It's a miracle!!! For the first time in at least 6 years (to be more precise - as far back as anyone can remember), the 2nd Ward's Deacon team won a game!!! And they won by 22 points!! Of course now we have to get up at the crack of dawn (on a Saturday) for the next game, but we will revel in the jubilation tonight!!!
On Christmas Eve, Annie was just a LITTLE excited about the prospect of having Carrot Pudding. The picture may be blurry, but the pudding was delightful (I actually made good sauce Mom!).
Brian turned the big "43" today - we went out for a fun dinner at Bonsai Japanese Steakhouse with Jessie (the other person in the picture is Irene - she and her husband own Bonsai).
Hey - at least I didn't make him cook on his own birthday. That would have been the only way we would have had food at our house!
Caitlin was "student of the week" last week so Austin & I got to be interviewed by her class about her (fascinating questions!). Of course, we had to bring treats too!
It was Jessie's annual Christmas party this weekend. We had a great time visiting with Erik and Tracy - you can check them out of the Food Network show "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives" this Friday (12/26). Their restaurant, Ruth's Diner, was featured - it was a really good episode!
Jackie slaved all day to make this heavenly dessert. Notice how Mom is not looking at the camera in an feeble attempt to keep her eyes open.
Levi & Caitlin watching the Jazz game.
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It is a Christmas miracle and Keith is verifying it - Mom had her eyes open for a picture!!
We hit our city's "Lights On" celebration this weekend. It is actually pretty fun (other than too many skaters on the ice rink). Santa made his grand entrance on a fire truck. The big tree is right in the middle of the outdoor ice rink (which is a fountain in the summer). We made it there just in time for the countdown and then we hit the ice (we being Caitlin, Austin and me). .JPG)
The kids were waiting to get on the ice (there was a skating exhibition by one of the local figure skating clubs - they were quite good!).
Thanksgiving by the numbers:
850 = miles driven
So I just got home from seeing "Twilight" for the second time. I hadn't planned on seeing it twice originally, but realizing that I am an insomniac, I decided to get a midnight ticket just in case I was awake (I already had tickets for this afternoon). Of course I was awake, just like at midnight every other night this week so off I went!
I did enjoy the 12:30 am show - most of the Twi-looneys went to the 12:00 show, so I avoided them for the most part. It was quite surreal to pull into the big shopping complex where the movie theaters are and not be able to find a parking place at 12:20 am (thank heavens for reserved seating!). Even more surreal was seeing the entire theater still packed at 2:45 am. There was an incredibly long line for something - I think they might have added another show for 3:00 am.
I thought the movie was pretty good - it definitely held my interest! I liked it much better the second time. Our paper gave the movie 2 1/2 out of 4 stars - I would give it 3 out of 4 just because I like the story so much. Maybe I wasn't worrying about how good the movie would be the second time and I just sat back and enjoyed.
The afternoon crowd was definitely more animated (screaming, crying, giggling, squealing, etc.) than the middle of the night crowd. More tweens I guess. One of the friends I went with this afternoon read the book years ago so she had forgotten alot of it, but she absolutely loved it. My friend Jen was like me - we pored over the books multiple times so we were MUCH more critical, however, she liked it better the second time also (she went at midnight with the Twi-looneys). If you haven't read the books - get to it, but make sure you have time to read for a bit, they're hard to put down!
Where I will be in (see countdown below) plus 2 hours (I can't believe they didn't set this up for Mountain Standard Time)!
Is it a sign of the apocalypse that my 12 year old TEXTED me at 7:00 in the morning last Sunday to request his favorite breakfast?
They put on a lovely Christmas show and then they started really rocking out - fire, fireworks, levitating stage, violinist running through the audience whipping everybody into a frenzy, etc.I'm not a big fan of Halloween - my decorations were down this year by noon on November 1st (I felt it was an accomplishment to put any up at all). Usually, the one bright spot is carving pumpkins. We made the annual trek to our favorite pumpkin patch and spent far too much money on way too many pumpkins. 
I'm going to blame "cruise-lag" this year, but I didn't carve a single pumpkin - not even my traditional Denver Broncos horsehead (go ahead and blame me for their loss today - I do control their fate by my wardrobe and actions). Austin came through and carved 4 of our 12 pumpkins, but, blame the "cruise-lag" again, I didn't even take a single picture of his creations (they were quite good - as usual).
However, now that I know I can turn the radio on and hear Christmas music, I'm sure the "cruise-lag" will fade away!
Here's our little zombie princess and Clark Kent. For the first time in, oh, forever - we had great weather for Halloween which meant we made it to EVERY house in our subdivision for trick or treating. 
We had a great time next door again at the Culley's annual Halloween party. We barely even needed the fire.
I am a VERY impatient person (shocking confession Mom, I know). I have stacks of books on my dresser that I haven't started because I know that if I start a book - if it is any good at all - I won't put it down regardless of what is going on around me (what - you want me to fix dinner?! I can't - I'm in a really good part of the book!). This is why a read so many magazines... I can finish one of those in under 30 minutes tops.
Knowing I was going on a trip where I would be flying for a long period of time, I decided to take one of the books - "Twilight" - that has been collecting dust on my dresser for the past year or so to keep me busy - it was pretty thick, so that was the only one I took. Needless to say for those of you who've read the books, I've made it through all 4 now in the last week (5 if you count "Midnight Sun" on the author's website).
I am now anxiously awaiting the movie for "Twilight." I also made it through the 1st 3 books without reading the end before I read the book (I share that same habit as Harry in "When Harry Met Sally" that I read the end of the book after I've read a couple of chapters because - impatiently - I can't wait to find out how it ends). I went back to my old habits with "Breaking Dawn" - I just couldn't wait.
The unpacking is done - unfortunately, the laundry isn't, but I thought I'd throw some pictures on here from our trip.
Caribbean sunsets aren't too bad - this was taken from the veranda in our room (I was lounging there reading a book - more on that later).
The cruise line we were on (Holland America) has their own island - Half Moon Cay. We spent the day there lounging on the white sand beaches - reading a book (again).
We were able to choose an activity to do on the island. We received our packets late so the good activities were already full, so we opted for the glass bottom boat ride. The best part wasn't in the glass - it was outside the boat when the fish were waiting to be fed!
From snow to THIS...
Just back from a cruise to the Bahamas - hard to believe that we were on a private island in the Caribbean at this time yesterday. Here's me in my swimsuit on the beach. Yep - that's our boat in the background. It was nice to see how the other half lives!
I'll post more pics later after the unpacking.
October in Utah. We were wearing shorts just a couple of days ago and the forecast is for 70 degree weather in a couple of days.
Ironically, we moved into our house 11 years ago this very weekend and it snowed on us then too.
Golfing a the Moab Golf Club.
Rafting the Colorado River (West Water). This was at the end of the day when we were FROZEN from the rain and the waves from the class 3 & 4 rapids swamping our boat. All I can say was thank heavens for the wet suit!
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