Trip to Utah to see the Nutcracker

12/14/08 Day Three

We went to church with Richard and Evelyn in the morning. They have a really nice ward. The talks and lessons were wonderful.

Richard made us some amazing omelets for lunch. Dang, they were good! Thanks, Richard. Then they took Bri and me to my parents house. Bri and I finally got to see my Dad, my brother Nikolas and my brother Michael, and Ashley and her hubby Gary. Mom made a delicious 20 course dinner. She always amazes me. We played a game of Life, read the newspaper and talked. My Dad was winding Christmas lights around their Christmas "tree." This year they cut a bunch of dogwood branches from their backyard for the tree. It's a different, interesting look. My brother Redd is going to make a stand for it, which will improve it. My Dad is having fun with it. Some of the pictures are not the best, kinda blurry. After dessert my parents took Bri and I to the airport. Bri pretended to do sudoku on the plane and thought she was pretty cool. Devon and the boys picked us up late that night. It was a great trip. Thank-you Devon for insisting that we do it and for holding down the fort with the 3 wild boys while we pampered ourselves and were entertained and fed. Love ya, babe.

Trip to Utah to see the Nutcracker

12/13/08 Day Two

Bri woke up nice and early, as expected. It doesn't matter how late she goes to bed, she is up at the crack of dawn and ready to get the day started. We stayed at Richard and Evelyn's (Dev's parents) home. After dragging myself out of bed we got ready and Richard and Evelyn took us to lunch at Cafe Rio. My Mom and my sister Ashley picked Bri, Evelyn and me up from Cafe Rio and we drove into Salt Lake for the Nutcracker (the Ballet West performance). It was so awesome. I have not been in a few years and it was seriously amazing. Bri was mesmerized. Ballet West had some new costumes this year and they even changed Mother Buffoon a little (for the better). The guy that played Mother Buffoon was hilarious. That has always been my favorite part. Evelyn and I each bought Bri a different tutu. She was quite spoiled, but it was fun to be able to do that. She wears them here at home all the time. We have not been able to convince her that she needs to wear something more that panties with her purple tutu that sticks straight out from the hip. We had tickets to the Sugar Plum Fairy Party after the performance. We got to go up on stage and get our photo taken with the SPF, her Cavalier, the dancing Bear, the mouse king, Clara, and the Nutcracker Prince. They had punch and cookies and gave us little Nutcracker ornaments.

After the party, Richard picked up Evelyn because they had a party to go to. My Mom, Ashley, Bri and I went to Gateway and did a little shopping at Anthropologie. We could've spend an hour or two more in there but we had tickets for the Body Worlds exhibit. Wow, that was interesting. I don't know how to explain it all so check out what it is at www.bodyworlds.com. Well ok, here is a brief explanation: They take dead bodies and inject them with a silicon polymer. Then they dissect them in different ways so that we can study and view the human body. They are posed in different ways. They had a few animals also. It was amazing. The body is so intricate and amazing, it really testifies of a supreme creator.

For dinner we stopped at Greek Souvlaki, the best place for gyros. Just another Utah place I've been missing. Bri even enjoyed sharing my gyro with me. Poor little thing was dead tired though. She thought Body Worlds was pretty boring. I was a little worried about taking her, but that was for nothing.

Then we rushed to Anthro for the last 10 minutes that they were open. Again, we needed more time! Oh well, I did get some cute stuff.

Trip to Utah to see the Nutcracker

12/12/08 Day One

Bri and I flew to Utah before dinner and Devon's wonderful parents picked us up at the airport. Then they took us to a delicious dinner at . . . Hire's!! It was packed but we got the prime parking spot. Then we walked around Temple Square to see the lights. They were beautiful as usual. It was absolutely packed there too. The tree inside the JSMB was amazing.

Thanksgiving 2008

This was the first Thanksgiving we have ever hosted and it was the first time I have cooked an entire turkey. We had our good friends the Hurds over. We split up food assignments and Tricia made a turkey, too. Good thing because I didn't cook mine long enough and had to put it back in for a couple hours! Stupid turkey. Actually, it ended up tasting great and the gravy from the drippings was the best I've ever had. I soaked the turkey in a brine solution overnight. After dinner and dessert we hung out and talked and then that evening we played 6 or 7 games of Blokus. Tricia was determined to win! It got kind of ugly, as you can see from the pictures. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of our dinner!

This is hilarious! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JC2gIPnUCgw

Stockton's 8th Birthday

10/14/08

Stockton was very excited to open presents so we let him open them before school. He got a ripstick, a t-shirt from Hawai'i and a football. I have to admit, that ripstick is pretty fun. That night he had some friends over and they played tetherball, no bears are out tonight, flys up and we had cake and ice cream of course. That is the way to do a birthday party. Let the kids just play together, without it being all planned. They had an absolute blast.

Stockton's Baptism!

11/1/08

Weird. How is it that Stockton is old enough to be baptised? Is he really 8? I wish I could relive seeing him go into the water and coming back out. It was amazing and surprisingly emotional (yes, there were tears). It felt so wonderful and special to witness Devon baptising him and then confirming him. Thanks to all our family for driving up to support him. After he was confirmed we went back to our house for dinner. We had yummy salmon tacos, corn and fruit. For dessert we had brownies and homemade ice cream. Then we played a game called Blockus. Things got heated and mean words were said. It was all in good fun (Ashley: too bad you fell asleep so early).