Enduring Friendships

 One of the best things about being back in Utah is that we can see many friends as well as family because people either come through the area or are friends still in the area.  We have especially enjoyed meeting up with a group of friends from Dave's high school days that still live relatively close.  We have had a few game nights, a day at the park, and have especially enjoyed sleepovers in Midway thanks to the Grass family.  We're quite a group now, with all of us having 3 or more kids!

Our lovely hosts, the Grass family and their kids.  Thanks for the invite...it was a blast!

 Professor Lundburg and his three youngest!  We missed Mel and the girls at the tubing hill, but they had a bridal shower to host!  Glad they came up for the night!

 The Miller family.  They spent a few years away from Utah as well, so it's nice to have us all living here in the state!

And our family (minus Austin...who had to work).  We had a blast on the tubing hill.  Once you're spoiled by the tow line it makes real sledding seem like such a chore.  We had some crazy fun!

Visiting Temple Square and Drapers

 We were able to meet up with one of our favorite families...The Drapers...at Temple Square.  We were so excited to see them, but we were also excited to bring them some snow clothes so they wouldn't freeze here in Utah.  They are from south, south Texas and so this frigid weather was more than they are used to.  They had layers and layers of clothes, but I think they were still cold...(ok, I was cold too, so it isn't just Texas people cold!)

Anyways, our hearts were warmed by seeing our friends...especially Evan being able to see Trevan.  Those two are such cute friends and still live by the motto that "Evan and Trevan are better than heaven!"  I see these two being room mates at college some day and lifelong friends no matter where their paths go!

There were a lot of friends and family meeting up there with the Draper, so we also got to go around with our two youngest and explore Temple Square again.  It's been a few years and McKinley didn't remember much about being there, so it was a neat experience. 

Christmas 2013

We had a great Christmas again this year.  We were able to visit with a lot of our family and a few of our friends too!  We started out Christmas Eve by decorating giant ginger bread men for Santa!!  I bet he was stuffed when he left our house that night!

 

We finished off Christmas Eve with breakfast for dinner at Nana and Grandads and the traditional Christmas pajamas and reading the nativity story before heading to bed to make way for Santa Claus!

 

First thing Christmas morning the kids were wide awake and ready to see their presents from Santa.  Then we had a quick breakfast and opened our presents from each other.

 

Even Oscar enjoyed being involved in the presents opening.  He loves boxes and paper and getting in small places.  He's such a nut!

 

After our presents we were able to go next door to visit with Nana and Grandad and some family members gathered there.  We were there to surprise Nana with a trip to Hawaii for her and Grandad's 50th wedding anniversary this April.  It was SUPER fun to watch as she figured out the gift we were giving her and that we will all be traveling to Hawaii in April for a big celebration.

 

And after that we were able to host Christmas dinner at our house for my side of the family.  We had a ham, leg of lamb, roasted veggies and asparagus.  Yum.  We had razzleberry pie with ice cream and pecan chocolate for dessert. It was lovely!

 

It was a busy day, but so much fun to see everyone and spend time together.  We celebrated together and enjoyed visiting and being together.  Lots of smiles, lot of fun!  Merry Christmas to everyone!

Christmas 2013

This photo collage created with Smilebox

Grandma Pearson's Christmas Party 2013

Tonight was the annual Grandma Pearson Christmas party and we were so glad that we were able to attend.  For many years we lived out of state and missed the family parties and get togethers that are some of the best parts of Christmas.  But now that we live here we get to go!

The children's nativity is always highlight of the night.  All the children who want to are involved in the reenactment of the birth of the Savior.  This year, none of my kids wanted to be in the play, but plenty of cousins did.  It's always so cute!

After the nativity there is always a bag of presents from Santa.  Each child receives a present and it's a lot of fun.  Everyone was happy with their gifts this year and had fun catching up with cousins and friends and family!

Festival of Trees Performance

Evan and McKinley were invited to play at the Festival of Trees this afternoon.  They both prepared Christmas songs for this recital and were nervous to perform in front of many strangers, but they did a great job!

Evan played "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and did a fine job!

 McKinley played "Joy to the World" and sounded great!

They are both learning to play the piano very beautifully and we enjoy having the music played in our home.  We look forward to them continuing to play more and more!

Surf Cup Soccer Tournament

Over the Thanksgiving holiday we traveled with Evan and McKinley to the Surf cup soccer tournament in San Diego.  We got there on Thanksgiving day and were able to have dinner with my college roommate Sarah and her cute family.  It was an amazing dinner and a fun time.  Sadly, I don't have a single picture from our stay there!

On Friday we didn't have any games until the afternoon and so we went exploring.  We went to the beautiful San Diego temple and walked around the grounds.  There is always a special peaceful feeling at the temple grounds.  It was nice to walk around the beautiful grounds and enjoy the morning.  We then drove around UC San Diego with Austin on the phone so we could tell him about it.  It's one of the schools that he has already applied to and so it was fun to talk to him about the nice campus.  It was pretty deserted and it was a rainy day, so it was hard to tell too much about the college, but we gave him some information.

 After the college drive through we headed to the coast and explored La Jolla cove.  There were seals on the rocks and some really slippery rocks to climb about on.  I actually fell really hard and hurt my leg, but Dave and the kids had fun climbing around all the rocks and avoiding the waves as they came in.  There was even a few people swimming in the ocean, one lady was in just a swimsuit...brrrr.

Finally we were able to go and play some soccer!  The Blue Knights did so well.  We were up 2-0 on the first team that we played, but unfortunately let that lead slip away to defeat 2-3.  Sad.

They played two other games, where they really played well and ended up losing by one goal in each.  It was a great experience and it was really nice to have some different competition and for the boys to learn to play more aggressively and together.  We're so glad that we went!

Capital Reef Camping

While Austin and I were in California checking out Stanford, David took the other three kids on a camping trip to Capital Reef.  They enjoyed mild weather, great food, fun times, and hiking.  It was an area that he always wanted to check out and enjoyed exploring!

Austin's senior pictures!

Anniversary Cruise

We had planned to take a big trip for our 15th year anniversary, but that was right when we moved to Utah 3 years ago and Dave was looking for a job.  Then we had all sorts of problems with our renters in Texas and just kind of held on for a few years.  This year I decided that we needed to take that trip.  We probably couldn't afford it, but we did it anyways!

With it being the busy season at work I knew that we would have to make it a quick get away.  So we booked a 4 day cruise over the weekend from California to Mexico.  It was nice to get away and it was Dave's first cruise and only my second. 

We flew in and out of LAX and were able to walk on and off the boat at the port without having to stay a night at a hotel or rent a car either.  It was well timed.  Actually we did have a big problem at the beginning of the trip.  Halfway to the airport I realized that we didn't have our passports and so we had to zoom home and get them and then speed our way to the airport, park the car, and literally run to the gate.  Luckily the flight was delayed 10 minutes, otherwise I'm not sure we would have made the flight and in turn would not have made the cruise...that would have been a bummer!

But we did make it to the boat.  We arrived at the port at 2:30 or so and boarding was from 12-4pm.  We walked right on, no waiting in line, no crowds.  It was perfect.

Our first destination was Santa Barbara.  We tendered in on the smaller boats and did some exploring on our own.  We walked about 3 miles to the Santa Barbara mission...it was a nice day and we just kept walking.  We took a self guided tour of the mission and learned a little about it's history.  It was your typical mission.

 Our second (and final) port of call was Ensenada, Mexico.  Neither of us had ever been to Ensenada, but we were ready to explore the area.  We booked an excursion to La Bufadora (or the blowhole).  The tour bus operator was very knowledgeable and we learned a lot about the town of Ensenada and the natural phenomenon of the blowhole.

We arrived at La Bufadora and had to make our way through 1/2 a mile of street vendors that were very insistent that you look at their merchandise.  Some of my favorite lines were, "99% off" and "cheaper than Walmart".  We got to the blowhole and watched it for quite a while.  Some of the geysers were small and then we were treated with some of the big ones.  What happens is the surf comes in to the cave below and then the undercurrent comes out and when the next wave comes in it creates a geyser to go way up in the sky.  It's pretty neat!

After watching the geyser we did wander in to one store.  We were in search of a pottery bowl that we could take back as a reminder of our trip.  I found a beautiful blue fluted, hand painted bowl and bartered them down 50% of where they started.  Hopefully that was a good deal!

After "shopping" we stopped at this tiny food stand and had a taco.  All in all a beautiful day!

 

After Ensenada, we boarded the ship and headed back to Los Angeles.  We had a full day and night at sea which was super relaxing.  I think I took two naps that day and one was outside by the big screen TV.   I did get a little sea sick one night and that was not fun, but I think we'd be up for another cruise to island hop in the Carribean.  Other than that I think I prefer being on land and exploring the area more fully.  But it was a great get away and just what we needed!