O holy night

here is a picture from Israel of what a stable looked like.

Another Israel picture. This is a manger.

Well, we couldn't go home for Christmas, so we did tele-Christmas.

Here's Shontel sporting a new 'do and the latest trend in green sweaters.

I'm pretty geeked about this one...literally. I almost snorted.

Happy Anniversary!

12 years ago we had our first date. Stop laughing. Yes, if there's any reason to celebrate, we do. Speaking of celebrating, I am pretty excited about celebrating Jesus' birth.

One of my frequent places to be while cross-country skiing up or down mountains--on the ground. Joel just does laps while I take my breaks.

Tonight we went to a homeless shelter and made a Polar Express train out of graham crackers and lots of candy. These were my two side kicks for the night.

The kids were very inventive with the candy decorations. Not pictured here is them throwing gum drops at each other.

And my favorite character of the night: the Incredible Hulk.

We skied today and wished that we had sunsreen! It was very sunny and warm. (warm for winter on top of a mountain)

Mineral Basin

The back side of the mountain was open --definitely a new adventure. Maybe this picture doesn't do justice to the steepness and difficulty of the terrain. Personally, I would be happy in a lawn chair, just sitting back to observe these crazy Utahns who all seem like they could be stuntmen for some thriller movie.

Who needs skis?

Here I am trying to perfect what I believe will be the next cool olympic sport. The snow belly-flop is becoming all the rage out here. Actually, I went off a sweet jump, my skis stuck in the powder on my landing, and Shontel just got this part of it on film.

Here's Trevor fortifying my humility. Thanks, Trevor.

Santa comes to Salt Lake a little earlier than the rest of the country. But this Santa's name is Mike and he smokes and drives a semi-trailer. If you need Santa to deliver something to a parking lot near you, please contact Mark at
Premier Freight Management Corporation.

Here's a pretty one we got while we were crosscountry skiing today.

See how my new hat matches my neckwarmer?