Tubing at Soldiers Hollow

For Christmas Grandma Libby bought us all passes to go tubing at Soldier's Hollow in Midway. It's the lazy mans tubing hill where you get a tow ride up and then sled down the big groomed runs! We had a blast and were successful with all 7 children and 5 adults having fun! Thanks to David for being the photographer with his bum shoulder!

Christmas 2010

This Christmas was wonderful. It was spread out over a lot of days and spent with a lot of family. My mom, sister and I were on a cruise that ended on Christmas morning (more on that in another post) and we arrived home the evening of Christmas. My cute family had been waiting for me to open some of their presents and so it was home and present time! The very next morning we headed up to Park City to celebrate Christmas with my sister and my mom and Irv. We spent the next 4 days there doing different fun activities.
We all got decked out with our Salt Lake Real gear. We also got 4 season tickets to use between our two families for the 2011 season! We can't wait...go Real!!
Vicky and Mom prepared a delicious Christmas dinner of lamb, turkey, green beans, potatoes, cranberry sauce and desserts. It was absolutely delicious. We also did our traditional Christmas poppers complete with hats and toys!
We spend the days playing with some new toys the kids got for Christmas. I supervised the first baking in the Easy Bake oven. We made a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting!
The Chinese jumprope is still a childhood favorite for McKinley and whoever she could "rope" into playing with her!
Grandma brought her giant gingerbread man mold and the girls baked and decorated their men with all sorts of goodies!

It was so fun to spend time together. We had 6 adults, 7 children and 5 dogs! Phew...we're tired now!

Photos with Santa

It's been a few years since all my kids would sit on Santa's lap. This year I snapped pictures of all 4 of them on his lap!! It was the beginning of a great Christmas season!

Living Aquarium

December 13th was free day at the Living Aquarium in Sandy. My SIL and I braved the crowds to take our little ones there. I checked McKinley out of school around 1:45 and headed over to get in the line. I was able to find parking immediately and got our space in line. The line was wrapped all the way around the building, but it did eventually move quickly. We were in line about 40 minutes to get in and then it was super crowded inside, but we were still able to see everything. We enjoyed the octopus, the seahorses, the penguins and all the other fish and sharks too. It was an enjoyable afternoon with all the other cheapskates like us!

Smith Family Progressive Dinner

One of the holiday traditions in the Smith family has become to do a Progressive dinner where we travel around to each families house and eat! This year we started at Mark and Maylenes house for appetizers, headed to Mike and Mischele's for salad, main course at Mom and Dads, and dessert at Chad and Cynthias! We started at 4pm and we ended at 9:30 (only because it was a school night!). It was a wonderful dinner with yummy food and great company. We're so glad we were here to be a part of it this year!

Kathryn and Kendra

Zachary and Austin

Dad and Ashlee

Mark and Maylene

Paige, McKinley, and Avery making gingerbread cookies

Allison, Kendra and Lisa

Salt Lake City Temple Square

On Saturday we loaded up the kids and headed up to temple square to see the lights! It was a particularly warm night for December and it was very enjoyable to walk around the sights of temple square without being freezing cold! The younger kids didn't remember ever having seen the lights, so it was a fun time.

We were also able to tour the conference center. We learned that the conference center auditorium is the largest in the world. It seats just over 21,000 people!! It is an incredible building and a beautiful place. We really enjoyed the tour and the evening out!

Early Snow Storms

This was the view and road conditions we drove through for 7 hours. At 30 mph. Slowly. Slippery. Snowy. We were on our way back from eastern Washington to Utah for Thanksgiving. After the 7 slow hours, we had 6 speedy hours to get home!! The visit was great...the drive (both ways) was HORRIBLE!!