2009 Christmas Party w/Friends

I just posted below about the Christmas Party we had last year, 2009, with some of our closest friends. Here's a little video of the guys playing "around the world" ping pong that night, which was pretty entertaining for a bit! If you're interested, click on the link below to see the short video. Otherwise just scroll down to the pictures, etc., below. :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhwIdSd2pgo

2009 Christmas Party w/Friends

Saturday, December 19, 2009 - Every year we try to have a Christmas Party together with a group of our closest friends. We usually have a yummy potluck dinner together, play some fun games, and have a little gift exchange. We love getting together with our friends as often as possible! Here are some pictures from this last year's Christmas party, 2009:

This is Drew & Tauna. Drew is a little silly at times, as you can see here. :)

Here is a picture of a few of us sitting around the ping pong table just hanging out a bit. From left to right: Chrisy, who is somewhat shielded by her little girl, Lydia, Sheree (who has since lost a TON of weight and looks AMAZING), Laura (who has since had that baby she was carrying at that time, boy #2), Sheree's husband, Wayne, and Drew.

Here is a picture of Matt and I lounging on one of the comfy couches that had been pushed off to the side to allow room for the ping pong table in the middle of the livng room area. It's interesting to look back at the pictures now.....9 months later.....and see how much some of us have changed. Neither Matt or I quite look like that these days. Matt has actually lost about 30 pounds of weight since the beginning of the summer....April or May....and he looks and feels great! I'm also currently working on losing quite a bit of weight myself. My hair is also no longer that dark color that it is in this picture. I had just recently gotten it done again. It's now lighter and quite a bit longer.....I'm currently letting grow long for awhile.

This is Laura's (from the second picture above) husband, Rueben, and their oldest little boy, Seth. Like I said above, they've since had boy #2 as well.

Here's a great shot of some of us arriving to the party. I also think this is a great shot to kind of show the house that we were at. The house is Chrisy's parent's house and they are always very welcoming to allow us to come over and have get-togethers periodically. As you can somewhat see from the picture, the house is GORGEOUS and gives us plenty of room to play! :)

The boys were beginning to try to get a game of "around the world" ping pong going. The 2 guys at the front of the picture are Matt and Drew. The 2 guys at the back of the picture are Ryan Keddington & Ryan Bruerton. The little boy in the background is Bridger, Ryan Keddington and Chrisy's little boy.


The following are just a few shots of some of the decorated eating/dining area.


Here's another shot of the guys playing "around the world" ping pong.


We had a great night with everyone that night! Thanks to Ryan & Chrisy for hosting the party last year! :)

Friday, December 18, 2009

On Sunday, December 13, 2009, my brother-in-law, Jeremy, came back into town for a few days from Texas. He had to finish up a few things with his Unit with the Air National Guard here in Salt Lake before he could officially transfer down to Texas, so he came and stayed with us for a few days while he did so.

Friday, December 18, 2009 - While he was here, we decided to take a trip downtown to see Temple Square all lit up for the Holidays. It's always so beautiful! It was really cold, but enjoyable to see the beauty of Temple Square! Jeremy, Matt, and I, and a couple that are friends with Jeremy all went down that night. Here are some pictures......

This is a picture of the Salt Lake Temple. (It's always very busy downtown at this time of year as well.....so you can see some of the people that were also there that night in the picture.)

This is the Nativity Scene.

Here are some random pictures of some of the lights. There are thousands on all of the trees! (Matt is proud to point out that his work, Sprinkler World, helps to supply a lot of these lights.)

This is the old Assembly Hall all lit up.

Here's a picture of Matt and I.

This is another Nativity Scene that is displayed in the huge fountain. It's gorgeous the way it reflects off the water!

The Salt Lake Temple, along with the Nativity Scene in the fountain.

There is water that runs down in another gorgeous fountain along the length of the Church Office Building and the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. It runs right between the 2 buildings. Here are a couple pictures of that.

They had some Nativity Scenes from a few other countries displayed around Temple Square as well.

Here are some lanterns that are lit up all along the fountains, etc. They represent all of the different countries and languages all over the world.






Another beautiful shot of the Salt Lake Temple with the lights.

There are horse carriages that are run all over downtown....all throughout the year. Here are a couple of them.....lit up with lights as well.

Thanks for coming to visit us Jeremy!! We sure do miss you and your family!!

Good Things Utah

So I'm still trying really hard to get caught up on all of the 'happenings' going on in our life in the last few months. It's been slow going because I've been so busy and just haven't had time to sit down here and do updates very often......but here's another one:

Thursday, December 17, 2009: I had the opportunity to go and be on the set of Good Things Utah while they were taping the show live that morning. Here are some pretty self-explanatory pictures from that. It was pretty fun......and the set was beautiful! The picture above is a picture of all of us in our group that was there that morning. My cute friend, Heather (who is the one in the mustard colored hat and jacket in the picture), was the one who got the tickets and invited me to join her and several other friends and family members that morning. (I'm hiding out in the very back of the picture on purpose.....I HATE pictures of me! LOL) Thanks for the invite, Heather, and sorry it took so long to get these posted for you!! :)