Salt Lake Round 2

While my parents took a much needed vacation to this beautiful place...

... I headed back to Salt Lake to hang out with my brothers. We had a blast!

The first night back Jake made these fabulous ribs in my dad's smoker.

Jake is working on getting his pilot's license so he took Matt and I up in this little plane.

It was a bit crazy to see Jake at the controls. 

It was a beautiful day once we got out of the icky inversion. 

Matt and I went skiing at Park City. 

We went to Airborne, a place with trampolines and foam pits, etc. and had so much fun there. How are boys so fearless? My brothers would just try any trick, no questions asked. The most daring I got was a double front flip and a gainer. 

It was so fun to see all of my family and friends and I'm so glad my parents were able to get away.

Salt Lake for Christmas

We love going home to Utah for Christmas. Living away makes Christmas more fun because we are always overjoyed to see our family and friends and we get to sleep at our parents houses and have a two week vacation. We didn't do a very good job of taking pictures this year but here is what we've got.

One of the things I love and miss about Salt Lake is the mountains. They are so majestic and gorgeous. And oh, the skiing, there's nothing quite like it. Tyler and I were lucky enough to go skiing four times in the two weeks we were there. Twice by ourselves, once with my family and once with his.

My parents redid their main floor between Thanksgiving and Christmas and boy were we surprised! The kept it a secret from us and I'm glad they did because it was such a fun surprise. Everything looks gorgeous and it made the house feel so much more warm and inviting.

I absolutely love playing games with my family. We always have so much fun. We played lots of games while we were there but one of my favorites was definitely the Minute to Win It games we played. One of the games you have to get a cookie from your forehead to your mouth. It's quite hysterical.

Christmas Eve was the Haslam Family party. We drank the traditional pineapple slush and Santa came so the kids could sit on his lap. We opened our ornaments from Grandma & Grandpa and had some good laughs looking through old photo albums. Jamie, Whitney and I tried to recreate this gem from 2002.

After the Haslam party we went back to my parents' house to open our Christmas pajamas, have a spiritual Christmas message and then watched old videos of Christmas morning.

Christmas morning we opened our gifts at my parents house, then had our traditional Christmas breakfast on my mom's China. After that we went over to the Kents' for opening gifts and more breakfast. Jen, Missy and I all got Blendtec's from Blair and Diana.



  

That night we went to Grandma & Grandpa Shields' for their Christmas party. 

My dad, brothers and I spent most of one day building this snow fort. I had never built one before and it was quite fun. My parents got their hot tub working again so of course we had to get into the fort in our swimsuits and then run and jump in the hot tub.

We were even able to squish four of us in there for lunch and hot cocoa.

New Years Eve we went to Biaggi's with my family for dinner, then headed over to the Hank's. We played the Game of Things, caught up with old friends, ate delicious treats, played Just Dance on the Kinect and drank Martinelli's and kissed our spouses at midnight. 

Last year Dawson and Missy introduced us to Lowe's Xtreme Sports in Provo. We went down with my family and had a blast. Me, Tyler and my dad and brothers all did double front flips. We were pretty proud of ourselves. 

Tyler has a pretty impressive toe touch.

And what's a trip to Utah without going to Nielson's? 

We had so much fun and already miss all of you wonderful people!

An Ode

Recognize these beauties?

Also pictured here.

And here.

If you've known Tyler at all over the last 13 years then you'll recognize those sassy Oakley sunglasses that were probably pretty good looking when he got them...13 years ago. If you know us then you know that I sometimes give Ty a hard time for wearing clothing and accessories that are a bit outdated. He takes great care of his stuff so it lasts for a long time, sometimes a little too long.

I've never made fun of these sunglasses though because Tyler is so emotionally attached. His dad bought them for him when he was 13 and so they have a special place in his heart, which is understandable.

Fortunately Unfortunately, while body surfing in this beautiful ocean...

... a big wave came up from behind and knocked those Oakleys right off Tyler's head. And despite our frantic searching, they were lost at sea.

I was seriously nervous that Ty was going to have a mental breakdown but he handled it surprisingly well. We had a little ceremony for the glasses and Tyler said his goodbyes. 

I later gently told him that it's probably for the best that they got lost because they were pretty darn dorky, which he also took surprisingly well.

So here's to the good times we had with those orangy-blue shades and here's to looking forward to a new pair of sunglasses for Christmas!

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving on Wednesday this year with the Spears and the Moores because our friend Randi is a nurse and she had to work Thanksgiving. We divided up the dishes, got together and cooked up a storm and then ate at this beautiful table at Randi's house.

Not too shabby for some first-timers.

Love these people! We had a fabulous time eating and chatting the night away. 

I think this was my first Thanksgiving with less than 20-30 people in attendance. We sure missed our big and fabulous families but we had a great time with just the seven of us.

 

We spotted Santa's reindeer on the drive home.

We threw together this little meal on Thanksgiving for just the two of us.

We also hosted Tyler's cousin Connor and his two friends at our place over Thanksgiving break. They came up from SVU. Connor knew someone who works for NCIS so we went and toured the Pentagon with them on Black Friday. It was much more enjoyable than crowded malls. 

We are so blessed and have so much to be thankful for. Happy Thanksgiving!

Weekend Getaway

We used more of my parents' timeshare points to spend the weekend in Shenandoah with friends. It is such a gorgeous area and we had so much fun just hanging out, playing games, eating, watching movies and hiking.

Superstorm Sandy left us quite a bit of snow.

Baby Shower

There has been a baby explosion in our ward. There are about 10 girls who are either pregnant or recently had a baby. All of these babies means lots of baby showers. This one was particularly fabulous. We met at our girlfriend's office in Georgetown, stuffed balloons up our shirts and walked around Georgetown taking pictures with strangers and in front of iconic places for a scavenger hunt. It was quite hysterical!

Ellen's balloon baby was my favorite! (blue dress)