The Christmas Cup

Last Saturday we had our 2nd annual Christmas Cup Competition.  Because we were all at our niece, Jessie's wedding over Thanksgiving we didn't hold the Christmas Cup Competition the day after like we did the year before.  I figured we'd just continue it next year.  That little glitch did not deter my husband, Jeff Jones.  So on December 20th we gathered at Freeman park to continue this new tradition. 

 Last years champion, Michael kind of looks a little too comfortable with the Christmas cup like he might keep it.















As usual Jeff made snack bags for everyone to take with them for sustenance on the frisbee golf tournament. 

                                                           Let's get started!

Jeff explained all of the rules and split up the teams.  Now to level the playing field, he gave a point off for each unintentional hitting of trees.  If your par was higher than 8, you could take off 4.  Then if you hit the post and didn't make it in you could take one off.  Lastly if your disc landed on top of someone else's disc, you could get 4 off.  Each hole had winning possibilities.  For instance whoever got the furthest drive or the shortest  drive or the least amount of throws, etc.  So as you can see anyone could be a winner.

Some of us weren't sure that the weather would participate, so we came in boots, hats and gloves.  Kyle did not wear boots and we learned that that was a mistake because the grass was snowy and a little slushy.  He hung in their anyway as did many others.

These pictures were before everyone had frozen, wet feet and gloves.See how happy they are! 

We ran our first course with various approaches and styles.

These two girls played, but found their own kind of fun in the trees.

When we got back from our first round, Jeff had hot chocolate to warm our bones and we started the car heaters to help people make it through the next part.  Jeff matched the couples who played the next round and we were able to play the best throw on each team.
Kyle pretending to be mad because he is tied for 2nd place.  Anna and I got matched with the same score of 34.  The lowest score was 27 for Jeff and Nathan and Kyle at 28.




We learned a few tricks when we played the second round.  1. If you don't want  to soak your gloves every time you pick your disc up out of the snow, then step on the edge so it will flip up.  Then hit it on your boot to get the snow off. 2. Bring an extra pair of gloves.  3. Wear a mitten on the left hand and glove on throwing hand. 4. The thicker you look the longer you will last. 5. When you throw the disc into the locked tennis court have a small person sneak under the door to get it. 6. When climbing trees to retrieve your disc, do not wear your nice coat, unless you want to smell like sap for the rest of the winter.  7. Don't wipe your runny nose with your throwing hand.  OK, now we're ready to play the final round.

Guess what ?  We had a surprise ending, even to the winners.  With the tree rule and the bar rule and the lucky throw that I had that landed on Spencer's frisbee, Annalisa and I ended with 17.  It probably was our best throwing ever. Since Anna and I started with the same score and added to our 17, we won by a hair. Michael passed it on to us.  We signed the cup realizing that this probably will never happen again.  I forgot to mention that everyone signed the certificate/ entry form at the beginning and we received it at the end.

Kyle was Second place by one point.  Jeff and Nathan were right behind him in thirdl.

It ended up being so fun in a diehard sort of way and Jeff made it happen.  I always say that Jeff is the fun one and it's true.

The Nativity

 So, Olivia set up a nativity scene in the front room and had a spot light and told us each the story and pointed us to certain characters or items as she told us.  We could only come one at a time.  She had so much fun that I wanted to record it and keep it forever. 

This is the story of Jesus Christ.  He was born on Dec. 25th and that is the day of Christmas.  Most people think Christmas is about toys, presents and stockings. But what it's really about is Christ's birth. His parents were Mary and Joseph.   The reason that Heavenly Father chose Mary  is because that Mary was very thoughtful kind and was very giving and she had faith and was a member of the church and the same for Joseph.



Mary had to walk  133 miles and it took ten days.  But on the way she rode a donkey and that helped her. 


There was no room at the inn so Joseph found close by a stable and Jesus was born in the stable and laid in a manger.  And so Jesus was born in  Bethlehem.   



There was a angel that said to the shepherds that they had to go and find the baby Jesus, but they were surprised and the angel said go to  to a new born son, Jesus Christ and Mary and Joseph.  When he was born there was a new star in the sky and the three wise men followed it to Jesus.








 And they found Mary and Joseph and gave them gold, frankincense and muir.










The reason they named him Jesus is because they had a good feeling about him.  That is the story.  And when he was older he became Jesus Christ and he was kind, giving and thoughtful.  And so he sacrificed himself in Gethsemane for all the sins we had.  It hurt so bad to him.  Another time he went on the cross for us and they put nails in his hands and he got resurrected and the people didn't believe it was him and it actually was. 

 

Under the Christmas Tree

When I was first married, I met a girl that showed me how to wrap every branch of a Christmas tree.  So now that I know that you can, I give it a good try.  It makes the tree so beautiful at night.  After we got all of the ornaments on the little girls started dreaming about sleeping under the Christmas tree.  This is so nostalgic to me.  I dreamed of that every year.  It is pure magic.  My dream was right under the tree.  My childhood Christmas tree was a little more sparse and not so close to the ground.  You could literally sleep under the Christmas tree. for these three they were having a sleepover in the front room with the lights out and the Christmas tree lights on.  they also watched the Grinch.

  Livvy and Nat are in their vintage nightgowns made by Grammie.  Those nightgowns remind me of my Christmas past as well.  

 

 They allowed me to take a few pictures, then demanded that we turn the lights off. It was a hit and they had a lovely night.

Disneyland

We just had a whirlwind trip to Disneyland! It was not in our plans, but then Jeff had an opportunity to go to a conference for investors near Anaheim, so with some finagling and the kids helping with tickets, we went for it.  We started our trip Tuesday night, Dec. 2 and drove until we reached the Mayfields, our friends who have recently moved to Utah from our ward.  Actually the drive wasn't bad.  It didn't hurt that the Mayfields were so fun and hospitable.  The next morning we got going on to California. We all expected it to be painful, but it wasn't awful either.  Going to Nauvoo may have gotten the kids in the driving mode.  The best part of the drive was that Annalisa had games and activities for every hour (I will blog about this just in case anyone wants some travel ideas).  It was pretty dreamy.
Then we got to our hotel by 6:00pm. Jeff dropped me off by the gates of Disneyland, so I could buy the tickets.  It was raining the whole time and rained until about 4:00am. We got settled in and got a good night's rest.

We woke up filled with excitement.  We're going to  Disneyland!!!!!!!

These first few pictures are pretty blurry.  We used an old ipod. The second day the pictures are a lot easier to look at.

 It didn't rain once while we were in the park.  In the morning it seemed like a lot of the rides were closed because they were drying out.  So we ran to the Toy Story Mania and got on in about 20 minutes.

We did Grizzly Rapids in the morning when it was cooler, so we could get some rides in before others riders came.
We kind of ran everywhere we went the first day because we wanted to be sure to get all the rides.  I'm so glad that we did because Friday was a lot busier and had longer waits. 

Cars was closed at first, but we got our fast passes later and luckily got on.  This ride is so fun.  Some day we will get to ride it more often.  It is definitely a favorite. The next day we couldn't get fast passes and tried to be single riders, then it closed.  Then when Jeff came we tried the single rider again and he got on.

We did Soarin', Indiana Jones, Pirates, The Aladdin Show, Splash Mountain (Anna and I did this one at night and without our rain ponchos.)  We lucked out so bad and did not get too wet.  Tower of Terror was with Natalie, Olivia, Anna and I.  They really know how to give you the creeps by the time you get on that ride. The others had already done it and didn't really care to do it again, so they did Symphony Swingers and the Ferris Wheel.  We went on Space Mountain a few times, Star Tours and  Buzz Light Year.

Innoventions had Captain  America and Thor.  Anna and I got fast passes, while the others met these guys.

The Thor really looked good.

My favorite thing that we did on the first day/night was go on Thunder Mountain Railroad during the fireworks show.  It was the most magical moment at Disneyland.  I would recommend it to anyone.  It was so cool!

So the next day we got up bright and early and took a few family pictures on our way to fantasy land.

We rode It's a Small World first because you just gotta and we pretty much walked on.  Then we did the tea cups and had only been in Fantasy Land for about 30 minutes, when the big kids were ready to leave.  We were hoping to run into a lot of characters.  So they left for Tomorrow Land.  Liv and I stayed for a few more rides hoping to see someone.

We rode the carousel and
Dumbo with my favorite color of elephant.We just couldn't wait for 50 minutes to ride Peter Pan or Snow White.

Then guess who we ran into?  Who gets to hold hands with Captain Hook and walk down the street?







By chance we ran into Sleeping Beauty while she was going to her destination.

Then our favorite characters came along while we walked toward Tomorrow Land.  It was Studio C.  I'm realizing that some people don't know them.  They are a comedy group that have episodes on BYU TV.  This is James and Matt, who are actors and Matt is a writer as well. The rest of them were there, but I didn't see them.  Livvy told me later who else was standing there.  So when we told Kristen, she was so disappointed.  Later at night she saw them and took a picture with Kate's ipod, but at least she got to talk to them. 

This is Kristen, Natalie and Anna's night picture with Studio C.

The ride we rode the most was Space Mountain.  Everyone likes that ride.  The first day when we went Livvy wouldn't go.  She said that she had been dramatized by it last time. Finally by our second time, she said Ok and ended up loving it so much that she wanted to go again and was sad when the ride was over.

This was our best ride picture.  Kristen and Kyle didn't even plan it together.  We laughed at how perfect it turned out.

California Adventure was a little less busy on Friday than Disney, so we ran over there and met some characters.

We were really lucky to see Goofy.  He had a street show right after our picture.

The "Five and Dime," was my favorite show.  They played Ain't We Got Fun, Blues Skies, etc.  Then the main singer was acting like she was looking for a man and she was walking toward Kyle.  Kristen was laughing so hard.  I thought she was going to choose Kyle, then she chose this old guy behind him.  She sang, "I Wanta Be Loved By You." Kyle would have died.  Then she gathered a group of girls to do the show.  Nat and Liv jumped in.  It was a darling show.

Then we ran into Mickey. 

The Green Army Men let kids be in their show as well.

Finally Jeff joined us on Soarin' Through California.  It was so great to have him with us.  Jeff  is the reason we got to go and he had to be in meetings.  He actually enjoyed the meetings. 

Natalie and Olivia got their gumption up and finally wanted to ride Screamin'.  I personally have loved roller coasters for a long time, but I know they are not for everyone.  So they chose.  Natalie was a bit nervous.

Kristen expected to be nervous, but claims no. 

Here we go!  They both ended up loving it.  Natalie went again with Annalisa.

While Dad and the big kids tried to get on Cars, Liv and I rode a Tow Mater ride and got to see Lightning McQueen and Tow Mater. 

Bugs Life was the last character.  Then we watched the parade in California Adventure, the kids traded a few pins and then we rode the bus back to get some dinner at Taco Bell. At this point Olivia was done, so she and I stayed and the others went back to play until almost midnight.

This was our last family picture before we left to go eat.  It was so fun and so worth it.  We did not expect to get this family memory, but it just worked out. It didn't hurt that it was Christmas in Disneyland with carols being played and decorations everywhere.  The drive home was all done on Saturday, and it ended up going OK.  With Anna's games and activities and watching some Christmas movies we were fine.