It's That Time of Year!

Please note that this picture belongs with the bottom set of photos. It was accidentally erased and I did not want to redo this entire post. That is one of Bloggers downfalls, that you can't add pictures where ever you want. Anyway, on to my post...

...Setting up our Christmas Decorations...
This year it took us a little while to get our decorations up. But they are up now and they are festive. We did quite a minimalist tree this year. We wanted to see how Allison would do around the tree. We have a lot of neat ornaments but we only put on a couple boxes worth of shiny Christmas balls. Alli has done pretty well, only taking off one or two balls. She passed the test and next year we might actually have a lovely looking tree. Allison was a good helper with putting up our decorations. Or should I say she was a good helper at looking at them, carrying them around, and touching everything I pulled out. She is too cute! Her new favorite book is called Jingle Bells. I think that book may not get put back in the storage bins this year...

...The Lights at Temple Square...
This is a tradition that we love. This year we went twice to see the lights. It was so convenient that we could just walk there. If it hadn't been SO cold we probably would have gone more. For our first outing we went with Jennifer, Mike, and Lexi. We met at our place and walked the two blocks to Temple Square and admired all the lights. On the way home we stopped at the market and bought some cookies to take home and eat with our hot cocoa! The other time we went we took Cole and Luke. We went out to dinner first and then came back here to bundle up. After everyone had sufficient layers on we were off to see the lights. They were just as beautiful the second time around.



...Zoo Lights...
Allison and I went with my family to the Zoo Lights this year. It was the first time any of us had gone. It was really fun. They did a great job with the lights. There were lots of animals done in lights and a lot of them moved. The movement was like a sequence, for instance, one monkey would be lit up on a tree trunk and then that one would turn off and a monkey would light up on a branch and then another and so on. So it looked like the monkey was swinging across the tree and onto another. All the animals were very cool. Most of the "real" animals were sleeping or hibernating but we did see some. A couple of cougars were out playing around and looking at all the people. We saw lots of different cat like things, the tigers, and minx. Allison loved the animals both the real and light up ones. We had a great time! I am silly but the whole time I kept thinking and talking about what a brilliant idea this was to do Christmas lights at the zoo. Without that I don't know of many people who would go to the zoo in the winter. That was good thinking to generate some business in their low season.