December

December was so fun for us! John was out of school the whole month, and although his intership kept him going, we got a lot of play time together. The beginning of the month started with a visit from Steve and Carol. Unfortunately, and I think I said before, I stopped taking a lot of pictures for some reason and we have no record of their stay...John was in his intership most days they were here, which meant they got the Denver experience Aubrey style. We got to explore even more of downtown than we did with Sarah and Rob, and for the first time, were down there not on a Saturday. This meant we got to do a tour of the Denver Mint. Pretty cool, although I walked out of there with a ton of questions. The free sample was worth it. It was good to have close family here and show them a little what's been going on here.

Our first Denver holiday experience was the Denver light parade. It was so fun, but the first (and possibly only) days that I commented to John that it was "Logan cold". Downtown was lined with people and it was so fun to see a parade that wasn't filled with little girl drill teams, pick-up trucks with advertisements and each individual's city royalty. I love my small town parades, but this was a completely different experience. The parade is after dark, and every float/band/group is covered with lights or lit up in different ways.

The first parade I've been to that had the balloons. And there were four of them! It's so close to the ground because of the lights.

One of my favorites, just because it was a light up nativity. They were the best lit up costumes of the parade.

An example of a lit up float. This one Nutcracker themed.

Santa! I was completely like a little kid. I guess you watch the Thanksgiving Day parade on TV, and see the spectacle of Santa in a parade affecting kids on movies like Miracle on 34th street or a Christmas story. And this was the first time I got to be part of it for myself. John just laughed at me and thought I was completely silly.

Denver's major downtown buildings all have this style of lighting on them for Christmas. So fun!

So, the second week, we got done with church on Sunday and drove downtown for the free "Tuba Denver" concert. Tuba Denver is a nationwide happening, where Tuba/Euphonium and other horn players order the music and there are concerts all over the country. You just show up and play. I knew it would be entertaining, but I didn't expect it to be as beautiful as some of the pieces were. John has some of the videos on facebook, it wouldn't load here.

Straight from the tuba concert, we headed to DU for the free outdoor carillon concert. I had never heard of a carillon, so I was excited to go. The Richie Center is DU's athletic venue for basketball/hockey. The gold-spired tower holds the carillon. A carillon is really a bell tower with something like sixty bells controlled below by a type of keyboard. DU has a doctorate level for the instrument. If you don't check out the tuba video, make sure to check out the carillon video on John's facebook. It was amazing! There are Sunday concerts in the summer we're excited to picnic to.

The thing that kept me busy during December was our ward's Christmas party nativity production. It was so fun to put together, and I have costumes ready for the rest of my life. I took old sweaters/t-shirts/blankets...basically anything I could find to make animal hats, as well as putting together the rest of the costumes.

Since we were on stage helping the kids, I didn't get pictures during the party, but John's donning the Donkey hat. We figured out how to move the curtains and lights on the stage and just pinned the stable and stars onto the background. I think it turned out really well.

Mr. and Mrs. Claus at the party

We were very blessed to be able to see a production of A Christmas Carol with the McMurtreys. It was our first production at the Denver Performing Arts Center, and I wish we could afford to go to something there every week. It was such a feel-good experience for me to be able to see a show for Christmas.

Since Lance and Brittney were in town for the holidays, we spent Christmas Eve with the McMurtreys. Good food and company and I brought my costumes along to help their nativity. John and I were prepared for a Christmas Eve alone, but it was good to be in a full house for the holiday.

Since I was in charge of the Christmas program...and Christmas landed on Sunday this year, we stayed in Denver Christmas morning. I like waking up Christmas morning in our home with John, and the program went so well. Right after church we packed up the car and left for Utah. It wasn't until four hours into the drive that we realized that we had left the bag with everyone's presents in Denver. Not the brightest thing we've ever done...

This time the Keisel's got the pictures and my family didn't. We had an awesome Christmas party Monday morning. John and I dominated this stacking game...even though we struggled immensely in some of the other rounds.

Candace always puts together a good party. And the house was filled with presents. We were lucky to be able to spend so much time with both families for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

In Logan, we enjoyed being there for when Taylor and Bryce got engaged. (Not there for the proposal, but the after-partying) We fit in visits with as many friends as we could while still getting to party hard with the family. It was so good to spend time with Kristi and Kelly, as well as getting some good old fun time in with Ashley. John was excited to see Tyler and Jesse. We were completely spoiled and it was harder to come home this time, but life moves on and school started again with a new job for Aubrey waiting. But more on that in January's post.