Erik's Millennial Choir Christmas Concert

Erik auditioned again for the Millennial choir, and this time he made it in! He had to rearrange his work schedule and devote his Thursday evenings to practice. He carpooled with his friend, Dan most nights. They worked hard to put on this amazing Christmas production!

December 5

Erik's last-minute rehearsal Wednesday afternoon before performing 7 out of the 8 Millennial Choir Concerts.

After the Thursday 5pm MCO concert, we met Erik at the Temple to see the lights since he was skipping the 8pm concert.  The Mesa temple is conveniently located right around the block from where the choir performed. We stopped by Wendy's for dinner before meeting up with Erik after his performance. We didn't stay very long, but it was nice to walk around for a bit.

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Erik took his parents to breakfast at First Watch Friday morning and sent me a picture of his food since I had to attend a YW meeting that morning. 

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Gabe, Rick, and Marsha saw the MCO concert on Friday at 5pm because Erik accidentally bought tickets that day for his friend Ryan who requested tickets for Saturday.

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Dec. 7--now it was my turn to take Ian and Elisa to the Erik's Millennial Christmas concert. I sat next to his friend Ryan's wife. We talked a little but not much. Elisa and I shared the binoculars since we weren't that close. Ian was a little impatient with the entire concert. Elisa seemed to enjoy it. Of course, it was a really awesome concert, and I enjoyed it very much. My favorite song was O Holy Night, but they were all really good.

O Holy Night

Erik stood all the way to our right, almost to the end.

At one point in the concert, Erik was standing right above us. I almost deleted this picture, but when I zoomed in, Erik's face, and only his face, becomes clear.

The entire concert minus the little kids--they're even standing on the upper left and right balconies.

Erik and his friend, Dan who got him involved in this concert.

A family (minus Gabe) pic that Dan took.

After the concert, I took Elisa and Ian out to Bobby Q's for dinner, Ian's favorite restaurant! Elisa shared a plate with me, despite her claims of being not hungry. Our food came right out, thankfully since it was a little later than I like to eat dinner.

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Mariah Carey Christmas Concert

Here are the videos and pictures of our Mariah Carey Christmas concert back on November 15th, 2024. We first heard about her Christmas concert during her Concert we attended in Las Vegas. I was excited to go. What a great way to start the Christmas season! Elisa was invited to go, but she unfortunately didn't want to go, oh well--her loss. There were lots of kids her age there. In fact, there were lots of people of every age there--kids, old, everyone in between. There were just LOTS of people there in general!

The concert took place at the Footprint Center, and it felt like forever for us to finally get to the parking garage. There were cars trying to park in there from every direction. There wasn't really an opener, just some DJ playing music clips extremely loudly. It was dumb of me to forget my earplugs. Mariah Carey was awesome and amazing of course. I loved all of her gorgeous outfits and of course she sang every song perfectly. She seemed a bit more personable at this concert than she did at her Vegas one. She even brought her twins on stage, who are Elisa's age (13--a boy and a girl). They are cute but don't look anything like Mariah, in my opinion. Her daughter sang for a bit, but she has very big shoes to fill.  Mariah will be casting a huge shadow over her life should she choose singing as a career--just my random thoughts on that. Mariah performed just about every song on her original Christmas album, and a few from her new album (which I don't know too well). I didn't take a lot of videos, but Erik did. It was nice to just enjoy the moment at least. Naturally, she saved "All I Want for Christmas is You" for the very last song. She even threw in a few of her non-Christmas #1's in as well. All in all, a great concert!! 

So many people, and so very loud!!

The stage set-ups were fab.

https://youtu.be/SVb9t9nOtIg

Hark the Herald Angels Sing

Joy to the World

Silent Night

O Holy Night

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

"Christmas Wrapping" by the twins

Christmas Time is Here

Miss You Most (At Christmas Time)

I was impressed with the technology/special effects

Up on the Housetop

A train for Gabe

Sweet Baby Boy (My All)

Emotions

Mariah wore the best, prettiest, sparkliest dresses!

Hero

Signing things while performing "Always Be My Baby"

We Belong Together

Silver Bells

Audience caroling

For the grand finale: All I Want for Christmas is You 

Thanksgiving in Utah Part III: The Rest of the Trip

Here are the rest of the pictures from our Thanksgiving trip. After much deliberation, we decided to have Thanksgiving at Lisa's house. The Blaylocks made the mac n cheese (at Ian's request) and the rest of us made everything else. It was a lot of work, but everything turned out yummy! I didn't make my rolls this year because they gave us a couple of packs of rolls at the race, since we were bold and tacky enough to ask for some (seriously, they had an entire wall of unopened bags of rolls, so I don't feel bad about it). My aunt Jane (my dad's sister), uncle Chuck, and cousin Levi came over to Lisa's for Thanksgiving. They brought some jalapeño poppers, which Ian really liked. Jane really connected with Lisa since she has recently decided to teach art to kids. The food was yummy and we had good conversation:

My plate, midway through eating it and then realizing I hadn't taken a picture of the food.

My mom likes pie with her whipped cream. 

I sat between my parents during Thanksgiving dinner

3 cuties in their matching race shirts, playing video games after we all ate.

My aunt Jane with my dad and with me

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The next day (Friday) Erik's cousin Lindsay invited us all to go bowling and eat pizza at All Star Bowling & Entertainment in Draper. Elisa enjoyed hanging out with Isabelle. Gabe didn't really know how to bowl at first, but he figured it out towards the end, and didn't do so bad. I don't think Ian enjoyed bowling too much, but he sure enjoyed eating the pizza. I did pretty well at bowling if I do say so myself. Better than Erik haha. But just slightly. After bowling, Isabell's grandma gave each of the kids a game card loaded each with $20 so that they could play the arcade games. They blew through the cards pretty fast, but they had fun. Gabe still had some money on the card when it was time to play laser tag, so while he played I (with his permission) used his card to get him more points, and I won the jackpot on one game, so he had lots of points! He took forever deciding on which prizes to pick out using his points, I don't blame him--the prizes weren't the best.

Ian never did catch on to bowling. Maybe someday!

These girls were two peas in a pod!

It took Gabe a little bit to catch on to how to bowl, but he did manage a few decent rolls in there.

Erik did pretty good! But I did better. Haha.

The girls didn't care so much about getting points as they did just being with eachother

Playing a game with dad

Gabe and Ian with their prizes

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We went home Saturday afternoon

Nov. 30th

On our way to one last run on the trail before I left, my dad and were amused by these ducks crossing the road--how cute!!

Nov. 30th

Elisa and Aaliyah were besties and had fun making lots of stuff in Lisa's kitchen.

Nov. 30

I guess we flew home--I don't remember it at all, but this picture my mom took is proof!

That's it for our fun Thanksgiving trip! We had the best time! I hope we can go again next year.

Utah Thanksgiving Trip, Part II--Thanksgiving Day Race at Thanksgiving Point

I decided to join another race for Thanksgiving with my dad, The Thankful race at Thanksgiving point (I can't remember if that's the official name or not). 2023's Thanksgiving I signed up for a Turkey Trot here in AZ with my dad, but I only ran the 1-mile race, which wasn't quite enough. So this year I signed up for the 5K. I signed my dad up for the 10K, and Ian, Aiden, and Calvin up for the kid's 1/2 mile fun run. It looked like a fun race--we got a shirt, a cool medal, pumpkin pie, rolls, and hot chocolate too! I was a little worried about how I would do in the cold. My dad and I ran a little bit on the trail by his house in the days leading up to the race, so I felt a little better about running in the cold. The higher elevation was also a concern for me initially, but I didn't notice too much of a difference thankfully.

My dad and I went a day or two before the race to pick up the shirts and bib for everyone. It was a lot of waiting in line. The day of the race I wore a sweater over my shirt, a hat, two pairs of pants, gloves, and two pairs of socks! My dad's race started first, and I lined up by the time marker I thought I would most likely run--11:30 per mile. I wish I would have gone towards the front, because this race was mostly trying to get around people and strollers. Ugh, there were SO MANY people running this 5k! I think they said something like 3,000 people--I believe it! There were so many people that we bottlenecked at a few places, and I came pretty much to a dead stop.  That didn't help my race time (not that I had any hopes of winning). I got 12:12 minutes per mile which is the slowest time I've ever gotten, I'm actually surprised it wasn't slower. Oh well. I was happy when the race was over though. My dad and I helped ourselves to some pumpkin pie, but I can't eat much after a run, so I just had a few bites and gave the rest to my dad.

The kid's race was at 10:30 am and Lisa was bringing the boys. In the meantime, my dad and I tried to find our car, but neither one of us could remember where we had parked the car haha! So we roamed the parking lot looking for the car until Lisa arrived with the boys. Before the race, the boys ate some pie and hot chocolate. Their race was over really quickly. Lots of kids ran it. My dad ran with the boys. I tried, but I was spent. I kind of ran with Ian just before the finish line, to encourage him and get a few pictures of him. The boys sure enjoyed eating more pie and hot chocolate again after the race. Aiden couldn't seem to stay with us; we kept loosing him. Would I do this race again next year if we're in Salt Lake? I think I would.  

All the people running walking the 5K in front of me. There were even more behind me.

The map and my time according to my running app.

 

After the race! I was actually a little hot at the end even though the temperature was around 34 degrees. But that didn't last long, I cooled off quickly.

Me and Ian before his race

Eating pie and hot chocolate before the race

Waiting for the race to start. Ian borrowed my gloves

Here comes Calvin! He was fast!

I finally spotted Ian! I looked for Aiden, but I never saw him.

Run, Ian, run!

After the race

My dad found Aiden!

All of us runners.

My dad got 2nd place in his age group, pretty good for such a huge race. He was really close to 1st place.

Utah Thanksgiving Trip, Part 1

Nov. 23

Cafe Rio in the airport

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Nov. 

I visited my Uncle Tom with my mom at a care facility. He has not been doing well since September or October (I don't know the timeline of his health's downward spiral), but he's been in and out of the hospital and has had many close calls. This was the reason only my dad came out for my birthday/Spencer's funeral--my mom had to stay behind to keep tabs on Tom. He was doing okay when I went to see him. Just watching a movie and chillin' in bed, but he is no longer mobile and has a slew of other scary health issues, but as of now (several months later) he's still hanging in there.

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Nov. 25

Ian played his Christmas recital songs a little bit on the piano. I wanted him to play his piano piece (My Heavenly Father Loves Me) for my parent's ward since he had just performed it at ours, but he refused. Elisa liked playing with Grandmas cats. 

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Nov. 25

Out for lunch at Red 88 sushi restaurant.

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Nov. 25

Hanging out at the Blaylocks. Ian spent a lot of nights there. Lisa got another dog, Honey.

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Nov. 26

Gabe really wanted to go to the train shoppe in West Jordan, so I took him. It took a while for him pick out a train.

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Nov. 26

As our new tradition dictates, we went to TJMaxx and got some fun stuff. Here's a *ahem* fun picture of Lisa that my mom took. You can see that it snowed, and this was pretty much all it snowed.

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Nov. 26

Lisa dropped all the kids (except Gabe) off at Classic Fun Center. They hung out there for a few hours until I went to fish them out, they were hard to find since there were so many kids there!

Nov. 27

Feeding time for all four kitties. Silky has been officially adopted into the family!