Christmas '09

Can I just say I love to blog because I am horrible at keeping a journal so this acts as a journal for me. Although uploading pictures on a blog is a pain, it is all worth it!

I apologize for the long post and many pictures in advance. We had a busy December therefore lots of updates.

This was the first year I put out a Christmas card. WOW! Took a ton of work but loved it. I heard on a TV show last month something funny: "Christmas is like having a baby. While you are going through it, you swear you won't do it again (Christmas cards/neighbor treats/etc..) but come the next year, you are so excited to do it all again! Every year as I'm cooking up a storm and getting all ready for Christmas I tell myself that next year will be different. The next year I won't do half of what I'm doing this year but come summer/fall, I am counting down the days to do it all again! Anyway, I had to scan my Christmas card so it's a bit blurry. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Life has been busy for us but GOOD busy! Alan works A TON but we are grateful for that. He has been very successful in his businesses and we feel very blessed. '09 started out uneventful and slow for us and ended very busy and eventful. Life is good!


I am in the Young Women's presidency in our ward. Love it! Love our girls! Love the women I serve with! It's been an amazing calling. We had the Young Women over to my house for dinner and then took them to the Nutcracker. Turned out to be a lot of fun! Here are some of our Young Women.

Us leaders...

At the Nutcracker...

I threw a few Christmas parties this year. This one was with some of my girlfriends. Oh and Dayne there in the back round.

I love this picture of my brother! He's such a great kid!

This is my good friend Rodney.

We had Christmas Eve at my house this year with most my family. What a great time we had! I laughed so hard that I woke up Christmas morning and my stomach was sore. We had dinner and played games. Love love love hanging out with my family!

My amazing sister, Laralee. Who by the way has lost almost 50lbs! Isn't she so beautiful? She's one of the most amazing people in my life. I just adore her so much.

I asked my brother to take a picture of us. This is what I got. Dork!

All my brothers

We spent Christmas at my parent's house. As you can see, we had a fun day. My sister 'Elfed' herself and my nieces and nephews. Here she is showing them the final product. I can't stop laughing at this picture. So cute! At the end, Thomas (the youngest) kept saying, "gen, gen!" Meaning 'again, again.'

I know I've said this a million times but I love how my nieces and nephews love Alan. They are always climbing up on him and sitting with him. Christian sat on his lap most the time we opened presents. I love it!


Alan bought me this fantastic coat for Christmas. I've been wanting it and he bought it for me. If you don't know me well enough I should say I am being sarcastic in this picture. My brother was taking pictures and I was being silly. No, I am not being serious! Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Thomas loves his 'Uncle Bobo.'

I love the look on people's faces (especially kids) when I give them a gift they love. I bought my nieces some headbands that my friend makes. She does such an amazing job! Check out her blog www.navyperl.blogspot.com. I am obsessed with her headbands!

I can't really take credit for the gift I gave to Thomas. My sister actually bought Justin (my stepson) this Car's race track. Thomas loves to come to my house to play with this. He is obsessed with Cars. He runs straight to Justin's room and plays with it till they have to leave. So I decided since Justin never places with it, I gave it to Thomas for Christmas. He was so excited!

Christmas was one of the best this year. We had such a great time. After dinner (which by the way was so amazing, I WAY over ate. UGH!) we went to a movie as a family then came back to the house and played Phase 10 till almost 1 am. It was a great time.
I woke up the next day feeling a bit sad. I don't know about any of you, but I always get a bit down the day after Christmas. I love the holidays so much so it's hard when it comes to an end. I hate that part so much that I leave Christmas up in my house until middle of January. I know, I know! I'm crazy! I just have a hard time taking it all down.

New Year's Eve was a lot of fun. I can't believe how fast time flies! I was remembering that for New Year's 2000 my girlfriends and I went to Disneyland and how it felt as though it happened maybe 4yrs ago. Where does the time go?!
For this New Year's Eve, we went to dinner with some very good friends of ours and then went to their house and hung out till midnight. It was very chill but a lot of fun. My friend Angie (in the middle) just had a baby so my favorite part was holding her little one half the night. He is adorable and just snuggles up to you. I didn't even care that he threw up all over me. He's just too fun to hold. Anyway, we love hanging out with these friends so much that it is turning into a tradition to hang out with them every New Year's Eve. Last year we spent at their cabin and will probably do that again next year. Good times!

I hope all of you had a memorable Christmas and I hope this year is the best one yet for you and your family!

My New Car!!

It's nice to finally have a car that works in the snow! If only I could figure out all the buttons and gadgets on this thing, I'll be good to go!

Thanksgiving in Texas

We had such a fun Thanksgiving this year. We drove to Texas to spend time with Alan's family for a week. His whole family was there so it made for a fun week! We ate delicious Mexican food, played games just about every night, did a little shopping and had a great time!

On the big day I helped my mother in law cook. Mainly because when we are with my family, I cook the same things every year and wanted to keep up that tradition. My mother in law was really great to let me take over party of the meal and cook what I love to cook. All the food was so good and we had a great time just chatting. We then went to see The Blindside. What an amazing moving!!! If you haven't seen it, go see it! Amazing movie!! We later ate pie and played games. Such a fun day! I love Thanksgiving because I love being with family, eating good food, focusing on all I am grateful for and have in my life and of course I love this time of year! I love the holidays!

I love the holidays so much that I just had to decorate my house for Christmas before Thanksgiving. I just couldn't wait! Here is my tree. The picture just doesn't do it justice. It really turned out so pretty and I am in love with my creation. ;)


This was on the drive down to Texas watching Swiss Family Robinson. Remember that movie? What a classic. I can't believe how well Justin did! He asked 3 times in the first hour if we were there yet but luckily didn't ask again until morning. Then it was every 3-5 minutes, "Are we there? How much longer? I just can't wait! Why is this taking so long!" But my favorite part was when he started to sing, "I love Texas! I love to come to Texas!" And on and on. It was really cute. He loves going to see his grandma and grandpa. (He rode with his cousins the whole way home. Apparently they are more fun than we are. I guess 16 hours in a car is more fun with other kids.)



Justin and his cousin's played video games probably half the time we were down there.

We had family pictures taken because who knows when we'll all be together again. The girl next to me is Yoonsung. She just married Alan's little brother, Dustin. We love her! She is from Korea and you know what the whole world thinks of Americans? We are so obnoxious and sarcastic. She picked up quickly how sarcastic we were and I think got used to us being so obnoxious. She held her own and I was impressed how well she did! Jen is the little one who is married to Kyle (Alan's brother) and then Audrey. Alan's only sister. I had a great time with all of them!

One of my purchases on the trip. I just loved them so much I had to take a picture of them. I have a shoe problem but what girl doesn't?!

The whole family

Just the girls

My sister in law took these pictures. Justin and I wrestled a couple of times on this trip. Justin loves to wrestle and I've learned that when he wants to wrestle, it is his way of wanting to bond with me so of course I am all about it! I had such a fun time with him on this trip. He's such a great kid and I love our "wrestling" moments.

(Gage trying to save his cousin.)

What I am thankful for this year:

1. Family. I LOVE my family and Alan's family and love spending time with them.

2. My marriage. Being married to Alan has been the best thing that has ever happened to me. He's been so good for me and I just adore him. One of the things I love most about him (and what he brings out in me) is the fact that he can so easily admit when he's wrong (as can I) and always validates how I feel. I love that about him.

3. Justin. Our relationship continues to grow and I am so grateful for how well he handles having to share two families.

4. Being in the Young Women's Presidency. It has been such a neat experience to work such amazing young women. My calling keeps me pretty busy and I love it! I love our whole presidency. We all bring out the best in each other and I love working with them. I also love the spiritual aspect of it. I work beside such spiritually strong women who have been an amazing example to me.

Of course I am grateful for many, many more things but those are the top for me. I love my life and am grateful for the road it has taken me on.

Our 2nd Wedding Anniversary

Yesterday we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. 2 years goes by so fast but on the other hand, we feel as though we've known each other forever! Marriage has been better than I ever could have imagined. We have had a great two years. Alan is so good to me and I couldn't ask for any better. Love you so much, Alan. Here is to many, many more years. It just keeps getting better!

We spent the day together just hanging out. Then last night we went to dinner. Great (amazing) food, great company and great conversation. We talked about what we felt were our strong points in our marriage and where we felt we could make it better. We ate so much good food that we ended up home on the couch with stomach aches but it was all worth it! ;)

Grandma Melba

September 4, 1914-October 24, 2009

My sweet grandmother passed away last night. She was 95 and had a great life. I didn't think it would be so hard to see her go. I was headed to dinner with my sister when my mom called and told me she wasn't expected to make it through the night so we rushed to go say good bye to her. She died not 10 minutes before we got to her bed side. When we got there she had only been gone for 10 minutes and I couldn't believe how different she looked. It was the first time I realized that your personality is all in your spirit. Once the spirit leaves the body, the body automatically changes. As we walked in my Dad kissed his mother on the forehead and then we kissed her and said our goodbyes. I just kept waiting for her to wake up and talk to us. What made me feel so bad was that I went to see her last week and as I left, I promised I'd come back and see her soon. I didn't think that would be the last time I would get to see her. I regret not spending more time with her.

My best memories of my Grandma were growing up. We were raised in South America so her and my Grandpa would come visit us. I remember when we would go places she would have to take a picture of everything! A rock, a cow, anything! She was always so thoughtful to us. We didn't really have TV in S. America so she would record episodes of The Cosby Show and made for TV movies and send them to us. What made it so funny was half the movies she recorded would be cut off at the end. She loved us and she always showed it by doing thoughtful things for us.

Her and my Grandpa lived in California and we would go visit them every summer. I remember getting into town late at night and my Mom would want to put us to bed but she would pull out the mint chocolate chip ice cream and want to stay up and visit with us. Then the next day she would take us to all the garage sales. Those were some fun summers!

My Grandma had such a sense of humor and was very social. She loved peopled. She loved to write and ride horses. Most of all she loved, loved, loved to talk and would talk to anyone who would listen. Her favorite story to tell was of how she met my Grandpa. They both loved to danced and that is how they met. Of course, the story always changed a bit when she would tell it. Her and my Grandpa danced every Saturday night. Even when their kids were grown. That was their thing. My Grandma always describes their dancing experiences with such enthusiasm. My Grandpa would carry a towel with him. My Grandma, wearing high, high heels dancing the night away.

My Grandpa died 17 years ago. So my Grandma had been alone for so many years that in 2003 my parents decided it was time for her to move to Utah and live with them. I was a flight attendant at the time so I flew out to California and picked her up and flew her to Utah. I will never forget the flight back with her and just being able to visit with her. Since she has been living here I think she has gotten more and more lonely and her health has gotten worse and worse but she kept on going. A few weeks ago they submitted her into the hospital and that is when I went to see her. I remember telling her she was one stubborn women and she replied, "I'm not stubborn. I'm determined!" That she was!

I can only imagine what her reunion must have been like with her husband, family and friends. I imagine her dancing around, being the center of attention (which she loved to be!) and talking every one's ear off. We all met at her bed side last night and talked for hours sharing our favorite memories of her. I didn't think I would be so sad because I really am so very happy for her and for her new opportunities to come. I guess I'm just sad to have to say goodbye to such a funny, loving grandma. I love your Grandma! You will be missed!

(My Grandpa and Grandma)

Justin

Isn't my stepson so adorable? Too bad I can't take credit for his good looks. ;)

The excitement.....

....of hAllOwEeN....

...... is in the air!