The Holidays

We love the Holidays! We especially love all the time we can spend with family and always feel blessed that we are so close to both sides of our family. After having family withdrawals over the last week it has been fun to blog and look at the pictures. I'll start from the beginning...

On Christmas Eve we spent most of our time with my family. Melissa and her family came up and Jeff and my parents were there as well. After eating dinner we went to see the windows at the Grand America hotel, which is where our first picture is from. We then went to see Christmas Street. We went back to my parents house to sing carols and read Christmas stories. After spending time with my family we made a trip to the Yates' house to open our Christmas Jammies. Christmas Eve has such a special spirit!

Barrett and I slept at our own house this year so we could open up presents together on Christmas. Just a couple pictures of our bigger presents.

We bought a new bedspread recently and I wanted colorful pillows to put on it since it is only gray and white. Well, Barrett made me this awesome pillow. I was way impressed!

After opening presents we went to my parents house to eat a yummy breakfast!

We were then able to spend the rest of Christmas Day with Barrett's family. We love being able to spend all the time we can with them! Barrett's parents gave him a new printer and me a sewing machine! So if anyone wants to start some sewing projects with me, I am in... They also got a ping pong table for Christmas so we had some intense games on Christmas as well.

Brittney and her family arrived from Las Vegas the day after Christmas, so we did presents with my family on the 26th.

My cute parents!

We spent New Year's Eve at my parents house with my siblings and parents. New Year's Eve with my family can be summed up in one word: games. We have tons of fun playing games together and spend most of the time laughing hysterically. We have played this drawing/writing game (now known as telestrations in the game world) for a long time. Between our crazy sentences, my immediate family's lack of drawing ability, and interpretation of bad drawings it turns out to be hilarious. We dubbed Barrett the best artist in the family and this funny drawing came from a warped sentence he was deciphering. Oh if only we had videos to show...

When midnight came we went outside to blow our horns and watch fireworks for maybe 5 minutes and then we all went to sleep exhausted.

Well, another Christmas and year has come and gone. But we always look forward to what lies ahead. Welcome 2011.

Barrett's 24th Birthday

Barrett's birthday was last Tuesday and we were able to have a few days of celebration. We went to Barrett's parent's house the Sunday before to have dinner, cake, and open presents.

Sadly, he had to study for finals on his birthday, but we were still able to go out to dinner and he opened a few more presents.

Then on Friday my parents took us out to dinner and to see the Kurt Bestor concert. It was fun to be able to focus on Barrett for the week. I love you babe!

Goodbye Mountain West, Hello Pac 12!

Despite the somewhat embarrassing and uneventful game until the last half of the 4th quarter, the University of Utah pulled off the win for the last rival game in the Mountain West Conference. Barrett and I were so excited to find tickets the week of the game where we could sit on the 13th row of the MUSS! This picture is before the game.

Our celebration after the field goal block!

Ethan and Seth's soccer game

Since school started for Barrett and work got crazy for me we have not done anything exciting, at least worth taking pictures and blogging about it. But since I do like to try and keep new pictures coming regularly, I remembered these pictures we had taken of my nephews at their soccer game. Since they are close in age they were able to play on the same team. How fun to watch kids 5 and under play soccer! It is more of a large huddle of kids all surrounding a ball without much competition. But it was SO fun to watch.

I love this picture of Seth!

Each of the kids had turns being goalie. When I asked Seth if he like being goalie he told me: "I'm not very good. I let a ball go in once." How sad. I tried to explain to him that just because someone scored on him didn't mean he was bad. I hope all goalies don't dwell on that.

Time Out For Women-Logan

I went to Time Out For Women with my Mom and sisters a few weeks ago in good old Logan! We had a lot of fun together without all the children running around, plus got a spiritual boost from all the good speakers and music! The picture below is from our service project: making hygiene kits for a local women's shelter. Until next year...

Top of Utah Half Marathon

On August 28 Barrett and I ran our first Half Marathon! The Top of Utah Half Marathon is in Logan and it was a great first half marathon to run. Mostly downhill and the temperature was cool. I walked more than I thought I would, but I definitely wasn't disappointed by how I did. We ran it in 2 hours and 40 minutes. Again, not great, but we did it! Barrett was a sweetheart and would run a few miles, wait for me and run with me for awhile, then would meet me at the mileage I asked him to. Who could ask for a better, more loving husband? I told him that he needs to do another one on his own to see what time he could get. The first picture was taken as we walked to the shuttle to go to the start line and the second is after the race.

Days of '47 Rodeo

I forgot about these pictures! My sister took these pictures as we were on our way out the door to the Days of '47 Rodeo on the 24th of July. A few days surrounding the 24th of July we got to do a lot of fun activities with Barrett's mom's side of the family: Raging Waters, golfing, a barbecue, and the rodeo. We had a lot of fun and wish all the out-of-towners could come more often!