December was eventful as usual. I always look forward to it as our fun month. First we had our anniversary. On December 11, 2008 it was our fifteen. It was a Thursday, but I wanted to do something special on that day. I realized it was the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra's annual concert that day featuring Brian Stokes Mitchell. He is my favorite Broadway singer. I had a little problem. I hadn't planned ahead to try to get the "lottery" tickets for this concert. I put an ad on KSL to try to get for free or buy some tickets for that night. A girl from Layton, saw the ad, had extra two tickets and mailed them to me for Free! She was so nice. We planned to eat dinner downtown and tried to get a reservation. It was too late to get one or no one would take reservations due to holiday parties. No problem right? It turned out to be a huge problem. We started at Christopher's Steakhouse and they had a 45 minute to one hour wait. We had to be in our seats 30 minutes early to make sure we didn't lose them to standby people. We decided to walk to Gateway (not lose our great parking spot) and go somewhere there. It turned out to be a looonnngggg way. Of course I was wearing high heeled knee high boots. My feet were killing me, by the time we arrived. We walked from end to end of Gateway looking for a good place to eat and settled on McGraff's Fish House. They told us a 15-20 minute wait which turned into a 40 minute wait and knew we wouldn't make it. We left there and finally ended at Costa Vida (romantic right). By now I was flustered and Mark was worse. He was stressed and in a foul mood. We scarfed down some substance and realized that now we were to far to get the car and had to take Trax to the concert or closer by. We barely missed Trax and ended up running to the concert. My feet were in absolute AGONY by now. I could feel blisters forming on the bottom of my feet. I didn't want to give up now. This concert was the last salvation for a good time and the whole reason we came downstairs. We were really late and I was sure we wouldn't have a seat. We arrived and of course our awesome 8 row seat in the conference center were gone. I said a little prayer when they directed us to go ALL THE WAY UP TO THE TOP IN THE SECOND BALCONY. I feared that by the time we got up there any seat would be gone as well. I decided to find us each a separate seat anywhere we could. A lady was saving seats nearby. We had sat down in different sections and at the very possible last moment before the start of the concert, the saved seats were freed up when there party didn't arrive and we had a great view together. The concert was absolutely fabulous and I enjoyed it immensely. It brought me into the season, I felt the spirit and was sitting by my honey.
The next couple of day I was running around trying to get things ready for Westley's Eagle Scout Court of Honor. We would combine this with Mark's family birthday party. It was insane. Court of Honors are a lot of work. I wanted to make it special and had to bring refreshments, decorations, programs and invites. We pulled it off even though it almost was a disaster when the paid presenter was very late and almost didn't show up. I was so proud of my son Westley and all the hard work he did to earn the award when when he was only thirteen.
A couple of days after the court of honor, my friend, Ingrid came to visit from Norway. I had her another of my friend's Margerate over for Lunch. It was a pleasant time. When I was entertaining, planning parties and events and holidays I was subbing school everyday. I really was exhasted.
The very next weekend we decided to make another go of it and for Mark's birthday and our anniversary we would go for a little trip to Las Vegas, Nevada. We thought it would be fun to visit friends, Cydnee and family and our neighbors who moved there, the Synders. This time, our plans were a success, although we didn't get to see Cydnee's new house because she was coming to SLC. The Snyders, however, were great hosts and showed up around their Summerlin neighborhood and especially the new Red Rock Casino. It was all very posh and cool (the movie 21 was filmed there). We had dinner and tour the Snyder's gorgeous new home. The rest of the time we relaxed, shopped and ate and it ended all too soon. On the way home, we went to a family Christmas party where we picked up our kids.
The next few day before Christmas were a whirlwind of activity. Shopping, wrapping and cooking every available second took place when I or Mark wasn't working. I didn't think I had enough to do already and thought it would be fun to invite some of our new neighbors over for a turkey dinner on December 23rd. It ended up being a lot of work and not as much fun as I had anticipated, but it was all in good will. (later a neighbor we had invited over snowplowed our entire driveway on Christmas Day and I was glad I had invited him over).
Christmas day was very weird when we woke up to a complete white-out. The power went off for an hour while we unwrapped presents. Luckily the breakfast casserole got done in time and it was all very cosy. We spend the next 2-3 hours shoveling our way out of 15 inches of snow in our driveway. They closed the road by our house due snow drifts. Mark's side of the family's annual Christmas day party was cancelled because no one possibly could have gotten there. The next day was more of the same. We tried to go to the temple and got stuck several times in the process. We enjoyed a near empty temple (a first) and have a good sealing session. I really felt the Christmas spirit this year. We were able to helped a few people in need and not go overboard on the presents.
The month's fun ended with New Year's Eve. We aren't cool enough to be invited to any one's party or maybe our friends are cool enough to have a party (hee, hee) so we made alternative plans. We had a great time. We went first to Park City to do a little outlet mall shopping. Later we went back to downtown SLC and saw a Rock Laser light show at Clark Planetarium and walked around Gateway Mall. We took in some music at First Night and went to dinner. We enjoyed the Christmas Lights on Temple Square and headed back home to get Westley to a New Year's Eve dance. We enjoyed being home and finishing out our year watching "21" and saying "Happy New Year" at midnight. What a blast!! Now I can rest.
