Christmas 2010

December 25, 2010

It is surprising because I feel like there is not too much to say about Christmas Day.  It is not like it was wonderful like all the other years, but I guess that is just it, it was like every other yea.

We kind of went crazy this year with presents for each other.  The issue was we both really needed some new clothes and we had held off until Christmas to get them.

I was super super excited to get some black and gray boots.  I am finally somewhat in style and I love them!!!

Trav had hinted to me all of December that if I was going to surprise him, that he wanted BYU Basketball Tickets.  Well I really wanted to get him SDSU vs. BYU tickets because they were both ranked at the time and when they played SDSU was 4th and BYU was 9th, but it was on a weekday night and I thought it would be safer to get tickets to a game that were on a Saturday.  So I got the BYU vs. UNLV (they are a good team still).

The pink box that I am holding is new perfume.  Trav surprised me with a really nice Ed Hardy perfume that he picked out himself.  He did an awesome job because I LOVE IT!! 

Amanda, Shannon and Josh

Dad and Mom

Trav and Me

After we opened presents at our apartment we headed up to my parents house and opened gifts there.  We gave my mom some nice Australian Sheepskin slippers and my dad 2 tickets to 2 different Utah Jazz games.  We also got them a combined gift to pick out a play they want to go see at the new Centerville Theater. Next we headed to grandma and grandpa Fords and enjoyed a little family time and then it was off to the Tidwell's to have dinner  and do gifts there.  My grandma and grandpa Tidwell always have something creative for us to do.  This year my grandma had gathered all of the pictures she had of me and bought some cute scrapbook paper and stinkers and gave it to me in a binder. Then while we were there on Christmas, we started to put together a little scrapbook of all of the pictures.  It was a lot of fun to see some pictures of me as a baby that I have never seen before.  It was an awesome Christmas and me and Trav have so much to be grateful for.  Great families, great friends, a place to live, a job, schooling, the gospel, Christ's birth, and each other!

Tidwell Family Christmas Outing and Ford Family Party

December 17 -18

So usually for our get together we go out to dinner and then hit up a play (most of the time being Deseret Star Playhouse).  Well this year we decided to mix it up.  We all met up at the Embassy Suites in Salt Lake.  My dad went up picked us up dinner at Hires Big H.  We sat in the lobby together and chatted and ate.  Then we were headed to our rooms to bundle up and Trax in to Temple Square.  We walked around Temple Square for awhile and enjoyed the beautiful lights on the temple grounds. It was fun to feel the Christmas spirit in the air.  Once we had made the rounds, my dad thought we might all want to stop at this little stand where they were serving hot chocolate, but we all opted to get going because we were too cold.  Once we got back to the hotel, we got out some games to play as a family and then headed down to the pool.  I was really hoping it would be relaxing and that we could just have it to just our family because kids weren't supposed to be in the pool after 10pm.  It turns out there were a bunch of kids and no one said anything so we heard the echo of yelling and splashing as we tried to relax in the hot tub.  It was still fun anyways. That night my parents surprised the girls (Amanda, Me, and Shannon) with some cute new pajamas and they gave the guys (Shane, Travis and Josh) gift cards to Cafe Rio.  It ended up being a really great night and we always have a good time with the family.

FYI...I did have a huge sweater on under my coat....

Later that Saturday night, we headed over to Kathy and Kevin's for the Ford Christmas Party.  We ate chicken pillows for dinner. Brianna had put together a Christmas Cranium game that was a lot of fun.  We also did a sort of gift/white elephant game.  There is a sad story to tell about this year though...we didn't do the regular talent show.  What it came down to is our family had something planned, but it was a little bit of a project and we didn't have the time to pull it together.  My mom talked to Kathy and said that maybe we should drop the talent show this year.  Kathy thought that was a great idea and let everyone else know and apparently everyone else thought it was a great idea too.  Kathy did pull together a bunch of clips of past Christmas talents show and we got a kick out of those!!! Needless to say, I was sad that we didn't get to see the creativity that comes along with the annual talent show.  You never know what someone is going to come up with.  As old, Kathy and Kevin were great hosts and we had an awesome time with the fam.

Thanksgiving and the Guymon Annual Gingerbread Houses

November 24-27

Thanksgiving/Black Friday

This year we were able to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with the Guymon's.  (I need to be better at posting closer to the event because I forget the details of what we did), but I do remember that the Thanksgiving feast was excellent.  And it definitely was a feast!!!  Jaime and her boys, Adam and Heidi's Family, Mark, Ray and Marian were there to celebrate.  My favorite part of Thanksgiving is the stuffing!  It is sooooo delicious.  Oh my memory is coming back to me......So that night I went with the girls to the Walmart's Black Friday Sale.  There wasn't really anything I needed, but I helped man the cart while the others went to go grab all the good deal.  I haven't been to a Black Friday sale in quite a few years, and boy did I forget how crowded and crazy it is.  I do have to say that I think everyone in Carbon and Emery county were at Wal-mart because they are the only big store down there. ha ha.  The aisles were gridlocked.  We had someone telling us that we were going down the wrong side of the aisle?!?!  I thought to myself.... I don't see anyone moving in any sort of an organized fasion, you just go where your cart has 2 inches to move, or with the flow of traffic, but there was no "flowing" going on.  Another thing that shocked me was that people have always said that things can get stolen out of your cart on Black Friday, and I thought there is no way that people actually do that.  Well I am here to tell you they DO.  So I am walking down a main aisle and Jaime is looking at pajamas, and Heidi and Marian are following a little bit behind me.  Well I'm just pushing along and I hear plastic being moved.  I look down  and this 17-year-old boy is lifting up a pillow in my cart and taking out 1 of the 3 art kits we were going to purchase that was at the bottom of the cart.  He made a mad dash and I yelled at him...I was so suprised I didn't even know what to do.  I wanted to run after him, but considering I had my purse and Jaime's purse in the front of the cart and all the other "theft worthy" items in my cart.  I decided to just let him go.  It made me so upset.  How can people be that CRAZY!  Needless to say, it was quite the adventure. 

Utah 17 vs. BYU 16

 So by the time Saturday came, Cody and Laura's family, and Megan and Paul, were able to join us for the day's festivites.  We were going to watch the last offical "Holy War" and then head to the church to decorate our gingerbread houses.  So I started watching the game downstairs with all of the guys aka BYU fans.  It was going well until I just couldn't hadle them saying there was this hold or that hold or that they gave them a generous spot.  It was just killing me and I didn't want to say anything I would regret, so I decided to seperate myself and watch it upstairs with the Utah fans and the Uninterested fans.  It was a lot more enjoyable.  Well Paul and I thought for sure it was over when they had the opportunity for a field goal, but the Utes came through with an AWESOME block!  UTAH UTES win the 2010 HOLY WAR!!! I do have to say that the BYU crowd downstairs wasn't the most pleasant to be around until they had a chance to cool down.

True Gingerbread Houses

So to get everyone back in the family fun mood we headed to the stake center to create out gingerbread houses.  Laura had be so nice to make almost everyone real gingerbread pieces that fit together to make a darling house.  They were quite elaborate might I say.  Trav and I assisted Hiedi in helping Camden put his house together.  We weren't going to do our own house this year, but we got suckered into it and it ended up turning out cute. 

We did learn of some good news during the event.  Megan and Paul brought out two large glass candy jars with blue and pink candy in them and they had tied a bow around the top of each of them.  They are having a baby and since then, we have found out it is a boy that is due in May.  We are so excited for them and can't went to welcome baby Campbell into the family!  In celebration, Megan and Paul made their gingerbread house only blue and pink.

You can't tell what Trav is making, but while I decorated our house, he worked on making a direct tv satellite to put on the roof of our gingerbread house.  It was pretty creative, but it would never stay together well enough to actually get it on the house.

Camden making a silly face, but I think he also has a whole lot of candy in his mouth.  All he was worried about concerning his house was the frogs that were in the pond.

Keith and Colin-Colin's house unofficially won the award of "most candied house".  We were all worried that it was going to cave in. 

Kenya, Laura, and Megan.  Laura was making a Victorian Gingerbread House.  They turned out so cute!!!

Cody, Avery, Alanna, Jaime, and Keith

Ashlee, Trav, Austin, Adam, and Miles

Half 1

Half 2

The whole crew!

Our Gingerbread house.

I liked the momma and baby snowman in the front.

The guys played some basketball after and I jumped in for a few games a lightening.  Thanks to Laura for the gingerbread houses, and to Marian and Ray for hosting us all weekend. 

Blizzard of 2010.......???

Sunday, November 20th

We woke up to head out to church and was welcomed by a foot of snow.  And no, this was a few days before the "Blizzard of 2010". Ha ha. 

The "Blizzard of 2010", as the news called it, was scheduled to arrive on November 23 around 5pm and leave November 24 around noon. It was the talk of the news, tv, town, and work.  Everyone was recommending leaving work early so you didn't have to drive in the blizzard, and the Wells Fargo Center, where I worked, had even said that they might have to close the building all together on the 24th.  Well let's just say that it wasn't all it was talked up to be. I was glad I got to leave work a little early so I didn't have to drive in the blizzard of 2010, but we only got about 4, maybe 5 inches of snow..  We got more snow before, as seen below (12 inches), and more snow a few days after (15 inches), then on the blizzard of 2010 day. 

I really do enjoy having snow over Christmas and seeing how it makes everything beautiful and white, it also brings snowboarding season, but once it melts some, it is just dirty and doesn't look pretty anymore.  It also isn't fun to shovel and it makes driving very scary.  But if you live in Utah, you may as well try to enjoy the four seasons!!!

Trav's 27th Birthday

November 8, 2010

Before Trav's birthday, we went birthday shopping for some clothes.  I ended up buying him a nice Hurley button-up shirt seen below for his birthday. I love the deep red and orange plaid because it reminds me so much of fall and looks so good on Trav. He also bought some other shirts with the money he got from my parents and his parents.  It is always fun when birthdays and Christmas comes around because we have a reason to go shopping.  We don't have a lot of extra money, so we avoid the mall for most of the year to not be tempted by cute, fashionable clothes.

Trav's only request for his birthday was that if Red Lobster was still doing their Shrimp Fest (All-you-can-eat-shrimp) for $16.99, then he wanted to go there.  The Shrimp Fest was still going on during his birthday, and so we went to Red Lobster for the first time ever together. I have never been there before because I don't really like seafood and it is expensive.  Trav had been there sometime in his life, but not in the time since he has known me (5 years).  So he was able to try all their different kinds of shrimp and I was happy with the only chicken entree on the menu, Cajan Chicken Linguini Alfredo. We had a great time at dinner and he LOVED the shrimp.  (Like I said, his only request was Red Lobster, he didnt' want me wrap his gift or make him a cake, but I gave him a birthday card and cake anyway :) ) 

Ater Red Lobster, I quickly whipped up a cake.  He favortie is German Chocolate, but this year he choose funfetti cake and frosting.  I made the cake, and he blew out the candles, and we each ate a little slice, because we were so stuffed from dinner.  But I think overall it was a good birthday for him and we always enjoy the time we get to spend together. I always tell him that he is old, because he is 3 years older than me. But I guess we will wait and see what I say when I turn 27. ha ha

I love that I caught this shot right in the heat of the moment.

Halloween

Celebrated Saturday, October 30th

So we decided that this year we didn't want to pick our pumpkins out at Wal-mart or any other store.  So we went to the pumpkin patch....just me and Trav.  We may have been a little out of place considering everyone had atleast one child there, but we enjoyed finding our perfect pumpkin to carve.  We took them over to my families get together where we all cutted our pumpkins and carved them.  I do have to mention though that we had potato broccoli soup in pumpkin looking soup bowls and yummy homemade breadsticks before the carving began. Very festive (hopefully pics to come later).  We carved pumpkins a few days before Halloween.

I bet you can't guess which one was mine? 

On Halloween Day, we had no plans, so we decided to head down to the spend some time with our nephews. We let them pick out the design they wanted on their pumpkin and helped them carve them.  I thought they turned out really great.  After we got their hands cleaned up from the pumpkin goo, they got on their costumes.  Keith and Colin were ninjas and Camden was Darth Vader.  The picture shown obove is them sitting on stools letting their face paint and black hair dry. :)Next, we were on our way to their ward  Trunk-or-Treat in the rain, so it ended up being inside.  It was crazy how many people showed up.  The whole church was full of anxious trick-or-treaters!  Trav and I decided that we would sit and pass out the candy while Jaime took her boys around.  We saw a lot of cute kids in costumes.  After the boys had their bags full of candy, they participated in the cupcake walk and the haunted house, put on by the YM/YW.

Owl-Keith, Cat in Witch Boot-Colin, Traditional jack-o-latern-Camden (compliments of Keith).

We brought them some balloons to decorate and for them to play with.  They definitely know how to strike a pose for a picture.

After the trunk-or-treat we headed back to our house.  Considering the fact that we live in a basement of house, we figured that we wouldn't get any trick-or-treaters.  Well we put our 2 pumkins outside and lit them and turned on the light by our door, in hopes that someone would come.  Well we ended up getting about 20 trick-or-treaters!!! I was so happy when I heard the little knocks on the door.  Granted it only ended up being 2 groups of kids, but I was more than happy to give them candy!  Halloween can't be found on my list of favorite holidays, but we defnitely had a great time!!!

Sunday Drive

 A Sunday in October

I kept telling Trav that I wanted to go for a drive and see the Fall leaves.  I would always says it after we were both home from work and it was too dark.  So on Sunday he said let's go for a drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon.  So we did.  As we were driving and stopping to take pictures, I was shocked by how many other people had the same idea.  The whole canyon was full of "fall sightseers". Usually we get to see the fall leaves as we drive through Spanish Fork Canyon to visit his family, but this year he was the only one that had gone through the canyon during Fall to go hunting with his dad.  So I was super, super excited to go for a little drive.  I sometimes complain at all the seasons that we have in Utah, but I love Fall.  I love all the different shades of orange, red, yellow, and green!!! It was just gorgoues and I'm so grateful for this beautiful world that Heavenly Father created for us to enjoy.

The picture above is the first picture we took as we started up the canyon.  I was so excited to see the bright red tree and the fall colors that I took a picture immediatly, worrying that it would be the only bit of color we would see, but I was definitely wrong. 

My shirt with palm trees does not match the fall weather, but ya know, it was a Sunday.

I would have never guessed that I would take a piture of green evergreens and yellow tress, but I found the golden color mixed in with the dark green was so pretty.  It expanded over a vast part of the mountain.

This last one is probably my favorite!!!  I'm so glad we took an hour out of our day to view the simple beauties of the earth.