New Year!

We kind of disappeared the last three months of 2008!  They are my favorite months, and they get packed full of activities!

Honestly December was disappointing because I was sick so much!  I got sick December 1, and I had the last traces of my cough from that cold around December 19.  But, I was so glad to break my yearly curse of being sick ON Christmas!

Ha - ha.  December 24 I started in with another cold, and this one has been worse than the first.  Probably since I had been sick so recently.  Anyway - this one is still hanging on.  Matt's entire family, except one individual, got sick.  So, we had a cough-filled holiday.  It's just my luck that I'll be feeling good in time to go back to work!  I really can't remember a time when I've been sick for so long.  Only 5-days of being well in one month!  Crazy!

But, we tried to have fun anyway, and did some cool things:

• December 2 - We went to the play "Savior of the World".
• December 4 - We got free tickets from my work and went to see "The Nutcracker".
• December 6 - It was a very warm Saturday and we finished our Winter yard preparations, and put the Christmas lights on the house.
• December 14 - We had our yearly Christmas Dinner with my family.

• December 17 - We got free tickets from my work to see the advanced showing of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button".  It was interesting, but soooo sad.
• December 20 - Our friend Quincy got married and we went to his reception.
• December 22 & 23 - I had two glorious non-sick days of cleaning/shredding junk out of our office.
• December 24 - We had a fun evening doing what we traditionally do this night - - - dinner with Matt's family at his Aunt & Uncle's and then watching "We're No Angels", our yearly Christmas movie, with my family.
• December 25 - We had Christmas breakfast at our house with Matt's family.  Normally we go to my brother's house for dinner, but I was really sick so we stayed home this year.
• December 28 - Matt's mom made her own birthday dinner (isn't that sad), and everyone came to our house to eat.  Matt and I were both horribly sick by this point, so mom took over and did all the work.  We woke up to eat.  She flew home on her actually birthday - December 29 - and was the last one to get sick, starting in with it that day!  What a birthday present.

We hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year's!  Happy 2009!

23 LBS

This year I got a big Thanksgiving turkey ... 23 pounds ... because we were having almost all of Matt's family over, and because I love to make turkey soup from the leftovers.

I hefted the bird onto the grocery conveyor belt at the checkout. After the clerk scanned the tag, he lifted it, exhaling all his air, and carried it around to my cart. After dropping it in with a crash, he exclaimed, "I bet in life that was one fat a** turkey."

I was eager to tell Matt the story of the punk at the store who insulted our turkey, and we laughed as we shared it with our family.

And here we are just before digging into the fat a** turkey!

Leap Day

When the world calls February 29 "leap day" it means you've hit it ... your one in four chance has paid off today! When I think of the word leap, I think of going over something, skipping, or passing it by.

In honor of leap day, here are some things that I wish I could have skipped, or passed by in my life:

• 7th grade
• Best of the Bull ... the second time
• Summer 2001
• Lobster Dave date ... canyon confessional
• Richfield road rash
• A Clockwork Orange ... what's this "top 100 movies" business?
• Lobster Dave date ... three's-a-crowd-cookie-cookoff
• Tool ... should I admit this?
• 05/20/2006
• Lobster Dave ... farewell
• Joe Millionaire
• 9th grade perm

Oh, there are so many more. Happy Leap Day!

Ornaments 2006

Here are our Christmas ornaments from 2006:

Darth Vader is Matt's and Cookie Monster is mine. I must have been around Stephanie Wilson a lot last Christmas; the biggest Cookie Monster fan I've ever met! Okay, the only Cookie Monster fan I've ever met.

No lights!

This Christmas season we are grateful for power, which we didn't have for 52 hours! From 9am on Dec 8 to 11am on Dec 10. It is very nice to have it back!

We had our family Christmas party on Dec 9, with 22 people in attendance! We ate by battery-powered candlelight, and put the "spotlight" on the person opening their gift so we could see what they got. Definately a different holiday experience. Merry Christmas everyone!

Ornaments 1996

Matt and I pick out a Christmas ornament each year and have done this since our first Christmas together. We are currently in the process of getting our 21st and 22nd ornaments; well, Matt has his, but I'm getting mine.

Here are our ornaments from 1996:

They hung on our little and real Christmas tree in our apartment! 1996 was the only Christmas we've spent together outside of the house we're in now.

Busy Thanksgiving Weekend

It was a busy Thanksgiving weekend, but a lot of fun. On Wednesday day/night, I made every Thanksgiving dessert I could think of ... pumpkin cheesecake, apple pie, pecan pie, pumpkin pie, and a chocolaty-fruity-whip-creamy cake concoction ...

I was up at 5:45am on Thursday morning to get the turkey out of the brine and into the oven:

I cooked Thanksgiving dinner (we ate at 1:00, but it sounds funny to say Thanksgiving lunch) for my parents, Robert, Weston, Lisa, and Matt and I. It was a lot of fun! Here is the Thanksgiving group:

We went to "Enchanted" that afternoon ... actually pretty funny ... and then came back home for seconds. Thanks everyone for making it a great Thanksgiving!

On Friday Matt and I went to the Jazz game ... how nice that they won!

Saturday we put up Christmas lights, and our tree. (I'll have to get some pictures.)

Sunday after church we did more on our tree, and went to see the light show: www.christmasutah.com

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!