Enjoying the Family stuff in 2025

We rang in the new year with a lot of cousins and fun, the Star Wars Holiday Special, and a bit of culture!

For Christmas I got Paul, Laszlo, Lee, and myself tickets for Utah Symphony's John Williams concert. It went a little late for Laszlo's circadian clock, but we had to stick around for the encores (that's when they pull out the big guns like the Imperial March and the Indiana Jones theme!)

The boys had never been to Abravanel Hall before and this was their first real concert. There was a whole host of people in Star Wars and Harry Potter costumes posing for pictures in the lobby and of course the music was fantastic.

It really took till January for us to get any snow this winter. We did take advantage though and hit our favorite sledding hill.

We're mean, mean parents who made our kids go to the dentist during winter break. But this little weird carousel was in the building, so I guess it makes it okay?

 

Arthur is learning a lot at pre-school and is developing quite the artistic talent. he tastes do lean towards the macabre though. 

His play dough sculptures and drawings are truly the stuff of nightmares.

Lee had to travel for work in January, and he got to meet the man himself: Chef Boyardee!

Well, the statue outside the factory anyway.

I've been trying to make sure I got outside for a walk every day this winter and spring, and I decided to bring along my new camera to test it out on a particularly pretty day. I'm quite impressed with it so far, so I hope to be able to capture more birds with it in the future.

To celebrate my birthday, we headed downtown for a lovely sushi dinner and a trip to the Clark Planetarium. 

It might just be the most fun free thing to do in Salt Lake!

Arthur wanted his cereal not too soggy...He's a creative thinker! Paul's class had a special "Red Carpet" event for a movie they made. They learned how to make shadow puppets and the entire fifth grade created a movie of their shadow puppet adaptation of Don Quixote. Paul did an awesome job on his part.

Laszlo (who has been going by George more and more this spring) had a field trip to the Tree House Museum, and happened to get a photo in the exact spot where we took a picture of him as a baby. How adorable!

Spring time and Easter seemed to arrive very quickly, I think just because we were too busy to notice winter wrapping up.

We had what felt like 3 spring breaks in a row, none of them particularly restful. First was spring break for our Colorado cousins, so we were squeezing in as much time as possible with them. Then we had our own spring break wherein we played around at home with friends, no travel because if my ridiculously full rehearsal schedule. After that our California cousins decided to spend their spring break visiting in Utah.

I got to sing Holst's The Planets with the Utah Symphony, then two weeks later I sang Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms with Ballet West.

Lucky for me I have nieces who are into ballet and willing to cheer me on!

With the weather getting warmer, we have started trying to do Sunday hikes with the kids again. We went to Bountiful Pond and found some really excellent birds, including several pelicans!

We hit our favorite Easter activity and were so lucky to have our Jones cousins visiting who could join us...the rec center Egg Dive! I think it's the best egg hunt of them all. It doesn't matter how many eggs you get, everyone gets the same treat, and you get to swim in the fun pool, what could be better?

We did a fun Sunday hike up in Ogden, all the cousins on the Phillips side together was pretty special. The kiddos had so much fun playing around the creek together, complaining together, and eating fruit snacks together. We know better than to attempt a hike without fruit snacks.

Aubrie and George: two cousins who have gotten so much taller in just the last 6 months between visits.

We sadly had to get back to work and school and rehearsals after a fun weekend hanging out with cousins. But the Easter festivities didn't stop there! Arthur's pre-school had the kids "adopt" a marshmallow peep bunny. Arthur was equal parts eager and reluctant to eat his "pet" peep.

Amidst all the music rehearsals and performances, Paul and George (Laszlo) had their spring piano recital. They both did such an awesome job, they practiced a lot and they've made so much progress just since they started last fall. I really love hearing them practice and learn musical skills.

Not only that, right in the middle of all my nonsense, my dear niece had her final dance performance at Viewmont high School. Since I couldn't be there, I sent this little squad. George and Arthur actually loved it, Paul just liked it.

Easter weekend I wrapped up my marathon of classical music concerts and rehearsals with Mozart's Requiem with Utah Symphony. Have fun trying to spot me in this 100+ person ensemble!

I got to have a little cheering section during our final performance, which was extra lovely.

We prepped treats for the kids in an exhausted haze. Hoppy Easter!

It's nice to finally have some of my time back, which I suppose will be spent pulling weeds in my neglected yard. But we're still trying to make time for our Sunday hikes! Only now we're calling them "geocaching" because Paul currently thinks that is cool and he's willing to wander around the woods a little bit to find them. Like this one we tracked down in Mueller Park! maybe you can spot the metal box tucked away between Paul and Arthur...

Our lil' George Laszlo gets to take the credit of being the one who actually spotted both the caches we found. I may have been holding the GPS, but he's got the eye.

In Which we Celebrate 3 Birthdays, 2 Concerts, 1 Baptism, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the end of the World..er, I mean Year.

 

We didn't give up on our Sunday hikes as November rolled around but, as the first Sunday in November was exceptionally cold and a bit wet, we did take part of it indoors. We decided to walk around the state capitol building and the park just down the hill.

We did try to make this an educational opportunity to teach our kids some basic civics, but it may have gone over their heads. They were somehow exhausted and desperate to sit within five minutes of arriving.

It was quite beautiful inside and out, plus they've got free EV chargers in the public parking lot so it was a double bonus! 

November is the month of double birthdays at our house. Paul and Laszlo had a joint birthday party--a pool party-- at the rec center. I will admit, it might not have been their top choice of party spot, but I get a free party room rental as a rec center employee, so I kind of decided for them. They still had a really fun time with lots of friends.

Laszlo turned 8 this year and Paul turned 11. If that makes you feel old, you can imagine how it makes me feel. I owe these two for all my white hairs and the worry lines on my face!

I think Arthur had the most fun though, even though it wasn't his party. He just grabbed a parent or grandma and took off to have his own fun.

The next Sunday, it was a bit warmer and we decided to head out for a short hike and a play at the park. It was so CROWDED. Not with hikers, but with hundreds of people taking family photos, engagement photos, and senior photos in the brilliant light of golden hour. 

We managed to avoid being in their photos and getting them in our photos, and we found a potentially

 flee bitten chair. The kids were desperate to sit in it and I guess it was fine because we didn't come home with lice, fleas, or bed bugs.

Laszlo got nominated as student of the month so we got to go to a little lunch party to celebrate him and the other recognized students. We're really proud of him for earning this by being kind and friendly to his classmates.

We had a delicious and and cozy Thanksgiving with the Phillips clan up in Ogden. The kids might have missed the memo about eating a gigantic delicious lunch/dinner, because they ran off to play and were hungry again only an hour or two later. The rest of us are more experienced and know how to do this meal correctly.

The very first week of December saw the start of Christmas festivities. I kicked it off with the Utah Symphony's annual Messiah sing in. My first Messiah, and the audience couldn't even hear us over their own attempts at singing along. 

The city of North Salt Lake did an evening of Christmas lights, music, face painting, cocoa, cookies, and Santa. It was chilly, but a nice kick off to the festive season.

Arthur got his requested Jack Skellington face paint (he managed to keep it on almost through the entire next day) and Paul got a snow man (I made him wash off the faded, smudgy snowman after a couple days, but he kept it as long as he could.)

We made our first visit to the Christkindlmarkt at This is the Place, and here are some things I didn't necessarily anticipate: We tried to get there in the late afternoon and it was already very busy, with a long line of cars trying to park. So we cheated. We went to the zoo first.

Snapped a photo and everything. Then walked over across the street to visit the market. We got to hear my niece's Madrigal choir sing, we ate some delicious bratwurst and fresh donuts, and enjoyed a pretty legit Christmas market.

We even met a KRAMPUS.

It was, however, wildly crowded. Against the wishes of some of our children, we went back to the zoo for their Christmas lights.

It was so remarkably uncrowded in comparison, It felt like a breath of fresh air even though it is technically the same air and probably slightly stinkier.

We found not only a Santa Claus but also a Grinch!

The holiday lights were lovely, the carousel obligatory, but eventually we gave in to the pleadings of Paul that it was time to go home. Arthur is the one who really loves the zoo, the other boys are kind of "zooed out" at this point.

Every weekend we had something happening. The most important was Laszlo's baptism. He's such a cool kiddo and we're very proud of him for being so conscientious and kind to others and for deciding to get baptized. He asked his dad to baptize him and confirm him, which I know was special for both of them.

Arthur's big threenager emotions were not cooperating, so we didn't get a photo of all of us together at Laszlo's baptism. We get a mulligan and did a photo the next Sunday after the Christmas program, however.

Also that Sunday, the last one before Christmas, was the long expected party. The Burnett family Christmas party is a good time, this year it was a little extra special though. We decided to make a little game of "collecting" items from my parents house to bring to the white elephant gift exchange.

To top it all off, we got visited by Cousin Claus! Arthur was so thrilled to see Santa again, he could not figure out how Santa got to his cousin's house. 

As if that wasn't enough, we decided to go downtown to see the lights and candy window display at Macy's on Monday night. The lights were a bit lack luster, the crowds formidable, but the candy windows were very cool!

Finally Christmas Eve! So happy 4th birthday, Arthur! We decided to take him to the zoo to celebrate.

Winter time is a great time to see the polar bears awake and active plus there are cute little baby snow leopards. What's not to love? We wrapped up the night by putting on our Christmas jammies and eating a little brownie cake and ice cream.

We even got graced with a little dusting of snow on Christmas morning. How festive! Though they disagree, our children got spoiled (as per usual) and I think I got extra spoiled as I got a camera to replace the one that got ruined (through no fault of anyone but myself) which I hope to keep in mint condition for many years to come!

And of course the aftermath. The post Christmas clean up phase seems to last weeks.

I hope you and yours have the happiest of new years and that our January proves to be a little more restful than the previous few months have been.