Thanksgiving Break

Matt found last minute plane tickets to NYC for a good deal so just him and I went back to have Thanksgiving with his family.  The kids stayed with Grandma and Grandpa in Utah.  It was a fun trip and so nice to visit everyone that we haven't seen in so long and spend a holiday with them.  Christie had Thanksgiving dinner at her house and it was amazing.  I think there were about 18 people there.  It was really fun to go around visiting everyone.  We stayed in a different place every night.  We stayed at Ralph and Christie's house first (Matt's sister), then with Jimmy and Sue (Matt's uncle and aunt), then we headed up to Maine and stayed with some friends of Matt's from high school, Dave and Kim Polley and they took us to the best Maine restaurants, then we headed back down to Massachusetts and had lucky timing to be there for Matt's cousin Mary's birthday party.  Their whole family was there and we got to try swordfish and lobster (hadn't had either before).  We stayed with Mary and her husband Jim that night, then picked up Matt's mom Ardell and headed to NYC to spend the last night in Time Square.

Kylee, Christie, Nannie, and Ardell

Alex, Christie, and Matt

Christie and Nannie

We spent the first night at Ralph and Christie's house, then headed to Scituate to visit Jim and Sue (Matt's uncle and aunt) and stayed the night there.  We stopped at the beach on the way.

Jack, Matt, Lily, Jimmy, and Sue Duff

Jimmy and Sue's house

Stopped by to see Matt's house where he grew up

Duff Road

We stopped by the Youngs for a visit and they had this carving that Matt's Dad had made.

 NYC

A picture of Matt's Dad that Jimmy and Sue had.

Riverwoods Lighting & Choir Concert

We went to the Riverwoods Lighting with Aaron and Kayla.  It was pretty busy so we didn't get to do a lot of the stuff they had going on because the lines were so long, but it was still fun.  They said they had about 4 million lights.

They had a photo contest and they would pick three winners and Matt was one of the winners with this photo.  He won a $25 gift card.

Aaron, Kayla, and Oliver

Ice Sculpture

Jonah, Mikelle, Oliver, and Tyrel

Tyrel looking in the tree 

Kayla, Oliver, Aaron, Jonah, Mikelle, Matt, and Kylee

(Tyrel and Brinley didn't make it in the picture)

We did get one picture of Brinley though :)

Cascade Elementary School Choir was invited to sing at the Orem City Center Tree Lighting Ceremony.  Mikelle is in the front with the brown boots and pink hat and jacket.

I thought this was kind of cool, that is the huge switch they made to turn on the tree lights.

Mikelle with her choir teacher, Ms. Adamson

Mikelle with Miss Orem, or 'the princess' as Mikelle called her

The view from Matt's office, only about 1 mile from our house.

Feeding the ducks and the first snow

We headed down to BYU campus to feed the ducks.

I got out of the shower and Mikelle had dressed herself and Tyrel up like this for 'the wedding'.

Mikelle wrote 'Mom, I love you' out of legos.

First snow of the season

Snuggling.