Aunt Sue's Bread Day

I love bread day! It is one of the traditions where it dosen't feel like Christmas unless it happens. Aunt Sue makes sweet roll and Greek bread dough all day so when all the cousins come we have a loaf of each to shape. This year we made our Greek bread into a teddy bear and a Santa Clause face and we made our sweet rolls into a Christmas tree and a candy cane braid. The little boys really got into making the bread this year, especially Will, he was a diligent little helper, he loved doing the sweet rolls. They also loved sneakily eating the dough ... well at least they thought they were being sneaky.

After the bread is all shaped and placed in the freezer, all ready to be baked and eaten on Christmas morning, we have our family pool party. Aunt Sue has the coolest pool house ever and she decorated it so cute for Christmas this year. For dinner this year we had a soup buffet with yummy salads and sides with peppermint brownies and ice cream for dessert, this is an awesome family tradition that I always look forward to.

Christmas Lights!!

As soon as finals were over it was time to get serious about Christmas. As a means to celebrate Nicky took me on a Christmas Cruise on the Provo river! It was so awesome! its a family owned business that has been lighting up the Provo river for ten years! The lights were amazing and we even got a visit from Santa Clause himself! He was canoeing down the river looking for his reindeer that had run away! He gave us his hat that was full of a sweet surprise for everyone before he continued on his way. After our little cruise we had time to enjoy the lights and decorations that lighted the path down to the river from their cute Christmas house.

After our crazy river adventure we drove to Orem to look at the most awesomely decorated house of all time. My roommates and I discovered this house behind Wal Mart our freshman year when we lived at Parkway Crossing, and every year I have been back to enjoy its intense Christmas lights, you can see it glowing from the freeway! Im pretty sure they add more and more lights each year.

Our bright adventures didn't end there! Over the weekend we meet some of Nicky's mission buddies at the Hoogle Zoo for their Christmas light event. I love Zoo Lights! They have decorated the zoo with over a million lights and some of the animals are still out for us to see! Most of the cats in the Asian Highlands exhibit were out, they were sleeping, but still visible, all the tiger teenagers were huddled in a big sleeping pile. The small animal and reptile building was also still open and we saw the most adorable small cats! I'm not sure if they are kittens or if they are just really small lil guys, I secretly hope they are just miniature cats because that would be adorable, I honestly wanted to steal them and take them home.

I would hate to be on display while I was sleeping, how embarrassing