1. It snowed 3x this week. 

2. We enjoyed a Sabbath with NO meetings, events, or obligations (beside the usual 3 hours of church). We spent the afternoon watching a movie with a score by Thomas Newman and it was marvelous.

3. Todd's reaction to the red quinoa in tonight's dinner:

"How am I supposed to eat this? It looks like baby grapes that didn't grow."

Duke

Today we partook in our favorite pastime: a scenic drive. We've yet to find a good route, so we meander around. We ended up driving all the way to Durham and figured we might as well go find Duke. 

We walked through the chapel and the surrounding dorms, which all match.  Maybe we muttered under our breath (more than once) how vastly superior UVA's Jeffersonian Neo-classical is to Duke's Gothic, but whatever. Still loved it.

Warmth

Every January when I get my new calendar for the year, I mark down the day the average high temperature is expected to be 50 degrees. I get cabin fever easily and I love being outside. I live for the random Spring Preview days of January and February. Early Spring-like weather makes me absurdly happy, and this weekend it was 75 degrees. In January. Heavenly!

This was my favorite weekend we've spent in Raleigh. On Saturday, we went to the baptism of one of our cute primary kids then had a great dinner downtown with a few couples from our ward. We took a walk Saturday and a bike ride Sunday through a park by Falls Lake, which is 5 minutes from our house but seems like wilderness.

I'm usually too cheap to buy flowers, but I couldn't resist bringing home a bunch of tulips this weekend. Todd looked at me funny when he saw them and said "you MUST be in a good mood." Yep.

Christmas 2012

I think Utah is the best place in the world for holidays, especially Christmas. Temple Square has the best Christmas lights and performances. So many houses put up lights. The mountains are covered in snow and the odds of having a White Christmas are favorable. And if you visit my parents' ward, you'll hear what's probably the best ward choir in the church.

This Christmas, we had proper family pictures taken for the first time in more than five years-- since Richard moved to Seattle and Todd and I keep moving all over the earth, we're rarely all together in one place! 

Awww.

Todd's grandparents took us to dinner and we spent the better part of two evenings teaching them how to use an iPad, a cell phone, and Skype (which blew Grandpa's mind). I love that they keep up with technology. I wish we lived closer so we could help them with things like that more often. 

It snowed like two feet on the 24th and 26th-- I count that a White Christmas! Todd mixed up his usual repertoire of Caitlin Torture with a snowball fight.

We got to see a couple of my best friends for a quick lunch on Christmas Eve, which was marvelous. We hiked down the street and the Krasons picked us up... Todd would have driven, but I was chicken (and looking for an excuse to take a walk in the beautiful snow). You can't tell from this picture because the driveway is heated and thus without snow, but there was a LOT of snow.

On Christmas Eve, we ate Cafe Rio, sang hymns, and played Poker. Yes, Poker. We planned to do a Family Olympics, with various non-athletic events and points to the victors. Due to the timing of our trip, the Olympics didn't work out exactly as planned. But we did manage to bowl (Todd won) and play Poker (Shelbey won), and Todd ended up with the most points. So the Greatest Ballantyne 2012 is... a Waddell. :)

Christmas was wonderful, as always.  The best part, truly, was just hanging out with the family. We haven't seen my brother in a year and only see my parents and sisters every few months--you grow up and like your family more, and then you don't get to see them very often!

We opened presents late in the morning and Dad made his traditional banana nut waffles for brunch. We also saw Les Mis--I have had a different one of its songs stuck in my head ever since!

Merry Christmas from us!