Christmas 2016

Christmas is Natali's favorite time of year. She starts playing Christmas music in November (I try to get her to play Thanksgiving music but that never works) and starts asking about putting up the tree as soon as Halloween is over. This year, I was able to hold off until after Thanksgiving so that was a win for me ;). 

My parents flew out to see us at the beginning of December. We had to continue our annual tradition of going to look at the Ice Sculptures at the Gaylord Texan and took them to go see everything. The theme was scenes from the classic movie "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." It is always amazing to see all the scenes made completely of ICE!!! And don't forget that we get to wear the stylish blue coats they give us so we don't freeze. 

By the end of it all, we were all freezing and ready to get out. But the end is the best part. A crystal clear ice Nativity scene. It is so peaceful and amazing to see the large scale Nativity Scene in something so pure and clean (very symbolic if you ask me). Sadly pictures don't do the real scene justice. The detail and magnitude of the scene are amazing. 

If you ever come visit Dallas in December, put this on the top of your list.

The Gaylord Texan Resort is also fun to walk around and take pictures during Christmas time. They go all out on decorations. 

And if you are going out to the Gaylord Texan, be sure to stop by the quaint town of Grapevine. Walking down the main street during the Christmas season will definitely get you in the Christmas spirit. Here is a little Gazebo that was all decorated. 

One of the reasons my parents came out to visit was to pick up the little Mazda that Natali had named Alice. Natali was sad to say goodbye to Alice. Her parents bought her the car as a reward for getting a full-ride scholarship to BYU and maintaining it so she had a LOT of memories in this car. 

We also like to try to go to a concert around Christmas and this year we scored when Natali's firm gave us tickets to the Suite at the American Airlines Center to see Andrea Bocelli. The guy is amazing, and to hear him sing in person was just amazing. Hearing more about his story and how he is helping in so many ways around the world was inspiring. 

Another Christmas tradition is getting dressed up and going to Natali's work Christmas party. Natali loves being able to get all dolled up and go to a fancy place and enjoy great company and food and have a great night. 

Natali always does her own hair (which people are always AMAZED at) and this year her hair was just amazing. We were having a lot of fun with it because one side of it looked amazing and elegant and classy, and then the other side looked almost like she was a rocker with a mohawk. 

And since we were already dressed up, we grabbed Royal and got a family picture. 

Isn't this girl just beautiful? Wow! How did I ever snag her?!?

We headed to St George for Christmas and we got permission to take Royal. But first we had to get him all ready. We had to give him a pawdicure and trim his nails so that he looked good and didn't scratch anyone up. He looks really happy about it, but don't be deceived.

The other preparation was getting him trained to fit in his little airline carrier. We worked with him for a few weeks before we left so he liked going in the little bag. It got to a point where if we had the bag out, Royal would just go and sit inside of it, so mission accomplished. 

Spending Christmas in St George with the Wysons means one thing: the annual Gingerbread House competition. Here are a few of the entries this year:

Jared and Sidney - Wizard of Oz house on top of the tornado

Jayden and random girl - Tangled tower

Dana and Jason - Hobbit hole in the Shire

And here is our Gingerbread house, including the prototype. We had to bake our own gingerbread for all of the additional roofs...

And here it is finished - Kung Fu Panda Temple

We were pretty happy with the finished product. Lots of planning and work went into it. You probably wouldn't notice but the "marble" looking floor was an accident but I think it turned out pretty cool. 

And Santa Paws decided to come and visit!!!

What is Christmas without family and food? Well we had a LOT of both!

Natali always likes to get some family pictures during Christmas time. 

One of Natali's go-to restaurants is Ernesto's where she always gets the cheese enchiladas. 

Natali was SO excited to go up to the red rock and get some pictures of Royal. Let me say that they did not disappoint. I could have made a whole blog post with just pictures of this little guy. He is a pretty photogenic pup. 

From red rock out to the snow when we went to visit Randi and Shane out in Diamond Valley. He wasn't too sure what to think of it. We thought he would love it because he is half Husky but I guess he didn't get that part of the husky...

Lucas absolutely LOVED hanging out and playing with Royal. Royal would just chase him all around the house and Lucas loved every second of it. 

We made it back home and all of the Christmas activities had these two tuckered out.