A Reason to Party

I'm taking the liberty to write about this, because our blog has pretty much become our family journal since we've been married. So here it goes...

My dad is actually retiring! It's been a long process the last few years, but he finally made it. Well, we couldn't let this momentous time go unrecognized. So we decided to plan a little family party! It was a lot of fun to just do the planning. Since he's a banker we did everything around $$$ and even had his face printed up on some pretend money. It looked so real a few of the younger grandkids thought it was better than real money. We spent the whole day in SL in their main office where my dad's worked for the past 30 years! We ended up doing everything on the 21st floor. It was great and such an amazing view of the city.  The day started by walking across the street to temple square and we took some family pictures...since the whole gang was in town. Then the party started! He took the grandkids on a tour of the whole bank, we played some a bunch of different games (including BINGO which is a tradition at the annual bankers convention we've been to many times in Sun Valley) as well as some hilarious "minute-to-win-it" games. All in all we had a splendid day together and am so thankful for a hard working dad throughout my life. He's a wonderful  example to me!

Independence Day Celebrations

Each year I look forward to the 4th of July and all that this holiday brings. This year we did things a little different with my parents on vacation in Europe. Usually we all head home and celebrate in Kaysville, but this year all of my family came down this way to join in the festivities. We had my little brother Matt and his family visiting from Texas and kicked off the weekend with a big family BBQ.  Then it's becoming tradition to run a 5K in the morning. So this year we tackled the Freedom Run in Provo. I'm so proud of my 9 year old nephew, who ran his second race this year. It's so fun to see him get excited for the race. The race was great and we got to see all the hot air balloons rise over our heads as we ran the parade route. Then we found the rest of the family and watched the amazing Provo parade (this was a first for me and Stephen and I would have to say that it's quite a step up from the little parade in Kaysville.) Then we spent the next two days swimming, eating yummy food, watching movies, fireworks, and having more BBQ's with friends and family etc. It was a constant party for a good 72 hours. We had a great time and loved having everyone come down our way.

Playing in the Pool

Watching the fireworks on a chilly 4th of July

Stephen and I enjoying the parade!

Me and my "little" brother :)

Relaxing with uncle Stephen

Our Spontaneous Date Night

One thing that is very different about Stephen and I is that one of us is very much a planner and the other is totally spontaneous. I won't mention who is who, but let's just say that we've learned over the few short years that we've been married that there needs to be a balance of both of these in our lives. So sometimes and somehow we seem to find a balance between these two. Last weekend we decided we needed to be totally spontaneous. We've talked about doing this for a while, so maybe it was somewhat planned....anyways, here was our adventure!

1. We hopped into the car around 4:00pm not knowing if we'd have time to do it all but headed out anyways.
2. Made a quick stop at Wal-mart for a few supplies (ie. graham crackers, marshmallows, chocolate and a little gas can)
3. Headed up to my parents cabin.
4. We got there and packed up the 4-wheelers with all of our goods.

5. Filled them with gas and took off onto about an 18 mile trip to the Uinta National Forest.
6. Found a spot to build a fire overlooking an amazing meadow and felt like the only ones out there.

7. Went looking for wood and built a fire. (yes...Stephen had his doubts, but I built that fire all by myself!)

8. Ate a little PB&J for dinner.
9. Roasted some delicious marshmallows and snacked on smores till we were full.

10. Couldn't take in enough of the scenery, but decided we needed to pack up and go.

11. Heading back to the cabin we were stopped by the DNR and feared for our lives :)
12. After the long trip back to the cabin, we realized there was a small family of great horned owls hanging out on the deck of our cabin. We parked the 4-wheelers and watched them. Never have I seen such big and beautiful birds....and four of them at the same time, just hanging out. It was incredible.

13. Got back home in time to get some real food (aka hamburgers and shakes)
14. Climbed out onto our roof and watched the big fireworks from around the valley, under a blanket we kept warm as we ate our real dinner.
15. Realized it was 4 years ago, underneath the fireworks that Stephen held my hand for the first time and we started dating more seriously. Wow!!! How incredibly fast time has flown and what a wonderful ending to such a spontaneous night!

Cabin Time

We absolutely LOVE, LOVE, LOVE spending time up at my parents cabin. It has become our little home away from home. And we'll find any excuse to go up and play, which is nice because it's only an hour away.  My brother Ryan and his family were visiting from New Jersey and their trip wouldn't be complete without a few days up there. Stephen and I couldn't spend the entire time there because of work, but we were able to go up for a few days. It's always so fun to get away and relax. It's great when we're up there with family because it pretty much turns out to be. All the grandkids spend every waking moment outside, building forts, exploring, playing games, catching squirrels and getting filthy dirty in the process. While the adults spend time relaxing, chatting, eating and laughing. Oh and we can't forget the usual not showering for the day until about noon or so. Also, we must believe in the saying "where there's good food there's fun" there's always tons of food and I swear it seems like almost half of it is treats (donuts, ice cream, homemade goodies etc) It's all apart of spending time up there. Here's a few snapshots of this last time with Ryan's family.

New Eyes

I've been out of school now for three whole weeks and it has been wonderful. I feel like I'm just as busy as when school is in. I'm just busy in a different way with everything that gets put on hold the last 9 months of the year. It's kind of my catch-up time, with cleaning my house, errands, exercising, projects, yard work etc. Well, this year I was talked into doing doing ESY, which is a summer program for special ed kids. It's nice because it's only about 10 hours a week and it pays really well. So I thought I'd give it a try. We started our first week this week and boy my eyes were opened. We were paired with another teacher and given 3 aides for our 12 kids. Which seems like a lot of adults, but we needed everyone of them. We've been given K-1st graders with Autism. I feel like my eyes have really been opened to a whole new world in my profession. A lot of these kiddos are non-verbal or if they have language they just repeat words/phrases it has no meaning. They're in diapers, about 3 of them are runners, one who bites (himself and those around him), and others do the whole rocking/self-stemming thing. I'll be honest, the first day was a disaster. Neither me or the other teacher has worked with this ability level with autism. But each day has gotten better. We even had one boy cry for only 2 hours instead of 3. Progress right!?! Well, it made me indeed grateful for my own group of kids that I work with throughout the school year. Sometimes I complain to Stephen a lot about them. But I have gained a great perspective and respect for my profession. : )

Our new neighbors

So we've heard a lot of loud squawking out our window the past few weeks. A really loud and annoying sort of bird. I tried to ignore it, but the other day we finally found out what was making that noise. We live right next to a big field that lies between us and state street.  From our upstairs windows, we were were able to see over the fence and down into the massive weeds that cover the field. Stephen was able to capture some good pictures and was pretty excited. I'm surprised Stephen's never seen a real pheasant before!(expecially with his knowledge and expertise of birds) I couldn't believe that such a beautiful bird, could be so loud. They have nested with some females...so we might have a whole family sometime soon.

We Should Have Brought our Snowshoes!!!

So one of the things that both Stephen and I are passionate about is hiking, especially this time of year when the weather is getting warmer. This summer we've already been on a few hikes. But this last weekend tops them all. We've done a bunch of short mile hikes up to waterfalls close by our house and other local hikes. One of our goals this summer is to hike up to the top of Mt. Timpanogos, which is a peak that is around 11,700 ft. We've roped in some family to come and join us in July and are way excited for this adventure. Well this last weekend, we thought it would be fun to just start on the trail and see how far we could go. The weather ended up holding out on us and turining out to be great, so we hopped in the car and headed for the mountains. We started on the hike having a great time, but it was definately cold and windy! (probably somewhere in the low 40's) There were a few snow patches along the trail that we'd climb through, but about a mile and a half up the trail, we ran into the biggest snow patch I'd ever come in contact with. It was so big that we couldn't keep going and lost the trail. We did decide to have some fun with it though and slide down the 100 ft patch of snow. We were sad we weren't able to go farther, but ended up have a great time.

 

Here's Stephen making his way down the snowfield on the back side of Timp

Yeah, I'm trying not to fall on my face as we slide down. :)

This Old Man...

So for about the past 2 1/2 months Stephen has been rubbing in the fact that I was in my 30's and he was still only 29 and soooo much younger than me. Well, last week we celebrate the big THREE -OH and boy was it good!!! Stephen isn't much for big parties and such. So we headed up to my parents and went to lunch with my two sisters. With Stephen's request, we went to the best burger place around...Red Robin. After we stuffed ourselves with burgers and fries, we headed back to my parents for a little cake and celebrations. That night, we had some friend and more family over to our place for ice cream sundaes. And the next day had his cousins, who live close by come over for a Sunday BBQ. All in all we did lots of celebrating, with lots of family and with lots of yummy food. In Stephen's words..."It can't get much better than this!"

 Happy Birthday Stephen! 

Yaaahooooo!!!

Well, that about sums up how we feel. Stephen found an internship for this summer! It's amazing how everything has fallen into place. We've been searching since October for a job and researching companies all across the United States. After coming so close, but having no luck with any of them...Stephen finally decided to look at a few companies in Utah (if you know anything about Stephen, you know that he's ready to live out of Utah for a while...so this was a big deal) The week before finals, Stephen had four different offers all with companies in Utah. We were so excited and felt so blessed. We know that we're supposed to be in Utah this summer (for more than one reason) And we're going to live it up and play lots!
Congrats Stephen! I knew all your hard work would pay off. :)

The Madness of our March

I can't believe how fast this month has flown by! We've stayed plenty busy and haven't done much blogging. I thought I'd just give a quick update on all of our madness for the month.

{Night Skiing}
The first of the month, Stephen and I decided to take advantage of some two for one ski passes. We hadn't been all season and so we dusted off the ski's and headed up the mountain. It was great! We happened to plan it perfectly with fresh snow from a crazy March snow storm that had hit earlier that day. With lots of powder, it sure wore on us. We realized how out of shape we were when we couldn't move the next day.

{Basketball}

We have a little march madness craze going around our house this month! Every March I look forward to filling out my basketball brackets (Which are mostly a completely random guess) We've been having this friendly competition with my family the last 6-7 years and it's becoming quite the tradition. We all get into it pretty big (even my mom), which is funny because I don't think many of us really follow the teams during the season. But we sure get into it this month and I love watching all the games, especially the upsets! We even have bobble head trophy that gets passed around from winner to winner each year. Stephen won it last year and we've been proudly displaying it! Where will it end up next? Who knows? It doesn't look like either one of us will be in the runnings this year to win, since both of my final teams were out long ago.

{Rex Lee Run}

A few weeks ago I decided to run another 5K. It was kind of a last minute decision...and was really a motivation for me to get up early and run before I go to work. It's a great little run around BYU campus and seems like it's getting bigger and bigger every year. There were over 2,000 runners this year! Thank goodness we had good weather, although it's always a chilly run at 8:00 in the morning, but we survived. :)

{Cooking Class}
I taught my first cooking class this month! Crazy I know...but it was really fun! There's an amazing group of women with the MBA spouses association and I was able to help them out by teaching a freezer meals class. Well, I'm no expert by any means, but I've been trying to do more freezer meals since I've been married, so that meal time can be a little faster. I had fun researching and experimenting before the class. However, now that it's all said and done, I'm very relieved that it's over :)

{Working in the yard}

Just this last week I've been enjoying the warmer weather. Spring has been such a hit and miss so far this year. With one or two warm days and then snow and freezing cold temperatures. But the last few days, I was able work in our backyard and do a little spring yard work! It felt so great to get out and dig in the dirt! I can't wait to plant our garden this year. Everything is still a bit brown, but I do have a few flowers starting to pop up here and there. I love seeing all the tulips and daffodils! It means that spring is here!

{The Countdown}
That's right! We are counting down the day for Stephen to finish his second semester of the program! He's already registered for classes next year and has only about 10 more days left of classes before he dives into finals. He's getting pretty excited to be finished, although we still haven't heard on a internship this summer. He is also getting pretty burned out this semester. It has been way more busy and intense than last semester. I haven't seen him nearly as much. He's taken over 19 credits on top of many other things. (I honestly don't know how's he's done it all!) I'm so grateful for a hardworking husband! We're definitely going to celebrate when finals are done. I just wish I could be done too! :)

{Frogs}

Yesterday, I was talking to a friend of mine and she was telling me how she wanted to get rid of two little frogs. Call me crazy, but I decided to take them off her hands. She gave everything to me for them! My intention was to get these two little friends for my classroom. But I've decided to keep them home for a few days just to make sure that I can keep them alive! (I would hate to have a dead frog and tramautized kids) They are pretty cute and tiny. (maybe a bit bigger than a quarter) We'll see how long I can keep these two frogs alive! :o)

We're On The Hunt...

Or I guess I should say that Stephen is on the hunt right now for a summer internship for his MBA program. We have been eating, drinking and sleeping with this in mind the past three or four months. It's been a crazy roller coaster, I can't imagine next year when we're looking for a real full-time job. We've had a few close calls where he makes it past a few rounds of interviews and than they decide to take other people. He even had a fly back last month to Dallas and was catered with 4 other BYU MBA'ers for a weekend, but still no luck. I know that part of it is just the whole economy thing and that many companies aren't taking interns. And if they are they're only taking one instead of four or five. So I know that we're not the only ones feeling this way, because well over half the people still don't have anything. On the bright side of things, I feel that we're both learning and growing through this experience. We've also looked into companies that we wouldn't have considered earlier, which has been a good thing. But we're still keeping our fingers crossed with a few prospects. We'll see how things go.

Now that I'm 30...

Last Sunday was my birthday...and yes I'm now the ripe old age of 30. I think somewhere along the way I've miscounted. I certainly don't feel old enough to be entering a new decade. However, it was a nice and relaxing day. We took naps and had family over to our house for dessert. (I've decided that I really love having a birthday land on Sunday!) We really did most of our celebrating when we were in New York the week before. It was a wonderful day and I couldn't have asked for more.

Here are some of my most memorable top 30 things I've been able to see or do in my last 30 years!

1. Married my best friend
2. Earned my B.S. Degree in Special Education at Utah State University- Go Aggies!!!
3. Taught in 3 different school the past 7 years
   
4. During those 7 years, I've been able to associate with some amazing people (kids, parents, and colleagues)
5. Learned to play the guitar
6. Snorkeled with Sea Turtles in Hawaii
7. Started blogging. (Just another crazy addiction)
8. Saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace in London
   
9. Received the Crystal Apple Teaching Award
10. Had surgery on my knee followed by 6 months of therapy
    
11. Started running...and still love it!
    
12. Raced in over ten 5K or 10K races the past 4 years
13. Sailed in the Caribbean on a catamaran sailboat.
    
14. Went to my 10 year high school reunion
15. Became a big fan of the T.V. show "The Office"
    
16. Went to 4 different Olympic Events in SLC 2002 games
    
17. Volunteered as a coach for the USU Special Olympics basketball team
18. Saw the musical "Wicked"
19. Swam through some jellyfish :) (This was purely by accident!)
    
20. Flew in a small 2-seater airplane just me and my hubby
    
21. Was able to take over the controls and fly that small airplane myself high over the mountains
    
22. Been scuba diving
23. Became a True Aggie! :)
24. Received my ELL teaching endorsement
    
25. Saw the Eiffel Tower and ate delicious pastries in Paris
    
26. Swam in the great lakes...brrrrr it was freezing
27. Lived in 5 different cities all within the great state of UTAH!
28. Put in our own backyard...cement and all
    
29. Harvested vegetables from my very own garden
30. Bought my first home

Thanks for all the birthday wishes from all my family and friends!

Our Adventures in New York

Stephen and I decided to take a last minute trip! We had many good reasons why we should go...(a.k.a. our justification for spending the money while we're living on a student budget)

1. Stephen needed to do some networking for internships and prospective jobs.
2. We needed to see my brother and family...they've lived in New Jersey for almost 2 years and we've never been!
3. Who could ask for a better way to spend Valentine's Day and celebrate my birthday all at the same time.
4. Plus we found plane tickets for way cheap!

We bought tickets just 2 weeks before we headed out and we had an absolute blast! There's nothing like a last minute trip and although it was a chilly time of the year to visit, it was so good to get away from everything for a few days. We had a wonderful time and loved staying with my brother and his family. They are so darn cute and I realized how much I miss them. We stayed at their house and they live just around the corner from a train station. We would hop onto the train and ride about an hour into the city. We ended up spending 3 of our 5 days in the big apple. The first day, we spent the morning at the Museum of Natural History. (which looks nothing like in the movie, Night at the Museum) Then we headed 'downtown' to Wall Street where Stephen had an interview. While we were down there we saw ground zero, some amazing cathedrals, NY stock exchange. Then that evening we spent some time at the Manhattan Temple. It was neat to do some work and a great way to end the day in the busiest city ever!

Saturday morning was the coldest ever. It chilled us to the bone. We had tickets to the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island and walked the Brooklyn Bridge. After we headed to China town, where they were getting reading for the Chinese New Year, and had some authentic Chinese for dinner. After being outside almost all day, we decided to head home early. Even being bundled up we were frozen.

Our Valentine's Day was great! We certainly spent it with the ones we love :) Our cute nieces and nephews were sure excited. It was fun to be able to celebrate with them.

We headed back into the city on President's Day now thinking that we're pros at getting around. We walked through Central Park and down 5th Avenue (where we saw some ritzy stores...my favorite being Tiffany's :) Rockefeller Center and over to Times Square. However, the most exciting part of the day was when we we're able to get tickets to a taping of David Letterman for that evening.

Now this is quite a funny story....when we found out the day before that we had tickets we were pretty excited. We stood in line to pick them up at will call and somewhere along the way they told us that we must have impressed someone and they upgraded us to the first 2 rows of seats. We couldn't believe it! Things like this just don't happen to us. We had about 45 minutes to kill before we needed to be back to be seated and so we decided to walk around. When we were heading back we got mixed up and turned around, well I guess I should say we got lost. We were running up and down the blocks trying to figure out where to go. (which I'm sure was quite the sight to see) So needless to say we didn't make it to the "front row seats", but we still make it to the taping and were able to see David Letterman in person. It was fun to see all the behind the scenes stuff, but we were sure disappointed we didn't get back in time.

Can't I teach already...

All I have to say is I'm sick of doing sub plans. I've been out of my classroom five days the past two weeks. Don't get me wrong, it's all been great to be on vacation, attend a conference, and have other district meetings... but it definitely is so much more work to get things ready for a substitute. It was crazy how all these things came all at the same time. I was able to go to a literacy conference on Thursday and Friday, with about 10 other teachers/administrators from my school. It was a really good conference despite the fact that they kind of ragged on special education as a whole.
However, I'm definitely not used to sitting in a chair for 7 hours of the day. I have to laugh, because all I could think of was what happened to one of my little boys last week. I turned around to write something on the board and when I looked back towards the class, he had literally turned upside-down in his chair with his head hanging down to the floor and his feet kicked up high into the air. I admit I'm becoming more and more ADD like my kids at school.
I really miss my kiddos and am ready for a week of the normal chaos that goes on in my little room #107.

3 Years Ago Today...

We were married for Time and All Eternity.

This was the best decision I ever made!

I love you Stephen!

Motivation? ... or the lack there of

So...I always wonder how to motivate myself to exercise during the winter months. I don't know if anybody else has this same problem. The summer months make it so easy. I go running 3-4 times a week plus all the other summer outdoor activities, hiking, water skiing, ultimate frisbee, or taking walks with Stephen after dinner. But this time of year it's just so stinking cold that I lose every ounce of motivation. I'm always so drained after a long day of teaching, getting home around 5pm making dinner and dishes....I'm about ready for bed after all that. We do have a small exercise room at our complex that I need to take more advantage of. But it's hard to get myself even outside with these freezing temperatures. Well, Stephen found a way to help with this dilemma...it was the perfect Christmas gift. Thanks sweetheart!
I absolutely LOVE it! It really gives me a good workout. I'm using muscles I haven't used in a very long time. After a few weeks of using it I feel great! Working out during the cold months....bring it on...well in the comfort of my own home! Yea! Now for the rest of my New Year's Resolutions.....I'm still working on those.

2010

Happy New Year!!! I can't believe it's January and we're heading into a new year. Well, actually a new decade...time is going way to fast these days. I look back 10 years ago and what were we doing back then....?

Emily was...

• A sophomore at Utah State
• Enjoying the college life with roommates and friends
• Working towards applying to the special ed program and hoping to get in
• Left the teen age years and feeling more mature being a whopping 20 years old.

Stephen was...

• only 6 months into the mission field serving in Argentina
• still trying to figure out how to speak the Spanish language fluently
• hard at work :)

The world was...

• scared to death by the whole Y2K thing and had everyone in a panic, which really amounted to nothing.
• had just elected George W. Bush to office and didn't realized what this man would have to deal with during his term in office with terrorist attacks and our country going to war.
• reality shows on T.V. were just starting to come about
• the internet was something most of us still dialed-up to connect and was mainly used to check email

Crazy what we're you doing 10 years ago?

Our Christmas

It's crazy to think that Christmas has come and gone. With so much anticipation leading up to it...it's sad to see this time of year come to an end. We were definitely blessed to have had a wonderful holiday this year.
We spent Christmas this year with my family. It was nice not to have to travel very far for the holiday. We headed up on Christmas Eve where there were lots of Christmas festivities waiting! Matt and his family visiting from Texas and we were able to spend some time with them. We did our usual family traditions, baking Christmas goodies, eating a yummy dinner, singing Christmas songs as we set up the nativity, reading from the Christmas Story and opening up our Christmas P.J.'s.
Christmas morning was so fun with my brother Matt's little kids. I love seeing how excited they get. Cute Kayla was set on leaving Santa chocolate chip M&M cookies(which we specially made) and 9 carrots. It was darling to see her expression when she woke up and found them all gone and a special note left for her. We all had fun pulling out our presents and trying them out.
The next day, my brother Ryan and his family flew in from New Jersey and we were able to have our annual family Christmas Party. We are getting to be quite the group when we all get together. There are now 18 grandkids and then all the adults, it fills up my parents house pretty fast. We always have a great time together laughing and catching up.Grandpa reading the Christmas story on Christmas Eve.
Christmas morning...I love this contagious smile!
Opening our stockings...and yes I am a big David Archuleta fan!

In other news... Stephen and I have both been enjoying a little break from school. It's been such a relaxing week for both of us and has been so nice to have time together at home. He's starting to get geared up with the next semester of the MBA program. Currently, he's signed up for 19 1/2 credits. (Just too many good classes to choose from, I guess) I'm worried that he'll burn himself out pretty fast. Let's cross our fingers that he'll drop a class or two.
We've been filling up our time with hanging out with friends, attending our fair share of Christmas Parties and get-to-gethers, reading books, deep cleaning the house and laughing along with Stephen as we watch old episodes of 'The Office'. Why does this relaxing break have to come to an end?

Thanksgiving in Illinois

We decided to be adventurous this year and take a road trip to Illinois. Most people would call this crazy, but we were excited for the trip! Stephen's sister lives there and it was about 8 hours shorter than to drive all the way to Michigan. So everyone met up in Illinois. Stephen has two siblings out here, going to BYU. So with four drivers, it made it a lot more do-able. On the way out, we left at 2 am and drove all through the day. We didn't stop for anything but gas and food and we got there about midnight that evening. We had a great time and kept busy in the car watching movies, playing games, sleeping, reading and chatting about anything and everything. Once we were there and caught up on our sleep, we had a fabulous time. It was so fun to spend time with the Holden's. I am so grateful to have good in-laws. We don't get to see them too often, but we always spend so much time laughing together. And not to mention the good Thanksgiving food and yummy pies! We brought our camera, but played so hard we didn't even take a single picture...oh well. We headed back Saturday afternoon for the long haul. I would have to say the the 22 hour drive to Illinois wasn't so bad. But four days later, the 22 hour drive back to Utah was long and hard.

In the spirit of the holiday, here's the top 10 things I'm Thankful for this year...in no particular order!

1.My sweet & patient husband, Stephen
2.Temples and that I know families are forever
3.Moments when I have the clarity of thought to acknowledge that I can’t control what happens – only how I react
4.The sunshine!
5.Good health...knock on wood
6.My job
7.The Freedoms we have and all the many comforts I live with
8.Trials...in all shapes and sizes
9.My parents and their example to me
10.My kids at school who make me smile and tear my hair out all at the same time.

Kicking off the Christmas Season

I'm usually one of those people who will NOT listen to Christmas music, get out my Christmas Tree or do anything of the sort BEFORE the Thanksgiving holiday. I just think that Thanksgiving gets lost in all the craze of Christmas and what a better way to bring in the Christmas holiday than to remember what we are Thankful for. Well, this year I have to admit I did get a little excited. The weekend before Thanksgiving my mom had bought a few tickets to the Nutcracker. She enjoys taking all of her grandkids to the ballet (brave... I know!) So this year, I got to tag along with all my nieces and nephews. It was so fun to get all dressed up and go to a real ballet. It had been a very long time since I'd been to the Nutcracker. I love the music and the story and epecially seeing how excited all my nieces and nephews were. Cute Emma (who is 4 and has been taking ballet the past few months) kept shouting out "look there is a real ballerina! It was a great way to bring in the Christmas spirit and got me excited for this wonderful time of year! I will admit after seeing the Nutcracker, I couldn't help but braking out my Christmas music!