​The kids all love it when Sam Spear comes to town to work, he stays with our family. We all had a great time playing games with Sam and cracking jokes with each other.

​Even though the weather is getting colder, I am still running with my friends from Striders. A few of my favorite workouts were the Bear Creek tempo run, a fun run in Garden of the Gods and a long run on the Santa Fe with Dionne and Caryn.

​It is nice to have a surgeon as a husband because he can fix really tiny things. He was able to fix Abby’s glasses with his small screwdriver and his surgery scopes.

​Peter received an All-State Academic award at his cross-country banquet. He was also recognized as one of the athletes who improved his time the most from the beginning of the season to the end. We are so proud of Peter.

After I did a session at the temple I drove back and picked up Madeline at Michelle’s house and then before heading home I drove back to the temple so that Madeline could see the temple and walk around the temple grounds. She loved being able to see the temple. 

​Abby built the tiniest snowman on our front porch while she was out playing in the snow. It was one of the cutest things we have ever seen.

​Madeline is so precious when she is sleeping. She curls up into a ball, wraps her finger around her blanket, and sucks her thumb. There is nothing cuter.

​After the girls got their nails done, they headed to BJ’s for a nice lunch with Mike. They enjoyed eating their pizukis for dessert. 

​After three snowstorms in October and being annoyed with how long it takes to shovel the snow from the sidewalks and driveway, we finally decided to invest in a snowblower.  When it finally snowed again Mike and Peter were all to eager to head out in the snow to try it out. Peter and his friend Grant even went out and earned money clearing our neighbors’ sidewalks and driveways.

​With the crazy snowstorm that we had the roads were terrible as we headed up to the airport in Denver to pick up Andrew. It took us almost 2 hours to get to the airport. We were just glad that Andrew’s plane was delayed so he wasn’t sitting at the airport waiting for us. The older kids waited up and were excited when we finally arrived at home with Andrew.

​The cold doesn’t stop us from running. Emma joined me on a cold run up through the new part of Cordera. It was pretty windy, but we still had fun running together.

​Andrew loves Japanese food about as much as I love it. We spent lunch together eating Ramen at Menya. The ramen is about as close to the real deal as you can get in the US.

​I sometimes have to shake my head when everyone is on their devices at the same time. The kids were completely mesmerized but whatever it was they were watching on their phones. 

​The day after Thanksgiving we got the Christmas decorations out and started decorating the house. This included setting up the tree and putting up the Christmas tree lights and ribbon in preparation for decorating the tree. On the last day of November after dinner, everyone got their PJ’s on and helped to decorate the tree. Decorating the Christmas tree together after Thanksgiving has become one of our traditions and one in which we look forward to. I made Grandma Candace’s lemon poppyseed bread again this year. We listened to Christmas music, ate yummy bread, and picked out our favorite ornaments to put on the tree. The kids were good about helping Madeline reach the top part of the tree. We let her put the star on the tree again this year and she was finally able to do it by herself. The only help she needed was Mike lifting her up to the top of the tree. She was so proud of herself. 

​It was so wonderful having Andrew home from college for Thanksgiving. We all missed him so much and were so excited to spend a few days with him over Thanksgiving break. He flew in the day before Thanksgiving and Mike and I drove up to the airport to get him. The weather was pretty bad, and it took us almost 2 hours just to get to the airport. Luckily, his flight was delayed so everything worked out. Since we ended up getting home fairly late, only the older kids were still up. On Thanksgiving Day, Madeline was all too eager to head down to Andrew’s room and wake him up. It was so sweet, and Andrew was so excited to see her. We spent the day cooking, baking, and having fun being together. Everyone pitched in and help in some way or another. Mike and the girls were happy to help with the cooking, and Andrew and Peter were happy to help entertain Madeline. We introduced Madeline to prepping the turkey, but she was not at all excited to butter the turkey. She did not like greasy hands and she actually got pretty upset at us and had a small temper tantrum. So, we washed her hands and let her help us stuff the turkey, She seemed to like that better. Her favorite thing of the day let her go play elsewhere until it was time to roll out the dough for the rolls. She grabbed her own cutting board and rolling pin and had a blast rolling out her own dough. This was definitely more up her alley.  To carry us through lunch we decided to make a cheese tray for everyone to enjoy. Let’s just say it was gone pretty quickly. That was a definite winner this year. Of course, Thanksgiving dinner is always the best and one in which we all look forward to every year.  It is not only a time to eat lots and lots of food without feeling guilty, but a time to be grateful for each other and the many blessings that we have enjoyed throughout the year. 
 

After such a fantastic cross-country season, Peter decided to continue his training with some of his other teammates so that he could compete at Nike Cross Regionals in Casa Grande, AZ. He was extremely motivated at first, but then we were hit with a few really bad snowstorms which halted some of his training outside. Then he begged me to sign him up for swim club so that he could start swimming in prep for his HS season in February. Both of those became distractions which made it hard to the train the way he did during his HS cross-country season. Still, he managed to make it to the practices that his coach offered and did as much running as he could with his teammates on the off days to get prepared to run the same course he ran in September where he PR'd and broke 17 minutes. This time it was just Peter and I who traveled to Arizona for the race. We stayed at the Marriott in Chandler where some of the other runners from his team were staying. Sean, Josh, Peter, Hayden, Rodrigo, Dan, and Lauren all ran. They ran the same course from Desert Twilight but ran in the morning instead of the night. The weather was actually not too hot, but the sun was pretty bright. Even though Peter didn't PR at this race, he still ran extremely well, finishing the 5K in 17:01.50. Afterwards we all celebrated by going to eat at In-N-Out before heading to the airport to fly back to Colorado.