Hunt Family Adventures : End of the Year 2025

The nice thing about being home after our 2 week Florida trip is we got to spend lots of time with our cute kitty. Lately he's started going right up to the TV and watching it intently, especialy when the kids were watching cat videos.

Here's Allison at her 4th grade showcase. They performed a Patriotic concert on Veteran's Day as a salute to the many armed service members and their families in our community. Our district doesn't take Veteran's Day off. They take the Friday before it off then observe the day itself with assemblies and patriotic activities.

Oscar and Tyler weren't able to make it to Allison's showcase since they were busy doing a "Where's Waldo" youth activity at the mall.

That same evening we got to see the northern lights, which is pretty rare for southern Colorado. These photos are better than what we actually saw with our eyes. Cameras focus on light much better than our eyes do, which makes for great northern lights pictures and terrible solar eclipse pictures.

This year we had an exceptionally warm November and December. I hiked in Bluffs Regional Park in Denver on my way back from an appointment and Oscar hiked the Manitou Incline. I saw a stag and two does during rutting season just as I was finishing the hike.

In spite of the warm weather, it was still beginning to look a lot like Christmas! I love watching Nibbler snuggle up to the stuffed animals under the tree.

On the 21st and 22nd I performed "Let the Bright Seraphim" and sang with the choir for Ascend Choir and Orchestra's fall concert. On Saturday night I received probably the best applause I've ever had in my life. It was an eruption! I think it surprised and impressed the audience that I sang without a microphone while literally standing in front of several microphones.

Here's some of Allison's art and her lining up all her Lego mini-dolls. In early December we had a couple snow days and a cat made its way into our yard. I wish we could have seen it! If it didn't have a home, I probably would have adopted it.

Oscar and Allison attended our rec center's daddy/daughter ball where he said all of the girls knew the words to "Golden" from K-Pop Demon Hunters. Allison also found plenty to eat, which was a change since she hasn't always liked what they serve at the daddy/daughter ball.

Oscar filmed a beautiful sunrise during one of his runs.

I took Allison to her art showcase, waited a LONG time to get our food at Noodles, then came back to do diamond art ornaments with my primary activity boys. I also got a nice selfie in church.

Allison had to have her Pyogenic Granuloma (PG) removed at Children's Hospital. It went well, but it wasn't until 2:00pm, so she couldn't eat anything all day until after the surgery. They gave her popsicles, I brought her some chocolate, and I took her out to Panera afterwards.

That same week was very busy for me. I played background music for my friend's networking group Christmas party, I attended a relief society Christmas party, I attended a cookie and ornament exchange, we went to the rec center's cookies with Santa, I sang up at the giving machines in Denver, we attended our ward's Christmas party, and I sang in church.

Here are our photos from cookies with Santa. We just had about an hour here because Allison had a birthday party to attend at AirCity 360.

I took Allison to the party then Oscar picked her up so I could drive up to Denver to sing at the giving machines.

The next Tuesday we attended Tyler's Christmas band concert then he participated in a gift exchange with the other Deacons.

There are 6 great Christmas light shows out in our little town of Falcon. These two are in the eastern part of town near hwy 24. The Old Spec one is well known, but the one in the cul-de-sac is not as well known and is much easier to park at and watch.

There's one within easy walking distance for us, but it's a bit on the small side. There's a very nice one up in the northern part of Meridian Ranch where I got good views. There were two more in Meridian Ranch, but my views of them weren't good enough to justify getting photos or videos.

Oscar picked up 5th Avenue bars so we could celebrate his parents' 5th Avenue day.

On the first Monday of the kids' winter break, I took the kids and Nolan up to the Denver Zoo. Admission was free for kids 15 and under the entire month of December, and it was a high of 72 degrees that day. December was also unseasonably warm this year, in spite of the two snow days at the beginning of the month.

We saw mother, grandmother, and great grandmother lionesses. We also saw two cubs, but they hid under the logs and were hard to photograph. Nearby is the ostrich enclosure, which must be a little awkward for the lions since they do eat ostriches.

We saw the giraffes and sea lions before we went in to see the tropical enclosure.

I remember it being so hot in here when we had come at Christmas in all of our cold weather gear. This time we were in short sleeves and light pants due to the warm weather, so it was much more comfortable.

Here are some cute monkeys and a capybara.

The kids are always happy to see reptiles and amphibians at every zoo we've ever been to.

Allison is a big fan of Komodo dragons.

After seeing the tigers we grabbed a pretzel and an ICEE while we watched some animals. It was so weird to be outside where the foliage clearly said it was winter but the 72 degree weather said otherwise.

We got to see quite a few animals we hadn't seen on our Christmas visit. We actually got a great view of an elephant walking out to fish apples out of the water with its trunk, but we were using my phone for Tyler's virtual appointment at the time and couldn't take photos.

We saw several wallabies, including an albino wallaby, and two Andean condors with massive wing spans. At one point one flew across the enclosure, which looked truly majestic, but I didn't have my phone out and the flight was too quick to capture.

We then saw the primates. It also was fun to see the hornbill and one of the Mandrills interacting through the fence.

There was another indoor area where we saw the lemurs.

And we finished our loop of the zoo seeing Rocky Mountain big horn sheep and buffalo. These were actual African buffalo, not the American bison who are often referred to as buffalo.

On our way home we stopped for food at the "Culver's" in Castle Rock where it just happened to be their holiday day. The lady doing the face painting told me it was supposed to be the previous Saturday, but their Santa wasn't feeling well and they rescheduled it for Monday. It worked out nicely for us!

While we were gone Oscar enjoyed lovies from a sweet Nibbler.

The next evening we took our friends Ashley, Rachel, and Charlotte Bailey up to Elitch Gardens. Here are the girls on the carousel.

They then went on the balloon ride. We all were able to go on the kiddie coaster and the swings. Allison and Charlotte were playing with Allison's beanie and ended up accidentally tossing it over the fence where the kiddie coaster was.

Allison and I rode Sidewinder while the others went on the teacups. Sidewinder was amazing at night. That backwards dip while you're watching the Christmas lights was just such a thrill!

We met back up in the line for Spider while Ashley went on Sidewinder. She said she was able to see a bit of the Mile High drone show and the mile high tree from the stairs. I rode Spider with Charlotte, which was fun for about half of it then made me too dizzy the rest of the time. I discovered motion sickness makes me hot. I'd want to shed all my layers as soon as the ride was over.

I picked up a pretzel with our meal plan before everyone else went on Troika. I would have done Troika if I hadn't done Spider, but there was no way I could handle it right after Spider.

Allison and I rode some of the bigger rides that Rachel and Charlotte weren't interested in. I actually went on Brain Drain with Allison, which made me extremely dizzy. We also rode half pipe and the tower of doom. It was fun to be up that high on the drop ride seeing all the Christmas lights and the lights of downtown Denver. I also wanted to do the Star Flyer, but then Rachel said she wanted to do the Sea Dragon with Allison, so we went there instead. I didn't want to do the Sea Dragon with how dizzy I already was from Brain Drain, so I took Charlotte back to ride the Turn of the Century swings again. It'd been fine for me the first time, but I'd reached my spin capacity for the evening.

The girls played on these color changing swings then we got a great photo in the carriage in front of the Ferris Wheel on our way out of the park.

On Christmas Eve Oscar and I went to see the new Avatar movie then brought home Olive Garden for lunch. We also went to play pickleball. Allison was pretty tired so Tyler stayed home with her. Little did we know at the time that she and I were coming down with the flu.

Luckily we still had a good Christmas. Allison and I didn't start having draining symptoms until after we'd finished up the festivities. The kids would open a few presents and then take breaks to play with their new stuff. On the final break, I started feeling a bit cold. I took a hot shower and changed into warmer clothes, which was enough to let me still enjoy the rest of our present opening. Oscar and I then watched some shows until I started getting chills in the early evening and spent the rest of the day in bed.

Allison and I were not super functional for the next few days, but thankfully Oscar and Tyler stayed healthy. Oscar organized the garage and Tyler got lots of piano practice in. Nibbler intently watched the TV with Tyler too. Sadly, these were the last photos we took of Nibbler before finding out his abdomen was full of cancer. We ended up having to put him down on January 6th.

The kids worked more on their new fun Lego builds.

On New Year's Eve day I took the kids to Urban Air for one last day before cancelling our membership. Allison and I were no longer contagious, but she was still very sleepy. She got about 30 minutes of sleep while we were there, but she played too.

We needed to go up that direction anyway for the kids' eye appointments. Unfortunately our wait to see the doctor was VERY long, so she curled up and slept there too. We then grabbed food at Sam's Club before coming home where I laid down for about an hour nap.