Christmas Day 2010

Sleep in.....check.


Open presents....check.


Go snowmobiling....check.

We had wide open spaces to ourselves and played it up! Strawberry was great!!  Hardly anyone was out and about.  


Best of all, Alan's knee tolerated it!  Woo-hoo!  Now I just need to get him back to where he can snow ski! (probably not this season).  


Love days like this!  

Late for Church

So we were late for church today...

I was too busy secretly taping my husband's music abilities and made up Christmas carols.  

(don't worry...he stays in the shower)  :)




I had the TV on a digital radio station that plays Christmas music.  I had it turned up pretty loud so I could hear it over the blow dryer and suddenly Al started to sing like a crooner/opera man.  

I had to run and get the camera to record it.  I must say, it is pretty priceless.

He started to catch on when I asked him to keep singing. 


I'm sure many of you are wondering if he knows I posted these...and the answer is yes, after much coaxing. 

More Birthdays and Thanksgiving

The month of November is full of Birthdays: Mom, me, Ashley, Alan, Grandpa P., many cousins, uncles, aunts, and friends.  On top of all the birthday festivities this year, Alan & I hosted our first Thanksgiving for my family. 

Ash, Craig, and Ellie came down on Monday evening to arrive ahead of the supposed "blizzard".   Tuesday was Ashley's 26th birthday...the day the blizzard was supposed to hit Utah.  

My work went into "official emergency mode" on Tuesday afternoon sending nonessential staff home, calling additional staff in, and mandating elective areas close down.  Dialysis rearranged their entire schedule to meet patients needs with the anticipation that we would be unable to get to the hospital in the morning.  


Of course, me being the preparedness Nazi, I made Alan fill our 55 gallon water barrel and bring the cat in the house.  I got home right before the blizzard of the century was supposed to hit and we watched and waited.  


The snow really started to come down, but it wasn't anything like the forecasters had said.  In fact, because it was Ashley's birthday, we all piled into the Jeep and ventured out into the storm to go to GoodWood for some BBQ. 

We didn't have the right number of candles for her 26, so we improvised. 

Classic Alan face. 

Storm of the century, my butt!  The storm hit a lot harder in Idaho.  The roads were closed until late Wednesday afternoon.  Mom, Dad, Chris, Anne, and the boys came down Thursday morning. 

We had room for everyone (8 adults and 5 kids) and the dinner turned out awesome! (I didn't even think about getting a picture of the spread!!)  We had so much food!  There were 4 pies, 3 veggies, turkey, potatoes, gravy, stuffing, and home made rolls.  Yum!

Kiddos watched a lot of shows and played Nintendo.

They both look like they are in a trance!

 The adults chilled and watched football.  

Then they kids went a little crazy dancing with some butt shaking and spanking.

After Thanksgiving was over, we celebrated another birthday (a little early)....Happy Birthday Alan!

Again, not the right number of candles for the pie....Yum chocolate pie!

All and all, it was a great week.  Best of all, I didn't have a melt down or freak out because something wasn't perfect.  I think we might have to have everyone at our house again and this time have Kenny, Carrie, Noah, and Jack present too!

Happy Birthday to ME!

Yes, it is true...I'm am officially getting older.  Man, it sucks.  Yesterday was my birthday.  One of my high school friends reminded me how I got a little "upset" with him when he call me a "young 'un" back in the day.  I think his official words were "she gave me a mouthful".  Who me?  Give someone a mouthful?? Never...

On the brighter side, I took my birthday and the rest of the week off from work.  Oh, it is a glorious thing.  Sleeping in, reading a book curled up on the couch (wrapping in a blanket), staying up late...did I mention sleeping in??   

I had a WONDERFUL birthday.  I woke up to beautiful roses, my favorite candy, a new book, and a very redneck card that made me laugh and gag all in the same moment.  

Al and I went to lunch and then went shopping.  My Mom, Dad, Ashley, and Ellie Ru came down to deliver potatoes and visit my Grandma & Grandpa P.  After they had lunch with my Grandparents, we met up with them for some more shopping.  I had not bought new clothes in a while.  So I was WAY excited when I found a dress, two pairs of pants and a shirt that I loved.  (Thank you again to Mom, Dad and Al for splurging on me.) Did I mention that I've dropped 17 pounds in the last 8 months?  Vanity got to me after the years of grad school and stress of changing jobs and I've diligently shed it all off and now am back to where I was when Al and I got married.  Woo-hoo!  Anyway, then we all went out for dinner.  I spoke to my brother Chris and his family and made his two older boys sing Happy Birthday to me (separately) so I could laugh some more.  I received TONS of well wishes via Facebook, email, text, and phone.  It's nice to feel loved.  It was a perfect day. 

Al and I came home to find this:

Munchie, our crazy cat, has been sleeping under the foundation of our house throughout the summer.  However, as it has gotten colder, we have wanted to make sure she was warm (and when we get our landscaping started we will be closing up her hiding place under the house).  So we went and bought her this cat tower/house.  We put a towel in the bottom to make it softer and warmer.  We then put her cat bed in the top one.  She curls up in it and just purrs. 

Such a good kitty.  

As I write this, I'm listening to a new CD (compliments of my sista that knows me all too well) of instrumental Christmas songs and sipping a cold Diet Mountain Dew.  It rocks.  

Can everyday be as perfect as yesterday and today?  Please??

We've been MIA for a couple months

We are not dead!  We've just been MIA for a couple months for good reasons.
 
      1.  We sold our West Jordan House!! Woo-hoo!!!!!

 

I can't tell you what a relief it is to have the other house sold.  So long, WJ house.  You served us well!!  Now maybe we can get blinds at the new house.  Blinds would be a bonus seeings how my entire family is coming to do Thanksgiving at our house!  We are excited to host our first Thanksgiving and I'm hoping that this will serve as a motivator to get blinds ordered and installed.  Keep your fingers crossed. 

        2.  Alan had surgery AGAIN.  He had his right shoulder scoped to alleviate impingement syndrome and he has his left knee scoped to clean up scar tissue from his previous patellar tendon rupture and repair.

These pictures are really grainy b/c they are from my crappy cell phone camera.  Al was getting his boogie on before he was laid up again.   

I was laughing so hard, I'm pretty sure I snorted a few times.  :)

He is recovering quickly and will back to work around the first of December.  He does PT every Monday and can't be up on his knee for very long before he has to rest/ice/elevate it.  He's been a trooper...we just hope this is the end to a long string of surgeries.  Bad joo joo go away!!

And now you are caught up with us.

Don't judge a book by its cover

I road my bike down to the visit a friend in my neighborhood and on my way back home, I started to hear some music.  I really couldn't tell where it is was coming from, but as I got closer to our house, I could hear an old Snoop Dogg rap song playing.  The music got louder and louder until I knew where it was coming from.  Our 50year old next door neighbor was out in his back yard working in his garden "jamming" out to Snoop Dogg.  I started laughing out loud.

I guess you really can't judge a book by its cover.  

Obey the Law

Okay, so today in Primary, we were talking about "obeying the the law".  We were playing a game where we asked each child a question about what they would do in a situation.  We asked one little boy (the one that is loud and crazy) what he would do if he hadn't studied for a test and was thinking of cheating off the test of the girl next to him.  He was so sure of himself as he said:

"You shouldn't copy her answers, 

because they might not be right."

So we shouldn't cheat because it's ethically wrong, but because we might get the wrong answers.  

Great...that's what we taught in primary today.