Weekly Newsletter: December 29th, 2025 - January 4th, 2026

Happy New Year!!! 🥳 🍾 🥂 2025 has come and gone, and now 2026 is here. We hope you had an amazing 2025, and we hope you have an even better 2026! 🎆

Check out our new posts and videos 🆕 🎥 📝

Post 9: Adventures and Away Time in Arizona

Keith and Lindsey spent time in Oro Valley following Keith’s completion of the Tour Divide. This was a time of rest and exploring the area before returning to Utah.

Keith and LindseyLindsey Huster

Gingerbread village and ice cream cones 🏠🍨

Even though Christmas has past, we still wanted to check out some of the other local holiday attractions. So, we drove up to the Outlets at Traverse Mountain to see the life-sized gingerbread village.

The outlets are always beautifully decorated for the holidays. While we were up there, we also did a little outlet shopping. We didn't buy much but Keith did pick up a down vest to wear as an midlayer for our upcoming ski trip to Red Mountain in Canada.

On our way home, we decided to stop for an ice cream treat at Brooker's Founding Flavors in Vineyard, UT. Keith has been craving peppermint ice cream but unfortunately, they didn't have what he was looking for. We did however both enjoy a delicious ice cream cone! 😋

New Year's Eve (Eve) dinner at the Grand America Hotel 🏨 🍝

For the past few years, we have chosen to avoid the crowds on New Year's Eve by dining out the evening before, i.e., New Year's Eve (Eve). This year, we attempted to get a reservation at the newly renovated The Roof restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get a reservation that worked for our schedules.

Fortunately, we were able to get a reservation at the Laurel Brasserie & Bar in the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, UT. The hotel itself is beautiful with a touch of old-world charm. The restaurant provided the perfect balance of an enjoyable experience with delicious food. We shared an appetizer of arancini and Lindsey ordered a blackberry margarita. Keith ordered the Shrimp Linguini with Squid Ink Pasta and Lindsey ordered the Scottish Salmon. Both of our meals were incredible!

Holiday Window Stroll at the Grand America Hotel 🪟🐧

After our amazing meal at Laurel Brasserie & Bar, we walked around the first floor of the Grand America Hotel to check out the Holiday Window Stroll. This stroll consists of multiple decorated window displays that feature various holiday scenes. The stroll also offered attendees a chance to win a free one-night stay at the Grand America Hotel by scanning a QR code and finding "Tux the Penguin" in each of the displays. 🔎🕵️‍♂️

After enjoying the Holiday Window Stroll, we made a quick stop to enjoy the hotel's courtyard and holiday lights before heading to our final destination of the night.

Temple Square and the Macy's Candy Windows 🕍 🍬

We haven't been to Temple Square in Salt Lake City for the past few years due to the temple being under major renovations. However, this year, Temple Square was adorned with a portion of the usual holiday lights display so we were excited to see it for ourselves.

One our way to Temple Square, we stopped at City Creek Center to walk off some of our dinner and see the mall's holiday decorations. We also stopped by the Macy's Candy Windows display. It's hard to believe that these amazing works of art are completely made of candy! 🍬

New Year's Eve dinner at home 🥩 🦞

We decided to stay home for New Year's Eve again this year. We celebrated by making one of the delicious Omaha Steaks gourmet meals that Keith's parents got us for Christmas. These meals are always so good and so easy to make! It was the perfect way to enjoy the evening together.

Date night in Pleasant Grove, UT 🧀 🍫

The weather is finally starting to get a little colder and winter storms have been moving into our area. This made for the perfect opportunity to drive up to Pleasant Grove, UT to enjoy a warm grilled cheese and cup of delicious tomato basil soup at Cravings Bistro. 🧀 🍲

After having our fill of grilled cheese, we walked over to The Truffle Cottage for dessert. We each ordered a hand-made hot chocolate and one of their scrumptious chocolate truffles. This dessert shop offers an assortment of uniquely shaped, genre-focused chocolates including many fantasy, role-playing games, and pop culture icons.

Storm skiing at Snowbird 🌨️ ⛷️

We skied only on Sunday this week in order to avoid the holiday tourist crowds. This turned out to be a smart move on our part as we ended up with decent snow and no lift lines all day! 🙌

Utah is finally starting to get some active weather again but not before breaking into the #2 spot for the all-time latest first snowfall in Salt Lake City. 😔 Our day of skiing wasn't all bad though. Snowbird has been able to open additional terrain including Peruvian Gulch and the Gad 2 lift in Gad Valley. Throughout the day, it snowed a couple inches of graupel (little balls of snow) which, at times, made it feel as if you were skiing through sand. It was definitely a weird but fun experience.

Upcoming posts and videos 👷‍ 👷‍♀️️

Keith is working on posts covering his 2025 Tour Divide experience. Lindsey has finished writing the post series covering her "Epic Summer Road Trip from Canada through the American West" with her mom. Subscribe to our blog so that you don't miss out.

We hope that you are enjoying our newsletters. We hope you had a wonderful 2025. Did you do anything special over the holidays? Did you make any 2026 resolutions? Let us know in the comments section below.👇 💬