Christmas Party!

Ron's work Christmas party was Friday night at The Zermatt Resort in Midway.

We got there a little early so here we are checking out our hotel room.

Jacquie & I

Ron & Greg(Jacquie's husband) have worked at 2 different companies together and are in our ward. We figured out this was our 6th Christmas party together.

Devon, Ashlie, Angie, Gary, Me, Ron, Greg, Jacquie and our dealer Steve.


I have to admit this had to be my favorite work Christmas party. It was actually fun!
We gambled, we drank(lemonade) and we ate!
What more could you ask for?
I ate 7 cream puffs in about 5 minutes. YUM!!

Ron's group at work is a lot of fun. Here we are playing Blackjack. I think we took over that table all night.
Ron & I stayed overnight and went for a run together the next morning.
Then we drove into Park City and did some Christmas shopping.

Our Christmas photo!

I figured we couldn't get a good one so why not do a goofy one!

Lauren & I waiting to take our family photo

Thanksgiving

Lauren & Ash after eating!

The Cabin

The kids always come up with something funny at the cabin.
This time is was 'the fat people'.
They stuffed pillows in their clothes and tried to exercise.
Very funny!

Lauren & Ashley in their fatter days!

Lauren, Me & Ashley

The girls got together & went to the movies and dinner after the cabin.

Mem, Shaylyn, Lauren, Me and Ashley

Our annual tradition

Savior of the World

Run, Baby Run!

Last night we had Stake Young Women in Excellence. I love my calling, until we have a big event like this...kind of stressful.



The young women had ward display tables with the things they had accomplished over the last year. As a Stake Young Women's Presidency we decided to have our own table and display our things. We all brought our Trek paraphernalia and then whatever else we wanted to display.



I brought my running shoes.




My husband was wandering the tables and came upon one.

He looked at the paper attached to some running shoes and said that he thought "Wow, 2047 miles? I've never run that many in 1 year..I wonder which Young Woman ran that many miles?....I'll find out and go talk to her" Then he looked at the table heading...it said 'Stake Young Women's Presidency'.

It was then he realized that the shoes were mine!


It's nice to know I can still impress my husband after 18 years.







So you think you can dance?

The high school had a competition for the fall clubs....at an assembly the teams danced for the school.
They had a guest judge...Chelsea Hightower who was on 'So you think you can dance' last season and made it to the top 5. She is in our stake and was on our youth committee 2 years ago.

The girls soccer team had a great time...here is their video. It's pretty fuzzy.

Lauren is the one on the right that does the cartwheel toward the end.

Halloween

The Golden Broomstick Award!

About a month ago Ron & I got an invitation in the mail from the Grand Witches Council to participate in a quest for the Golden Broomstick. We were a little leery at first...ok the whole time. But we replied to the email address and said we would go.

First of all Halloween is my least favorite holiday. I love the candy and all but honestly if you know me, I have candy at my house every day of the year!

But this...this was my kind of Halloween party....no dressing up and it was sooo much fun.

Everyone who had been invited was to meet at the Stake center the night of the party and told to dress warm and bring a map and a flashlight.

Our team consisted of Darrin & Joy Henry and Ted & Joanna Meacham
What a HOOT!!

So basically it was an amazing race though out Utah county.

Our first clue led us to Maceys pumpkin patch where we had to find the pumpkin with our team color on it...red. We searched for at least 15 minutes through the pumpkins. We had random shoppers looking for our pumpkin too.

Thanks random shoppers, since one of you found our pumpkin.

The clue in the pumpkin led us next to Blockbuster and we had to find a particular movie whose phrase none of us knew.....so we used phone-a-friend and found out it was a 'Friday the 13th' movie.

When we found the correct movie the salesperson then gave us the next clue and off we were.

Darrin holding the bone from Blockbuster.

Joy & I at Costco


Our next clue took us to Costco in Lehi where we were told to buy a pizza and drinks for everyone (there was even money to buy it with).

Since it was Friday night Darrin called ahead and ordered a pizza so it would be ready when we got there. I have never eaten so fast in my life.

We couldn't get the next clue until we showed the membership desk our empty pizza box.

Here we are stuffing our faces!


Next we headed to the PG cemetery. There was elaborate decoding that had to be done at the Veteran's Memorial Plaque. That one took us awhile(good thing we had our flashlights).

On we went to Hart's to get a drink...no we weren't thirsty; that's what the next clue told us to do. The Clerk gave us the next clue(thanks Jen).



This had to be the funnest part.

All of us had to play DDR(Dance Dance Revolution) at the arcade in the University Mall. Once we had all passed the level we got our next clue. We ran into one of the other teams while we were there.


Joy & Darrin rippin' up the floor



Out final clue took us to Noah's Place back in Pleasant Grove.
We ran up the stairs to 'our' room, entered in the code and 'low and behold' we were the 1st ones back!

We had won the coveted Golden Broomstick!!!


Here is our team before everyone else got back....


Joanna & Ted lounging waiting for the other teams...we were soooo far ahead!!

There was food, games and movies for us to enjoy afterwards with everyone.

So I just want to give a big SHOUT OUT to WENDY for planning such an awesome event!

Our team had a blast....you know with Darrin on your team it's going to be competitive and fun!

I think this should be a yearly tradition.

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary!

18 Years!!

Oct. 25th

I know everyone is cracking up at this picture. I can't believe we ever looked like this. This was taken 6 months after we were married....18 years ago!
As Angie has mentioned....look at the BOW!!
Seriously, what was I thinking?

This was actually while we were dating. Back in the good old days of Liberty Square.

Here we are going on a double date with my roommate Angela and my home teacher Joe.

And here we are on our anniversary this year. We went to the BYU game...
Then we went to dinner later that night at our favorite Thai place.

Please tell me we look as young as we used to.
I am so lucky to be married to such an understanding, patient and not to mention good-looking man!

Lauren's Birthday Weekend

At the airport

So when we flew into San Diego we got our rental car(a PT cruiser) and drove straight to Newport Beach(well we ate first-at my favorite Mexican restaurant)

The beach was beautiful. It was about 75 degrees and perfect...mostly because there weren't many people there.

We laid out for a few hours....with no towels, because we forgot to bring some.


There were birds though. We started feeding them goldfish crackers and then we instantly got attacked. I thought I was in the movie 'The Birds'.


Friday night we went and saw 'Eagle Eye'.

Here is Lauren waking up on the morning of her birthday.
Our hotel was nice...the Hilton in Costa Mesa.



We decided to go shopping on her birthday.
We went to the South Coast Plaza...

Later that night we met my family on the beach and had a hotdog roast and sang Happy Birthday to Lauren.

Hannah made perfect marshmallows for my s'mores.

My brother Paul and his daughter Haylee.

Mom, Sydney and Me.

Lauren

Sydney stole my camera and took some good photos. This was a self portrait.

After we left the beach Lauren & I drove around looking for a Dairy Queen because she really wanted an icecream cake for her birthday. We found one and brought it back to the hotel to eat. After we ate our fill we went down to the hot tub and hung out for an hour or so.

We put the cake in the fridge/freezer in the hotel room and the next morning it had melted all over. I had to clean the whole fridge!



We got ready for church and drove to Riverside for my families Stake Conference. It was good to see some old acquaintances.

We had dinner with my family and just hung out watching the Red Sox lose. Bummer!

On Monday we decided to go to Universal Studios. I haven't been there for 19 years.

Here is Lauren wearing her 4D glasses getting ready to go in the Shrek 4D movie.

These are the long escalators going from the upper and lower lots. There are 4 of them in a row and Lauren and I decided to run up the steps instead. There are over 400 of them. We did this 3 times throughout the course of the day. My thighs were BURNING!!!

Jaws!

Lauren and Dora! We did it!

You all know I secretly want to be a football star. So here was my chance.

We flew out Tuesday afternoon and got home that evening.
I know I had a good time, I hope Lauren did too.