Belated Blog Postings

I do have good excuses for not blogging until week 3 of January I promise. But that'll come later. Let's just jump right in to last year and post about Christmas and New Years :)

It was an odd year so we spend Christmas with the Halls and New Years with the Brinkles. I was thinking that we'd get a white Christmas in northern Utah but such was not the case. :( That's okay though - I'd rather not have snowy roads. Travel was really easy.

When Kevin picked us up at the airport we went and had breakfast (we arrived early which means we left PHX super early), ran a few errands and then he took us to Brigham City to see the temple. It's coming along beautifully! We're excited that it's supposed to be finished this year :)

The next day I suggested that James and I go down and visit BYU for fun. I wanted to show him the new landscaping they had done on the south side of campus (previous post has pictures - it's when I went to see Erika). We enjoyed walking around and it was warm! Well, not like short-sleeve weather but we were sweating in our jackets! It was December! Amazing...Anyways, as we were walking around we came to a spot of landscaping that was near and dear to our hearts:

Along the way to Provo we stopped at our most favorite spot ever:

That night the Beasley Bunch joined us and then the Michael Hall family and the Gavin Hall families. It was so great to see everyone. An early Christmas present was given to Kevin and Debra from Gavin and Katie - the news of a 13th grandchild! Yay for Katie and Gavin!

Christmas Eve we went and saw the movie Arthur Christmas. It was really cute - different from what I'd expected but nonetheless very cute. We then had dinner that evening with Scott and Raquelle Boehme and their family. It was a "souper" meal :)

Christmas came on Sunday, so with Kevin and Debra's ward starting at 9am, Christmas also came very early in the morning :)

 But oh the Christmas Miracles that awaited them! So many goodies!

Uh oh...James got coal...

Funny though, the coal tasted like chocolate...

INSIGHT BOWL TICKETS!! EEE!! OU vs Iowa! Boomer!!!

  After Christmas present opening we had breakfast and got ready for Sacrament Meeting. We clean up nice don't we?

 After Church we came home and got us ready for going to the Cabin! We had to see snow sometime this vacation right? We played up there for 3 days (25th-27th). The 26th was dedicated solely to sledding :) Fun fun fun!

 

 When not sledding we enjoyed eating yummy cinnamon rolls, drinking hot chocolate, coloring,

 Learning to share,

 Scaring the mothers,

 Learning new games,

 And just being kids :)

Until next time Cabin/Bear Lake!

 And a good Christmas was had by all :)

James and I returned to sunny AZ on the 28th to spend time with the Brinkles.
On the 29th we went here:

www.ldschurchtemples.com

Later that eventide, my little brother, Jordan, took us to a really cool place called "Jump Street." It's an indoor trampoline arena. It was so fun! These pictures aren't of us, I got them off the internet. I couldn't take a camera onto the trampolines if I tried. I saw some kids with their cell phones out there though. They're weren't jumping though. Jump or text? Such a hard choice...anyways, here's what it looked like inside:

www.8coupons.com

www.phoenxidateideas.com

www.tripadvisor.com

I was hurting the next day though...gotta get out more often I guess...

Then, we saved the best activity for last (literally too-the 30th of December! Can't get any more "last" than that!) James got me tickets to the college Insight Bowl where the awesome Sooners of the University of Oklahoma was playing Iowa at Sun Devil Stadium in Phoenix. It was my first time seeing the Sooners play a live game. I almost got to see them on my mission but wasn't able to. So I was very excited :) All of my family wore something red or crimson, James bought his shirt there. For Christmas he got me an OU hoodie just for me to wear to the game :) Jordan, however, had to play devil's advocate and bought an Iowa shirt at the game. Too bad though...Yellow was an unlucky color that night! Boomer!! Sooner!! We won. Hands down. No question. Like we would lose...ha!

 

Ran into LaRee! She is a friend from the OU student ward where I served the last 5 months of my mission!

They had parachute jumpers fly in for the game opener. It was so cool! You can just barely make this one out. He's still way above our heads. He's the dot in the lower half of the picture.

Here he is coming in for his landing.

My camera is filthy but you can barely make the next one out. He's the small white dot that is between the far left and center lighting, just above the edge of the stands.

Safely landed.

It cot perdy chilly near the end of the game.

You can tell who's winning the game at this point!

Touch down Sooners!!!

And it seems that we have an AZ holiday tradition of playing Kube. Such nice weather though, why waste the day!

Best Picture award - Cutest dog ever!!

A close tie ;)

Victory dance!

 2011 was a very productive year. James and I went on 4 vacations (Seattle, Disneyland, Bear Lake and New York City), we got Boomer, I finished a lot of sewing projects (2 car seat tents, a quilt, 2 pillow cases, 2 rag dolls, a blanket for Boomer, and 12 ornaments!), saw 2 Broadway productions (Wicked and The Lion King), finished the Book of Mormon, New Testament and Conference Ensign, I read 20 books, James read 15 (I think), James is about 80-90% finished with his Thesis,  I became a somewhat part-time worker but gained a new title at work and gained some experience assisting and x-ray taking, Boomer past his Puppy Training class with flying colors, we saw 3 live sports games: The Diamondbacks baseball game, the AWESOME 3 Grand Slam Yankee's game, and the Insight Bowl game, James turned 30, I lost 16 pounds, James gained 5,  and we did all that without getting a speeding ticket! :) And we possibly did more too. I can't remember it all!

We've been so blessed this year as we've been able to overcome some of our stumbling blocks, had our testimonies strengthened and been kept safe and sound. We're so very grateful for the blessings we have in our life: Family, friends, the Gospel - all the important things, and then the temporal blessings that we've been given. I hope that 2012 continues to bless us with happiness and learning and growth.

Happy New Year!