Schnee!!!

This was our biggest storm - on Jan 21st... Until yesterday! I don't have any pics of yesterday, though. So, anyone know when Spring will be here? No More SCHNEE!!!
Well, at least the kids had fun with shoveling, throwing, and making snow angels.

Macy's Birthday

Macy graduated from the Twinkle Variations on Jan. 17th. She played all 6 variations with about 50 other children on stage at Cottonwood High School. I got to be one of the teachers leading the Twinkle group, and Macy was on the front row right by me. She did a very good job. It was a lot of fun. Afterwards Macy, Rob and I went to get ice cream with TJ and his friend Jon. We celebrated Macy's birthday on Jan. 20th. Mom, Dad, and my siblings came over for dinner and to open presents and eat cake. Enjoy the pics!

Chugga Chugga Choo Choo!

My mom, Michelle, is on the UTA Board of Trustees. She gets all sorts of cool privileges, like being one of the first people to ride on the new 70+ mph Commuter Rail train "Front Runner"...that is almost ready to open. Lucky us- we got to go with her!

On Dec. 27th Mom and I took the kids up to Kaysville. Eventually the line will run from Brigham City down to Payson. My grandparents, Ted and Shirleen, and my Uncle Larry and Aunt ReNee met us there. It was great fun. We got to go up to the front of the train and see where the driver sits. To do that, we had to walk through the engine room. We were instructed to plug our ears as tightly as we could- it was LOUD!

Isaak was especially excited, but the train doesn't look like Thomas, so he was a little disappointed. But it was thrilling to see that we were going faster than the traffic on the freeway! What a great tool this will be for people who have to commute into downtown Salt Lake- it will really relieve congestion.

Ward Christmas Party and Christmas Morning

Our Ward Christmas Party was fun- lots of yummy food and fun games. They had Candy Guessing Jars and Kaleb won a jar full of Hershey's Kisses. He guessed the closest number all by himself! He also won another candy treat when he answered a trivia questions about The Grinch correctly.

Robert Bowden, the former conductor of the Boston Pops Symphony and Mormon Symphony Orchestra (the latter of which I was a member of), came to our party. His daughter is in our ward, and she asked him to lead the Sing-a-Long. He was entertaining and did a great job. I re-introduced myself to him and he made a joke during the presentation about the "former Orchestra member" in the audience that could vouch for him being a mean conductor. He was threatening to make people come up front and sing solos if he didn't see them singing.

Bro. Bowden asked for our Stake President, who has a beautiful tenor voice, to choose 3 other people to come sing a quartet of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" and I was chosen to sing alto. That was sorta fun. :)

We picked up Kaleb, Elise, and Isaak at about 11:30 on Christmas Day. Macy patiently waited to open her presents until we got home. It was a rushed day- we hurried and opened presents, then went to my parents and opened more presents. Then at about 2:30 we drove down to Spanish Fork for a party with my dad's family. That was fun- we read the Christmas Story and sang hymns, and then played Bingo.

We had another Christmas Party with my mom's family on Sat. the 29th, where we also played Bingo. Our house is inundated with candy (that I've been slowly throwing in the garbage, so no one will notice.) :) We hope you all had a great Christmas as well!

Birthdays

We had a combined birthday party for Elise and Isaak on Dec. 16th. It was a little early for them both, but the only time we could all get together with my family. I made a cake and the kids chose how they wanted it decorated. We didn't get many good pictures because our batteries were low and the lighting was bad. But here are a few. Elise turned 7 and Isaak turned 4.

On Sat. Dec 15th I took the girls to see "The Nutcracker" and Robert took the boys to see "Alvin and the Chipmunks". It was "Girls Date" and "Boys Date" day. We all had a good time. I also took Elise to the violin store and we picked out a violin to rent. I've been giving her lessons and she's doing really well. I'll put some pics of that up soon.

Honeymooning

We drove to California the week after our wedding and stayed at my grandparents house for a night. The next morning, after realizing we had forgotten our birth certificates in Utah, my friend Laura frantically searched every nook and cranny of our house to try to find them and fax them to us. After about two hours, luckily her one year old son crawled under our couch and found them. Then we got lost in Pasadena on our way to Harbor Blvd in L.A.

Somehow we made it safely (and legally) aboard the ship and cruised to San Diego. Robert was excited to be back near his old stomping ground. We rode the bus to the Museum in Balboa Park and saw an exhibit on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Seaport Village was the place for lunch- a yummy cafe built right on a pier. We filled up, since our dinner rotation on the ship was at 8:00 p.m. Good thing they fed us a 3 course meal! The food was definitely the best part about the whole cruise.

Catalina Island was our second stop. Robert remembered canoeing there on a Boy Scout trip in his youth. Ah youth. The city is basically built right up the side of the hill- very interesting. We went snorkeling in the 62 (felt like 42!) degree water. Thank goodness for full wetsuits. Yes, it was frigid, thanks for asking. And despite Rob's mask not repelling water/fogginess, we enjoyed ourselves. Too bad there were no showers for us when we were done- the water was nasty. So, we scrubbed as well as we could in the bathrooms, then grabbed a quick bite to eat, did a little shopping and skedaddled back to the ship to shower.

The last port was Ensenada, Mexico. The sign for the "New Shopping Center" made us laugh, since it looked pretty old. In fact, most everything we saw was old, run-down, and filthy. Sad. We took a bus tour to "La Bufadora", which means "Buffalo Snort". It's one of three natural blowholes in the world. (Wikipedia... "La Bufadora is the second largest blowhole in the world, and can shoot upwards as high as 80 feet above sea level." It was low tide when we were there, so not super impressive, but not hard to imagine.

Our most interesting story from the marketplace near the blowhole was that we looked for a silver and tanzanite ring and talked the merchant down from $300 to $50. We were so disenchanted by the time he got to $90 that we were halfway down the street. He was chasing us, lowering the price as we went. It was pretty funny, actually. Maybe we should have bought it. Oh well.

We went back to downtown Ensenada and ate lunch in a nice cafe. They had SUPER hot salsa, and I tried Mole for the first time. Put an accent on the end... I did not eat a rodent. It's sort of a cocoa/gravy type sauce they put on chicken. Anyhoo...

The day we got back to L.A. we decided that we couldn't possibly be THAT close to Disneyland and NOT go. So we went. Rob hasn't been for like 15 years, so it was almost like going with a kid. It was lots of fun, and everything was decorated for Christmas. It was the best honeymoon ever.

Our Wedding

I finally figured out how to get our wedding pics into a slideshow for your viewing pleasure. We were married on 11/9/07 in Herriman, Utah. We're grateful to all who were able to come, and missed those who weren't. Things have been busy with the holidays and our honeymoon, etc. I'll be putting pics of those things up soon.

Enjoy and Happy New Year!!

Photos taken by Bair Photography