Good December Memories

Julian had fun joining Chess club after school.

We braved the cold and rain to go into Portland for the annual "Tuba Christmas."  I think we stayed for about 15 minutes and then the boys were done!

The tubas!

Hyrum and I attended a wonderful "Gospel Christmas" concert in Portland.  It was spirited and lively and had people on their feet!

A week later we attended a much more traditional Christmas concert.  This one played all the wonderful classical Christmas tunes and also had an audience sing a long at the end, which was lots of fun.

Some of my nativities set up for Christmas.  I love getting them out each year and seeing them all.  It makes my heart happy.

We waited too long this year to get a tree so all the u-cut places were closed the weekend before Christmas.  We still found a pretty nice tree at a local farm that had already been cut for us.  

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We spent Christmas Eve on the slopes of Mt. Hood

Julian tried snow boarding for the first time!

Santa stopped by and got everything ready for Christmas morning!

Our traditional Christmas breakfast before opening gifts.

The boys showing off their gift from Grandma and Grandpa Johnson.  The twins were most excited about their new chrome book laptops they can use for homework.  Julian really liked the new controller we got for the Nintendo switch.  I think they all had a fun Christmas.

The boys having fun with friends during Christmas break from school.

New Year's Eve festivities!  This piñata was bigger than the Holwege boys:)

Lots of game playing and food while we waited for midnight!

Steve Doxey was the puzzle master

Emerson getting ready to smash open the piñata!  

Happy New Year!  We ended the evening with sparklers and some small fireworks in the street.  

December was a great month with lots of fun memories.  I had a wonderful 2018!  Here's to a wonderful 2019!

Girls trip to Chicago!

Last summer I was standing around with some friends talking about how I really wanted to see the show "Hamilton."  I had tried to buy tickets when the show came through Portland but they sold out within minutes!  Someone suggested I look at tickets in cities where the show is not just traveling through but performed for months at a time.  I looked around and found that Chicago had a permanent show.  Then I looked at airplane tickets and round trip tickets from Portland to Chicago were only $150!  So of course I booked those tickets immediately and then I convinced some friends to join me on my adventure.  Chicago in December isn't the most fun, it was pretty cold and rainy BUT the Hamilton show was amazing and I loved every second of that.  Also, there was the annual German Christmas market in downtown Chicago so I had fun spending all of Hyrum's money there:)

Our cute little brown stone apartment building.  We were on the top floor.

There just happened to be a wonderful French bakery just around the corner from our apartment that we had breakfast at every day.

We walked along  the "Magnificent Mile" for a bit...until the rain got too cold and we were all freezing.

So we stopped in at Lou Malnati's for some Chicago deep dish pizza

So delicious!

We went to the Fourth Presbyterian Church for a Christmas concert.  I love attending concerts inside chapels.  The organ music was beautiful and the singers voices echoed just perfectly around the interior of the chapel.

HAMILTON!!  I was the only person in our group that had even listened to the soundtrack and I was so excited but a little nervous that no one else would enjoy the play.  I was wrong...of course everyone loved it!  I sang along the entire time, I love the music!

This is my "I'm so happy I could burst" smile!  Waiting for Hamilton to start.

More exploring around Chicago, we had to stop by the famous "Cloud Gate" sculpture

We went to the German Christmas market and I added 3 new nativities to my collection:)

It was so fun hanging with these ladies for the quick weekend trip!

We explored around the Zoo light display because it was free and we had nothing else to do.  It was a pretty cute display.

We had to thaw out with some cupcakes after walking around outside looking at the lights.  These were amazing!  If you're ever in Chicago check out "Molly's cupcakes"

The morning we left for the airport it started to snow.  It was so pretty falling down as we walked to catch our train.

This marked my friend Jessie Holwege's first time East of the Rocky Mountains!  I think she had a fun time...I know I did.  Until next time Chicago!