"Christmas (& 54th Wedding Anniversary) Is In the Air," 2021

I love Christmas!

Dad set me up for it in childhood, when I'd watch him get excited like a little kid - placing old-fashioned silver shimmering icicles on our "real" tree, lined up just so, and when I'd watch his face on Christmas morning as Mom would open his beautiful, professionally-wrapped packages, which usually included lovely clothes from Earl's Dress Shop, that family friend, Marge, helped him pick out. I'd be more excited to see what she got than what I did. 

I have such happy memories of Christmas as a child, 

and, then, such happy memories of it while raising our children.

I'm so grateful we can be carefully out and about this year, as we were completely sequestered last year.

Our Christmas card back, 2021

Christmas card front

Our first party of the season was NAI's, held at the restaurant in the Entrada Golf Club. 

We had tasty meals of steak and halibut and played fun games for prizes. We won a bluetooth portable player 

and our table had fun figuring out puzzles and chatting and laughing together.

Dad's golf foursome (they play together every Monday morning) got together with spouses to go out to dinner and go over to Uffins's for dessert. Marilyn made the recipe for white raspberry bread pudding from Kneader's. Delicious dessert and great company!

When we got together in October for our Balladier reunion at USU, 

we learned about an upcoming Christmas concert that member Craig Jessop was conducting at the USU campus in Logan. Thirteen of us signed up for tickets. As it turned out, two days before the matinee concert we committed to on Saturday, record snows fell. If the concert would have been a day earlier, we would have probably been out of luck, as the roads would have been treacherous. We drove to Logan Friday, stopping first in SLC at Little America for a wonderful prime rib dinner, then drove to Logan and stayed overnight in a Marriott with some of our points. The roads were dry.

Here is the program. The chorus was made up of over 200 singers, including our own Balladier Marilyn, who drove from SLC each week to rehearse with them. 

Voctave, an acapella group from Florida and similar to Pentatonix,

 blew us away with their sounds and unbelievable talent!

This marvelous concert was totally worth the 12 hours on the road!

We missed our Branch Christmas party and an HOA Board Christmas party that same weekend, but we would do it again in a heartbeat!

A quick pic with Carol and husband, Karl.

Voctave performing - gorgiosa!

Even with masks on, the chorus and orchestra sounded magnificent!

Pam and Dennis and Don had already left after the concert. We took this pic when Marilyn came to talk to us. 

Mark is half cut out! Don's wife, Kathy, wasn't feeling well and was unable to come.

We celebrated our 54th Wedding Anniversary, which has become a tradition since moving to St. George, 

in Las Vegas, with an overnight in a hotel and yummy, gourmet food and Christmas shopping.

We love having the pris fixe lunch at Milos on restaurant row in the Venetian.

I love the fresh whole fish they serve that is flown in fresh from Greece!

Our appetizers were oysters on the half shell - yum!

We walked through to the Palazzo after lunch and took pics by this giant love, perfect for our anniversary!

We shopped a little in the Fashion Show Mall. For dinner we had reservations at The Capital Grille. 

We had lunch there once with a pris fixe menu during Las Vegas's Restaurant week. It was so delicious, we had to go back!

We had reserved a table the month before, and it had a great view out the window! Our waiter was very friendly and helpful.

We shared a wedge salad, and Roger had a porcini mushroom-dusted, balsamic sauced ribeye steak . . .

. . . and I had sea bass with porcini mushroom sauce and asparagus.

Fish for lunch and for dinner for me . . .what could be better!

They treated us to this delicious chocolate mousse pie.

Next morning, we enjoyed bagels and a shmear from this great place down the street from our hotel. 

We then shopped a bit more, then drove back to St. George.

Such a fun little get-away right in the middle of the busy Christmas season! 

I feel pretty lucky to be married for all of these years to such a great guy, 

whom I respect and love dearly!