Christmas

I didn't get many pictures of Christmas, I was busy with the video camera instead. This is my first chance to post since Christmas cause I've been at work so much. I went in on Christmas at 8pm and didn't leave until 4am. The weather and holiday travel have been a bad mix. The next day I worked 12:30 until 1am and then slept at the airport because I had to be back at 7am and work until 5pm. Somehow I avoided this craziness at the airport last year. But Christmas morning was fun. The kids were very happy with their gifts. Matt and I mainly got boring stuff like a new spring on our garage door and new tires on one of the cars. That's alright though, I'm grateful we could take care of the things we needed to. I wish I could have been with the rest of the fam in San Antonio this year. I have to admit I'm a little sad that they're all having fun down there without me.

Fun Times

We've been busy the last few days. On Monday night Summer and I went to see "The Nutcracker" at the Capitol Theatre downtown. I loved it and Summer loved it until the last half hour or so when she started to get tired. We rode Trax which Summer thought was very cool and I thought was very convenient. Then for the last two days we've been wrapping and cooking and, best of all, we found a great hill for sledding. The kids have loved that. It is really fun, except my butt is sore from going off a ramp at the bottom of the hill :)

Snow!

Have any of you seen "White Christmas"? There's an a cappella song in it all about snow that I like. Today I spent a lot of time shoveling my driveway. I did it in the morning and then it kept snowing and I had to do it again in the afternoon. The good thing is that I never really feel very cold when I'm shoveling snow. I like to shovel snow and mow the lawn because I can count that as my exercise for the day. I was supposed to be at work but I didn't go. Summer didn't feel very well, and I really didn't want to have to drive to the airport before the roads were clear. I'm sure I'll have to at some point this winter, but I didn't feel like it today. I got to go to Essie and Summer's school Christmas concert since I stayed home. It was cute, I got pictures of them in their Santa hats before they left.

Broncos Game

Matt and Essie got back from Charlotte, North Carolina late last night. They went there to see the Broncos play. They had a good trip, even though the Broncos lost pretty badly and even though they had to change flight plans and go through Cincinnati instead of Atlanta. They ended up in the Charlotte airport for five hours. Actually, they quite enjoyed that because there was a military lounge with all kinds of free food and fun stuff to do. I also wanted to post pictures of our first big snowfall. I may not love snow but the kids do.

Jane Eyre

I just finished reading Jane Eyre last night (this picture reminds me of the scenery in the book). I've never read it before. I'm not sure how that happened because I love that sort of book. Actually, I don't think I would have liked it much when I was younger because the characters weren't beautiful. That used to bother me, but now I don't care so much. I really need to go to England, I've always loved all things British. I told Matt that if he dies I'm going to marry a British guy so I can just listen to him talk with his beautiful accent. That, or a cowboy, because Matt hates country music and swing dancing and I love them both :) Next I am going to read another Bronte sisters' book, Wuthering Heights. I remember seeing that movie years ago, and it was sad. That's another thing I used to hate but now can appreciate-sad endings.

Pie Making Day

My house smells so good today. I've got a pumpkin candle going, and we made pumpkin and apple pies for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner. Essie, Summer and Sinjin were excited to help. This always starts off well and then ends up with me being annoyed because the kids can't keep their fingers out of things. Oh well, it's still fun.
I got tagged by my sister-in-law, Amy. So here are 6 random things about me. I'm not tagging anyone else in particular because Amy already tagged most the people that read my blog :)
1. I no longer watch TV shows if they're not recorded on my DVR. I really don't like commercials.
2. I vaccuum my house almost every day. I'm not a neat freak, I go two weeks without cleaning my bathroom sometimes, but I really don't like crumbs and other things on my floor.
3. I almost always cheat and read the end of a book after I've read only the first few chapters. It doesn't ruin it for me because there's still a lot of details that I don't know.
4. I love not wearing shoes. I think grass feels so good under my feet. I would even go barefoot to stores and other places if it wouldn't get my feet so dirty, and possibly diseased.
5. I really like my blond hair and am always worried it will start to turn dark one day. Now that I'm in my thirties and have already had kids I don't worry as much. This doesn't mean I don't like dark hair on other people, I just want my own to be blond.
6. When I'm driving alone I like to sing along with the radio and pretend I'm auditioning for American Idol. I don't even like the show, but I think it would be cool if I could sing amazingly well and then get discovered.

Thankful List

I was reading through an old journal I wrote when I was a teenager and found a list of things I was thankful for then. I thought I should do an updated version. Quite a few things are still the same. This list is not necessarily in order of the most important, it's just whatever comes to my head.

*My testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ
*The knowledge I have about why we're here on this Earth and what happens afterwards
*My husband who adores me
*My three beautiful kids
*My wonderful parents and siblings
*Freedom to choose how I will worship, what I want to do, where I will live, etc.
*A healthy body
*A great extended family and cool in-laws
*A safe and beautiful place to live
*Good books to read
*An education
*Flowers
*Friends who are still my friends even though I'm terrible about keeping in touch
*The United States of America
*Good music
*My job, especially each time I can get on a plane for free
*My favorite TV shows (I know I shouldn't be so grateful for these, but it's my favorite way to relax)
*Good smelling lotion
*Yummy food
*Nice clothes and shoes
*Mountains, specifically hiking there in the summer or fall
*Humor (I love to laugh)
*Playing fun games with the fam
*Victoria magazine (This is a funny one from the old list in my journal)

San Antonio 1/2 Marathon

This past weekend Angie and I ran in our first 1/2 Marathon. It was the Inaugural Rock 'n Roll San Antonio Marathon and 1/2 Marathon. At the beginning we were running quite a bit, just stopping for a few minutes here and there to walk. I was feeling really good and benefitting from the lower altitude in San Antonio. Then around mile 8 or 9 my legs started to feel some fatigue and then gradually some serious pain. By the end I really wanted to just walk, but Ang made me run so that we could finish under 3 hours. And we did it! Our official time was 2 hours and 50 minutes. It was a great experience, and I'm really glad I did it with my sister. I'm proud of her for getting into great shape and reaching her goal. If there's a next time I need to do a few more long runs while training. This time I had never gone more than 8 miles, although I have hiked further than that before. These pictures are us before and after the race. I accidentally put them in the wrong order though. We had to leave the house at 5:30 in the morning, which is 4:30 to my body. Ouch! I took a good nap that afternoon.

New Table

They finally delivered my new table today. I thought I'd have to put it together (which would really mean that I'd watch Matt put it together), but they even did that for me. I really like it, and my mom made a beautiful table runner that looks perfect on it. My house would be very bare without all the cute things my mom makes.

Boo!

Halloween is awesome! We had a fun day; starting with a parade at the school, then Halloween parties and then trick-or-treating. It rained on us but it was so warm that it was still very pleasant. It's fun to be out at night with all the cute kids running around and everyone being so friendly. I love Halloween. If you can't tell from the pictures, Essie is Frankenstein, Summer is a cheerleader, Sinjin is Eeyore, and I just wanted an excuse to wear my favorite hat. I also forgot to fix the red eye on my pictures so if you look at them close up it looks very spooky and Halloween-ish:) It would have been more fun if Matt had been here, but he's in Park City for an Army Training weekend.

What to talk about?

So, I never really know what to write about unless I've had a picture-worthy event happen in my life. Nothing much going on the last week or so, besides going to work, watching kids, cleaning the house. It hasn't been a bad week, just nothing exciting. We did buy a new dining room table and chairs that I really like, but it had to be ordered so we don't have it yet. It's quite a bit bigger than our old one so there will be room for Sinjin to sit with us. Right now he's still in a high chair. The weather has been great for this time of year, which makes me very happy. Even Halloween should be fairly warm. I really dread the cold coming. I don't want to be cold. I think I need to move, except that I love a lot of other things about Utah. What I need is a lot of money so that I can live in some tropical place in the winter:) I hate when people write lol when they're joking about something, but maybe my little smiley faces are annoying too. Actually, they can't be as annoying as lol. Sorry if any of you write that or text it, I just can't stand it. It's almost as bad as when people say "I could care less" when they really mean they couldn't.

Trip to Southern Utah

Matt and I had been planning for months to go on a big trip this past week. Our original plan was to go to Jerusalem, but then we decided the five or six days we had off of work wasn't enough time to see everything we want to in Israel. So then we planned to go to Oahu and stay on the North Shore, but unfortunately I picked the week of UEA without knowing it, so most the seats on the plane were full and we couldn't get there. Then we thought of going to Rome or Athens or Paris, but anywhere that had seats on the plane didn't have hotel rooms for a reasonable price (for example: they wanted $120 per night for a hostel with a shared bathroom in Paris). Anyway, my mom was already here to watch the kids and we really wanted to go somewhere, so we decided to...drive down to St. George. I was a little disappointed at first, but it turned out to be a really fun trip! We did some hiking right near St. George, went to a play at the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City, and then went to Zion National Park. October is a great time of year to go to Zions. The weather was great and the leaves are changing color so everything was beautiful. We did some awesome hikes that I would totally recommend if you ever go to Zions. The first day we did Angels' Landing which was very steep and sometimes a little scary because the path is narrow and if you fell on either side you'd be a gonner. But the view from the top is amazing. Then the next day we went to Weeping Rock, a very easy hike that leads to a mountain where the water seeps through for about 1200 years and then drips out like the rock is crying. We also hiked that day to the Emerald Pools which was beautiful the whole way and probably my favorite trail. So, we had a wonderful time, even if we didn't get to fly to some faraway land.

Hiking

We went up Provo Canyon today to go hiking. It was so pretty, I just love fall. We hiked to Stewart Falls, which is the beginning of the hike to the top of Mt. Timpanogas. The kids did awesome, even Sinjin walked all but about three minutes without any complaint. Matt complained a little, because he wanted to be watching football, but at least he was there. In a few years we'll take the kids all the way to the top of the trail. That's about 11 miles each way, so it'll probably be about five more years before they can handle it. Matt and I did that hike a few times before we had kids and it's really cool. My favorite time was when Tim went with us and had a sweet ride down the glacier.

Belt Test

On Friday Essie had a karate belt test. This one was cool because she's moving to the intermediate class which means she gets a new red gi to wear. She did a good job. She sometimes got distracted and started making faces at us, but she did lots of good solid kicks and punches.