Noteworthy Things for December

Molly and Jack performed "The Grinch" for their school program.  They did an excellent job as usual!

The kids and I attended the annual Binggeli Christmas party at James' Aunt Suzanne's house.  The activity for the party was to make your own ugly sweater.  Molly and Jack pretty much did their own.  Molly had a lot of fun and worked on hers for a long time.  Jack lost patience and used a lot of glue.  His included puff balls in the armpits and a rock and sticks under his tractor.  It was a pretty creative activity.

The kids and I also attended the annual Huber Family non-Progressive Party.  Cindy hosted it at her church and Jackie was in charge.  It actually went pretty well and most were in attendance.  The food was a little scattered with lots of mixed tastes because Jackie wanted a "true pot luck,", but individually it was good stuff.  We did a white elephant, a photo booth, ate, sang a few songs, and kids played basketball.  It was good.

Utah 77 Duke 75

I just sent the following in a Sunday night e-mail to my brother.  It is sugar coated a little because I was super stressed and uptight yesterday.  Had on been more chill and had adults to converse and enjoy the moment with, I probably would have been dancing around my house!  I don't even have a TV with the right channels.  I listened to it in the car, then on my phone, then on my computer because my phone quit working.  Sports are a fleeting thing, but man I love me some Utah Basketball:

Ok . . . Biggest news of the week!!!!!  Are you ready!!!!  

The Utes beat Duke at Madison Square Gardens on Saturday!  It went to overtime.  It was a little ugly . . .  homered calls, way too many turnovers, nearly blew it at the end, etc. . . . but oh man, they did it!!!  Can you believe it!  It made all those losses to Kentucky over the years and last year to Duke feel totally redeemed.  Jimmy Fallon was even at the game.  It had to have been the happiest basketball day since 1998 and I Annie and I danced around our Mildred house after Utah beat Arizona in the NCAA's.  I was a little excited!  Jakob Poeltl had 19 points and 14 rebounds and played one of his best games ever.  He also played most of the 2nd half with 4 fouls and didn't foul out until 30 sec left in the OT.

Yukon Cornelius

Final Product

Afterwards

Thanksgiving

On Thanksgiving Eve, we met Annie and the boys at the West Val Train Station and rode the train downtown.  The activity itself was the train and lunch at City Creek.  After that, we headed home.  Grandma Judy was able to meet us for lunch and we may have gone to the Disney Store afterwards.  The kids had fun on the train, though.

James worked on Thanksgiving Day and at my mom's direction we decided to pretty much break all Thanksgiving traditions.  Instead of going with our extended Huber family, we decided to just have Thanksgiving with the smaller lot of us.  Annie hosted.  I made rolls.  We ate roast beef.  It was delicious.  Before dinner, we made some Target crafts.  

On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we got to celebrate again (with Turkey and Ham) at the Binggeli's.  I guess I didn't take any pictures the whole day, but the kids had fun playing with Joesy and Preslee, the food was good, and the company, as well.

We also started Christmas celebrations with the Petersen Extended Family.  Uncle Paul was our host this year and he invited us to all meet up for bowling then back to his place for lunch.  It was a fun time!

100 Days

The first 100 days after any presidential inauguration are always looked at closely and heavily measured.  100 days is significant.  It is slightly more than 3 months and is a good chunk of time to start accomplishing things.  Why 100 days?  I don't know.  It is just a good number, I guess.

Well, we are now celebrating the next 100 day mark!

My parents FINALLY got a letter from the Baltic Mission Office to say that my brother will be returning home from the land of Lithuania on March 3rd.  I think my mom is much relieved to finally have a date and I'm sure she cried when she read the e-mail.

We are so excited to talk to him on Christmas and then it will only be another 70 or so days until we get to see him in person.

I'm a little worried that he's not going to like any of us and that we won't be "spiritual" enough for him.  Hopefully within a short amount of time we can corrupt him back to the goofy brother we once knew (while he somehow manages to keep the good attributes of a missionary, as well).

His letters have been consistently excellent throughout his two years. He seems to be serving his heart out.  I told him I'd tried to read the Book of Mormon before he gets home.  It's going slow, so I must be gettin' on with that.

Here's to the LAST 100 days!