Thanksgiving Vacation Part 2:

While we were in Utah, my sister, Laura, did a photoshoot of our little family!
Here are my favorites from the shoot. I know, there's a lot, but I promise it is only my favorites :)

And this one is my all time favorite:

Thanksgiving Vacation Part 1:

For Thanksgiving this year, we spent one week of vacation in Utah. We drove out after my final performance of Seussical - on the 18th. We got to spend a week there with my family! We saw a few friends, but mostly just stayed around my parents' house and relaxed. It was great!

The drive out was pretty nice... Aaron slept for almost the whole thing! Eric drove until 5 am and then we switched and I drove the rest of the way. (just a note ... our entire vacation total was to Utah, then California, then home... over 50 hours of driving...)

Here we are, ready for take off!

This is where we switched drivers. Aaron still sound asleep!

In the morning we had a gorgeous view as we headed to breakfast!

We had breakfast at Ihop! Aaron was so excited to get out of the car!

He ran the aisles over and over.

After breakfast, Aaron (and Eric) went right back to sleep. Hooray!!!

When we got to Orem, Eric and I took a nap while Aaron played with my family.

Aaron loved to share water with Grams!

We also made sure to fit in several games of 7 Wonders and Wackee Six!

We also played a lot ... a lot ... a lot ... of DOTA2 - it was epic!

On Thanksgiving we had a full house, which made it even more fun!

I made Aaron a turkey shirt just for the occasion. (Of course, I managed to forget to pack it and we had our awesome neighbors get in our apartment, find it, and mail it to us... oops)

Don't worry, we didn't actually cook this turkey :)

Dinner was amazing! We learned Aaron LOVES pomegranate seeds!

While we were in Utah, my dad introduced Aaron to some fun new youtube videos!

He would go to my dad's chair and say he wanted to "see, see, see!" and say "show!" and "sit!"

He has a few favorites - there is one about Victor Vito and one about Bumblebees...

This video is the dinosaur one

We also had fun shooting hoops!

We tried to teach Aaron that he had to pass the ball (aka, share) before he could shoot...

He wasn't too excited about the concept.

Aaron also showed us that he knows how to feed...

My friend Kristi got him a cute puppet reindeer that he liked to feed

We had a great time in Utah.

Hopefully we get to go back soon!

Seussical the Musical

I had an AMAZING opportunity to participate in Seussical the Musical! My stake this year decided to put on the production and it was an awesome experience.

I auditioned for the part of Mayzie La Bird and was disappointed when I was given the part of bird Girl #2 (of 9). I read in the email from our director that he prayed about each part so after my sob fest I decided to give it a shot... and boy was he right! Of the 9 birds, 5 of us were the "dancing and singing birds" and the other 4 were "singing birds". I had so much fun with the other 4 dancing birds and formed amazing friendships. I can honestly say that no one in the cast had more fun than we did. We laughed and joked and were onstage for almost every single number for one reason or another. We were the fair weather narrators if you will. We flipped sides all throughout the musical. I was given an opportunity to be an assistant choreographer as well. I got to choreograph one number all on my own, aid in choreographing others, and then teach the entire cast! It was so much fun.

It got hard at the end because if a number was struggling, they threw us bird girls in last minute. It got to where we were putting in 15 hours a week (and this was before dress rehearsals), but it payed off.

The performance was rewarding. It went sooooooooooooo well. No one expected us to actually pull off the production, but we did and it was a huge success! I had so many random people in the audience come up and tell me that they loved the show, that I was their "favorite bird" or the "most lively bird" or a whole slew of other compliments. I signed autographs and posed for pictures... Each rehearsal and each performance I came home - my head swelling with compliments, swimming in delight. I realized how much I miss dancing and how big of a part of me it is... I wish I could show you some videos, but I'm afraid all I have is pictures. I hope you enjoy them!

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