanda and Jimmy and Susan and the kids for the weekend!

We did so many projects!  Here are our cute Caterpillar puppets.

And here is one of the important reasons I went up...

CHARLOTTE got baptized!

It was a sweet experience to be there to witness this, literally!  Susan and I got to be witnesses at the baptism and it was just fun being with all the family!

We had a wonderful 2022 and we are looking forward to a great 2023 in which we hope to spend time with even more of our family!!