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Halliday Family Blog

Halliday Family Blog/

Christmas Eve Activities

Christmas Eve is always a memorable time around our house!  As in years past, we got together with friends for a great and also spiritual evening of food, service, acting, and fun!

This evening, we got together with 2 other families for our 4th annual Christmas Eve festivities.  We started off having a wonderful meal and ate a ton of food!

After finishing up our dinner, we sat down and determined which families we would go Christmas caroling to.  We each bring 3-4 plates of goodies and then we caravan around the neighborhoods, piling out of cars, tramping up the sidewalks as a big herd, and then singing really loud when folks answer the doors.  The kids really enjoy doing this and it brings warmth to our hearts on such a cold night.  This year, we went to a family who are BIG Utah Ute fans.  When they answered the door, we all sang the BYU Cougar fight song at the top of our lungs!  🙂  He went and grabbed his Utah flag and started waving it in the door!  We all had a great laugh and continued on our way.  We went to 10 homes before going back to our house to finish up the festivities!

Every year since I can remember, we have acted out the nativity play every Christmas Eve.  We have included these friends and the more we have the more fun, spiritual, and humorous it is.  This year, we had all the roles covered and we got a bunch of great pictures!  We even were able to add Isaiah as well as Simeon and Anna.

When we were done with the nativity play, we went upstairs and finished off the evening together with hot chocolate and a bunch of treats!

As we were eating and enjoying each other’s company, Sarah and Brittany played a Christmas flute and violin duet for everyone.  They did a great job!

Once we were all full, tired and ready to go to sleep, our friends left, we cleaned up, left a plate of cookies out for Santa, and the kids went outside with their reindeer food (oatmeal), and spread it out on the lawn in anticipation of Santa coming.  We all then went to bed!

Whew!  What a fun but exhausting day!  🙂  Good night everyone!  See you on Christmas morning!

By |2011-01-31T07:27:48-07:00December 24th, 2010|Home Life|0 Comments
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School Out!

The kids are really excited!  Today was the last day of school before Christmas Break (or should I say Winter Break to be politically correct)!  🙂

Brittany and Sarah finished up their finals and were VERY relieved to be done with them!  This semester has been a tough one for them, but they have worked hard and their grades are pretty good.  They have some improvement to do, but they’re working harder than at the first of the year.  Kirstyn will probably miss school over the break the most!  Ben will get really anxious having all those kids home for that long.  He really likes being at home with mom all by himself!  🙂

By |2011-01-25T14:07:40-07:00December 22nd, 2010|Home Life, School|0 Comments
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Christmas Sacrament Meeting Program

Today we had a Christmas program during Sacrament Meeting at church.  It turned out wonderfully well.  The choir performed a cantata in which Brittany and Sarah both sang, and Sarah played her flute as accompaniment during one of the songs.  They sounded really good.  They like singing in the choir, since they aren’t in chorus at school.

By |2011-01-25T13:53:10-07:00December 19th, 2010|Church|0 Comments
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Ward Christmas Party

Tonight we had our Ward Christmas Party and we had a great time!  Santa came first and the boys were really excited!  They couldn’t wait to get to the church and tell Santa what they wanted.  As is to be expected, every time we ask the boys what they want from Santa, the list changes dramatically!  🙂

We then had dinner and a great program.  The whole theme of the party was around being other people’s angels (we had a project leading up to the party where we were supposed to put all of our change into a Christmas jar and then give it to someone in need).  The program was well put together we enjoyed listening to the kids sing (who all dressed up like angels), readings, and songs where we all sang.

By |2011-01-25T13:44:42-07:00December 18th, 2010|Church|0 Comments
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Academic Planning Night – YIKES!

Angela went up to the high school tonight for the Academic Planning event the school was holding.  It never ceases to amaze us at how fast time is flying!  In less than 18 months, Sarah could be starting college (if she gets in on a summer track).  If not, only 21 months!  Yikes!  The whole time they were talking about college financing, scholarship options, etc., Angela couldn’t help thinking about how we used to give Sarah baths in the kitchen sink (clean of course) when we were back in Provo at school!  🙁

By |2011-01-25T10:21:14-07:00December 14th, 2010|School|0 Comments
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Trip to Dell in Texas

For the last 3 days, I have been in Austin Texas at Dell Corporation.  We are rolling out a new internet-based product that will help us with our asset management.  The trip was a lot of fun and we had a great time!  In addition to the great people at Dell training us on what we needed to do to make this product a success, we stayed at a great hotel (Intercontinental Stephen F. Austin), ate a ton of good food, and had a lot of fun.

What I always think is funny when I visit Dell is the fact that all the doors/entry ways to the buildings have stickers on them that say that no firearms are allowed in the buildings.  Only in Texas where everyone is “packing heat!”  🙂

The second night we were there, we went to an AWESOME restaurant that has some incredible “wild” food, named Hudson’s on the Bend (http://www.hudsonsonthebend.com).  For our appetizers, we had diamond back rattlesnake cake in a pistachio nut crust and venison wrapped sea scallops.  For our entrees, I had the Hudson’s Mixed Grill, which consisted of venison and rabbit tenders, smoked quail, game sausage, and buffalo.  Others had duck, elk back, and pheasant.  It all tasted wonderful!   The restaurant itself was pretty cool as well.  It was in a converted home, and we ate in what looked like what used to be a bedroom.  They had apples hanging from the ceilings all over the place as well (in preparation for Christmas)…

I also saw a sign at the restaurant that I absolutely loved that I wanted to take home with me and put right in the middle of our living room:

I laughed really hard when I read it and couldn’t help but thinking of Ben!

Our last night in town, we went into downtown Austin and ate dinner at a GREAT Tex Mex restaurant and then hung around the main street there which makes Austin famous.  It is EXTREMELY weird and liberal and they are proud of it.  We went to Pete’s Dueling Piano Bar (no alcohol for me) and listened to the musicians.  They were amazing!  Any request that came in, they could play.  They were pretty funny too!

It’s nice to be back home with the family now.  I really missed them and was really bummed that I couldn’t go to Sarah and Brittany’s Collage Concert at the high school.

By |2011-01-25T10:17:38-07:00December 10th, 2010|Work-Related|0 Comments
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Metea Valley Collage Concert!

Tonight, Sarah and Brittany participated in the 2nd Annual Metea Valley High School Collage Concert!  They did a great job!  Unfortunately, I was out of town and was really bummed that I missed it.  Angela took Kirstyn and the boys and went and it was quite the experience for her.  I think that Ben kicked the back of the chair of the guy in front of them at least 3000 times.  🙂

Sarah played with the band and Brittany played with the orchestra.  Unfortunately we didn’t get any pictures due to Angela’s hands being completely full with little boys!  🙂

Great job Sarah and Brittany!

By |2011-01-25T09:41:18-07:00December 8th, 2010|School|0 Comments
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Let it Snow!

Today was the first big snow of the season!  The boys were totally pumped to go outside and play in it.  They got all bundled up and had a chat about what they wanted to do outside.  The first thing they decided on was to try and build a castle.  That said, they got out their snow block makers and went to work…

That lasted a little while (no more than 15 minutes) 🙂 and then they decided to build a snowman.  They used snowballs for the eyes and nose, drew a smile with their fingers, and added sticks for arms.  It was pretty funny but cute.  🙂

After about an hour and a half outside, they were pretty cold and wanted to come in.  They were frozen little snowmen themselves.  🙂  Nothing that a little hot chocolate couldn’t help!

By |2011-01-07T11:42:52-07:00December 4th, 2010|Home Life|0 Comments
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Naperville Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast

Today was the Naperville Mayor’s Community Prayer Breakfast that they hold annually.  This is hosted by the Heritage YMCA in Naperville.  This year, Angela was on the board to plan and produce the event!  🙂  She was in charge of all of the music.

The program included music which Angela arranged, scripture and special guest speakers.  Jack Lund, CEO and president of the YMCA of Greater New York in New York City, was the guest speaker and did a GREAT job.  Food was provided by Belgio’s Catering, and Naperville Mayor George Pradel lead in the reading of the litany.

Musical entertainment was provided by Waubonsie Valley High School junior Josh Blue a friend of Sarah’s.  Angela was very excited to get him to sing.  He is also a pianist, trombone and bass guitar player and singer.  He played Javert in the WVHS’s spring production of “Les Miserables” (which blew us away!) and frequently volunteers his musical talents at nursing homes, on church mission trips and for organizations like Feed My Starving Children and KidsMatter. He recently has been selected to participate in R.Ed.I (Restore, Educate, Inspire), a pop musical show that performs for Illinois high school students addressing issues related to peer pressure.

In addition, the group Friends in Harmony performed.  This group consists of many friends from church.

It turned out to be a spectacular event and one that I wish I could have gone to.  I stayed home with the kids while Angela did her thing there.  Great work Angela!

By |2011-01-06T07:11:21-07:00December 2nd, 2010|Church|0 Comments
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The Builders!

Today was a day of building stuff!  Ben is really into his blocks and building castles and such.  He loves to build stuff and then when he is finished, he finds us and wants a picture taken…

Once the picture is taken, he then wants to see it to make sure it’s OK and he approves of it.  He is quite the funny little guy!

Kirstyn built a beautiful gingerbread house today at Activity Days for church and couldn’t wait to show us when she got home…

She likes her picture taken with stuff she does as well.  She doesn’t always ask to see the picture once it’s taken, however.  🙂

Great building job, everyone!

By |2011-01-06T06:55:16-07:00November 27th, 2010|Home Life|0 Comments
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Black Friday!

This year, we are trying to take things a little lighter and not buy as much as we did last year.  We want to spend more time this season contemplating the true meaning of Christmas and not spend it shopping!  We got a large chunk of our shopping out of the way today and were very happy!  🙂  We try as hard as we can to stay away from stores, especially on Black Friday!  Amazon is our new best friend in helping us out with this!  The cool thing is that not one thing we bought today cost us a penny for shipping!  🙂

By |2011-01-03T12:23:32-07:00November 26th, 2010|Home Life|0 Comments
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