One Last Holiday Post

OK, just one last holiday post, I promise! Then I will move into the new year. January is not my favorite part of the year, so it's only natural that I would prolong that transition as long as possible.

What I want to tell you about was actually the day after Christmas. Princess, Prima Donna, and Crafty all got tickets to Ballet West's Nutcracker and two other ballets for Christmas. They were ecstatic! They love seeing amazing dancers on stage.

Princess was nervous about driving downtown with just the girls. It's so difficult to park down there and she would be on unfamiliar roads with tons of traffic and bad weather, so my sweetie offered to drive them down. First we were thinking it would just be the two of us and we could go to dinner and then meet them after the show.

Then we decided it would be a great chance to go back to temple square and give the kids an opportunity to really see the lights since we didn't get to do much the previous week when it was so cold. So we loaded everyone in the van and headed downtown.

We ate dinner at home so we wouldn't have to stress that part because that would take away from our sight-seeing adventure. We dropped the girls at the Capitol Theater first and then we drove to temple square. We found parking (for $8!) close by and set out to walk.

We wanted to stop at the visitors' centers since we never do that, so we made our way to the north center first. We watched a cute movie and then looked at all the pictures before heading back outside. It was actually a nice night, not warm, but not too cold either.

We watched part of the Nativity and then we walked to the tabernacle. Some of my younger kids couldn't ever remember being in there. No one was singing so we got to just wander around and take some pictures. Then we made our way to the south visitors' center. It was super crowded in there, but we took a few minutes to look at the displays before crossing the road to City Creek.

One thing on my sweetie's list was Deseret Book and their candy-making airplane. It was a display set up to honor the Candy Bomber and the kids loved it! After Deseret Book we made our way to the fountain. My sweetie really wanted to see the fountain with the fire burning in the middle. We had passed by it at just the right time to see it last time we were downtown and he was very impressed.

We had to wait for about 20 minutes for the show to begin and we were worried about our girls but since we hadn't heard from them yet, we hunkered down to wait. They finally called at a couple of minutes before nine and I told them to wait in the lobby that we weren't going to miss the show at that point. After all three songs, we made the quick march to the van to get the girls.

Ten minutes later they were in the van, safe and sound and we were on our way home. I think we might make going to temple square after Christmas a new tradition. It was still busy and crowded, but I wasn't thinking about the 1001 other things I was supposed to be doing. And you know how much I love spending time with my family. :)