Following a long standing Hawker family tradition, we kicked off Christmas with a Christmas Carole at the Hale Center Theater.  It was a great performance.  Interestingly, this was the last time ever seeing the play at this theater. They are building a new one in Draper and the West Valley one is being shut down.  So, in a way, this was the end of an era.  I’m sure the play will be fantastic in the new theater too.

We got a chance to go to Temple Square and spend some time there.  We walked around and saw both Visitor’s Centers.  I haven’t been in them for a while.  The South Visitor’s Center has a fantastic model of the temple.  It’s definitely worth stopping by and looking at if you’ve never seen it.

Readings of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas were frequent and popular.

On Christmas Eve, we got in some rounds at Top Golf with the gang.

We certainly awoke to a white Christmas!  Check out the back yard.  It took quite a bit of digging, but were were able to make it out to Church for special Christmas Sunday program with Elder Ballard and David Archuleta.

We also had a great time talking with Sam.  It was so fun to see him.  Wont’ be too long until he’s home.

Christmas afternoon and it’s finally time to open presents!  I doubt we’ll ever get away with stalling this long again.

Some Family Fun in the snow

Kathryn played a gig one of the nights, so I went out and had some fun with the girls at Micky Ds.

December is always a very busy month, and has lots of adventures.  These are some of them in between by birthday and Christmas.

Kathryn put together a violin studio service activity where they went and played for a couple of rest homes around town.  They did a great job and it was great to see all the hard work they’ve put in.  Kathryn has been teaching the boy in the green shirt for 4 years now.  He has turned into quite the violinist.

Snowy adventures up at the cabin.

Chilling by the fire eating popcorn.

Mega carmel popcorn operation for neighbor gifts.
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Kathryn is the greatest!  Can’t believe I had to kiss my 20’s goodbye!

Ashley has been begging to go see Santa for the last couple of days and we had a chance to go see him at our library.  Kathryn was off playing a gig, so it was just me and the girls.  The theory was that Eliza would be more agreeable with the idea of sitting on Santa’s lap if mommy wasn’t there.  Turns out it that had little to no effect on the outcome.  She was quite alarmed and burst into big tears as soon as she touched down.

Ashley seemed pretty pleased though.  When asked what she’d like for Christmas, she said “birthday presents.”  I guess we had a pretty good birthday if she’s wishing for more  Notice that she’s even holding a little toy Santa in her hands.

On this outing, Ashley learned how to say Merry Christmas and was very generous spreading the Christmas cheer with it.

After the Santa visit, we went and ran some errands.  On the way home, Ashley saw an advertisement for a burger and fries.  She burst out telling me how hungry she was and how we needed to get some.  So a couple of minutes later we found ourselves at McDonalds.  The play place is always a big hit with the girls.  Eliza even got in on the action.  She scaled the 18″ first step into the spiral staircase, and then proceeded to cruise up the stairs to the top.  She would wave and say hi as the other bigger kids ran by her.  With all the kids running by combined with spiral nature of the stairs, she was having a hard time getting back down.  Eventually I had to crawl in there and get her.