December 2025!

By Helen Sullivan - August 21, 2026

Sean, building his weekly spelling words into a crossword puzzle. He comes up with his own words and they are often tricky ones but he's handling it!

Sophie does homeschool with Sean on Mondays so that I can get out with friends on a weekly adventure in the mountains. Bless her!

Sean likes to write exclusively in capital letters, so we are working on getting the lowercase letters down.

Last week we calculated the density of this sample of iron pyrite to determine its purity.

Casey and I joined the Sundberg's for dinner at the Dodo Restaurant and then downtown to the Delta Center to see comedian Nate Bargatze. (We had seen Ryan Hamilton at the Wise Guys Comedy club the weekend before so we were on a comedy roll.) It was a blast. The opening comedian played off of several people on the front row, including Lindy's good friend, Sam Skanchy!

Lucky for Sam, he knew what the year 1776 was all about! (One teenager and one adult before him did not, incredibly.)

Sean and Lindy on a Saturday training hike up Heugh's Canyon. It was such a beautiful day.

Casey and I up Heugh's Canyon.

Sean and Lindy on yet another training hike. We've been taking them out at least once a week to prepare for climbing Kilimanjaro.

Sean, playing in the stream in the canyon.

He was mesmerized with the mossy rocks.

Cute Lindy on the Heugh's Canyon trail. We took Lindy and Sean out to Gary's Asian Bistro afterward since Sophie, Hallee and Zeke were doing baptisms at the Taylorsville Temple and then going to Raising Cane's.

Lindy with her Jenga temple, built on a Sunday afternoon.

We also made gingerbread houses that afternoon with more candy than we've ever bought. The checker at the grocery store the night before asked us, "What in the world are you going to do with all of this candy?" Instead of letting the kids gorge on the leftovers, I bagged them up to take to Africa. They can be quick fuel on Kilimanjaro.

Sophie with her amazingly creative gingerbread house.

The whole village.

Hallee's house.

Lindy's gingerbread house.

Casey's unfinished construction. Last year he never finished his intricate domed yurt house but his designs are always detailed and original. (This one remained unfinished as well.)

On Sunday, December 7th, we took the whole family (and Grandma White) down to the Cathedral of the Madeline for the annual Salt Lake Children's Choir Christmas concert. It was magnificent, as usual, and brought me to tears on several occasions (as it always does). The setting, the songs centered on the Savior and the sound quality in the cathedral speak the Christmas season to me. If you look closely, you'll see Sophie and Hallee just above the harp. Ralph Woodward always calls up any choir alumni present to sing the final few songs with the choir. It's a special tradition and I always love seeing Sophie and Hallee up there.

On December 8th, our hiking group did the first sled of the season down Porter Fork. The conditions were fast with an inch of snow and ice pack on the road. The skiers behind us are doing an epic photo bomb!

I sent Hallee a screenshot of this message (one that I see often, especially now that Hallee is a Junior) that I got from Skyline this morning. And . . .

. . . this is what she sent back! Sophie was out doing a workout on the Skyline track and Hallee skipped class to go and time her. That's what sister's do.

On Friday, December 12, Casey, Sophie, Lindy, Sean and I hiked to the Bell's Canyon waterfall. Zeke and Hallee were at school but Sophie is finished with classes at SLCC for the semester and just has a couple of finals left. We were diligent in getting in all of our training hikes to prepare for our Kilimanjaro attempt later in the month.

There was a group of middle aged ladies hiking in front of us, decorating trees (an annual tradition for them).

Cute Sophie Gene.

Sophie, Casey, Sean, Helen and Lindy at the waterfall up Bell's Canyon.

On Saturday, December 13th, we staged a "Faux Christmas." Since we leave for Africa on December 16th and our kids can't fathom not celebrating Christmas at home, we staged an early holiday. This meant that we did all of the customary things--the kids stayed up late watching movies in the girl's room, we woke up at 7 am and read the Christmas story from the Bible, we wrapped presents and hung up stockings. Everything. All of it. We even crafted a traditional German dinner on our "Faux Christmas Eve" and invited Brunhilde Zunkowski, Shirleen Farley and Sharon Stubbs over to share it with us. Brunhilde treated us with several remarkable stories from her childhood in Germany.