Snow Day at Wolf Mountain

Since the kids were out of school in January this year, Aaron and I decided to book the condo in Eden, UT and take our kids skiing at Wolf Mountain.  Aaron is great skier and Adam has gone snowboarding a few times last year, but, Abbi, Alex, and I had never been.  I know, you grow up in Utah and you are expected to ski "The Greatest Snow On earth."  But, I had never been, except the time before we were married and Aaron took me up to Park City.  I went down twice and called it good.  Anyway, we took the kids to Wolf Mountain and signed them all up for ski lessons;  even me!

Adam was a natural, before I knew it, the instructor had him up the lift and going down the bunny hill.  He is pretty impressive!

What a stud!

Alex and Abbi did a great job also.  After two days of lessons, they too were heading up the lift and cruising down the bunny hill.  They couldn't get enough of it.  It was so fun to watch them ski down the hill.  I, on the other hand, did not take to skiing as well.  After my lesson, Aaron convinced me to go down the bunny hill.  It freaked me out.  I basically came down the hill on my butt.  After that, I took off my skis and sat in the lodge for the rest of the afternoon.  Aaron still has hopes of getting me to be a ski bunny, but honestly, I enjoyed sitting in the lodge reading my book.  Maybe some day, but today was not that day!

This little getaway was so much fun!  It was so relaxing and we all enjoyed spending time together.  The kids didn't fight and they loved skiing!  They can't wait to go again!  

Ornaments for 2011 Travel

Decorating the Christmas tree is so much fun.  So much more so because of our ornament tradition.  Every trip we go on for the year we always bring back an ornament.  It is fun to unwrap each ornament and say "Remember when we went _________ and did ________?"  It is fun to be reminded of the great memories we have shared.  This year we picked up these:

We got this cute M&M Elvis ornament from when Aaron took me to Vegas for my birthday in April and we saw Phantom of the Opera and the Lion King. 

We got this Mardi Gras mask ornament from New Orleans when we went in November to participate in the Great Urban Race.

This popcorn ornament was given to us by Grandma and Grandpa McGee because of our love of popcorn and the fact that we have a popcorn machine.

These last two we picked up in March when we went to Disneyland.  We got wedding Minnie and Mickey because Aaron and I went to Disneyland on our honeymoon.

And the kids and I fell in love with this Mr and Mrs. Potato Head ornament.

Our December Activities

Every year as Christmas rolls around, I have BIG plans.  Plans that include: going to Temple Square to see the lights, reading a Christmas story with the kids every night until Christmas, cuddling on the couch while watching Christmas movies, relaxing and enjoying the Christmas season with the family, filling up our advent calendar with different activities to enjoy together... among many others.  Well, I didn't do any of it!  Okay, I did one or two things on my plan, but, like usual, Christmas came and went in a fast whirlwind.  It seemed like we had just put up the tree and the next day we were taking it down.  In actuality, it had been up since Thanksgiving.

This year was a little different from years past.  The kids were on A track in school instead of B which means they were in school for December.  I thought this was going to be great!  I can shop for presents while they are in school, but with Alex in morning Kindergarten and my lack of motivation to get ready before 10:00, I found that plan backfired.  At least when I knew the kids were going to be home in the month of December, I worked hard to have all presents bought by the end of November.  At any rate, this year I did most of my shopping online which I actually really liked.  A few clicks of the mouse and the UPS man delivers it right to my front door.  No crowds, no dragging the kids to 50 different stores, just easy peasy!  Guess it didn't matter that I wasn't ready for the day before 10:00.  Don't get me wrong, I still fought the crowds and went from store to store looking for certain items.

But, in the midst of the chaos that was December, we did do some fun things.  Abbi had her very first piano recital and she did an awesome job!  We are so proud of her.  She is doing great with the piano and her teacher told she wished she had more students like her.

We also took the kids to the Angel Tree where we chose two kids.  They were the same ages as Adam and Abbi.  The kids had a lot of fun shopping at Target for these two kids and were able to pick out an outfit and a toy for each of them.  

Aaron and I went to La Quaille for the very first time with Aaron's Entrepreneur group.  It was fun to get dressed up and go to a fancy dinner.  Even better because we didn't have to pay for it!

I couldn't resist taking a picture of the cute chocolate covered strawberry.  So stinkin' cute!

With the help of Grandpa and Grandma McGee, we made our annual gingerbread house.  There may or may not have been a frosting fight somewhere in there too.

 

And, of course, we made cookies for Santa.  Can I just say I love cake mix cookies?  So quick and easy and you don't have to roll out dough 10 times to cut out the cookies.  The kids had a lot of fun decorating them for Santa.  Alex even got out some carrots for the reindeer.

All in all, I think it was a great December.  We were able to do some fun things and hopefully the kids will have some fun memories to look back on even if we didn't do all the things on my "perfect Christmas" list.  At least we were all together.

Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas!  This year was a little different because Christmas fell on a Sunday.  It ended up being really nice.  Since we had church at 9:00, we told the kids they could get up and open their stockings and the present Santa brought them.  The others would have to wait until after church.  So, at 7:00 Christmas morning, the kids burst into our room yelling "Merry Christmas! Let's go open presents!"  

Abbi got just what she wanted, an All-American Girl doll.  She had designed her on the website and was so excited Santa knew exactly what she wanted!  She named her Audrey.  (It had to be an "A" name to be in our family).

Alex got a new set of tools and some projects to put together with the tools.  He loves fixing things around the house and is always the first one to grab a screwdriver to help.  He even knows the difference between a phillips and a flathead.  Smart!

Aaron and Alex using his tools to put together a car.

Adam got the one thing he wanted for Christmas... a brand new BMX bike.  Needless to say, he was extremely excited and couldn't wait to put it together and try it out.  Luckily for him, there was no snow and he was able to ride it.

Because I have such a hard time surprising Aaron (he's like a little kid and will do everything he can to find out what he is getting!), I found these awesome gift boxes at Bed, Bath and Beyond.  They are prank boxes but look absolutely real.  You simply put the real gift inside.  So, the real gift of a heart rate monitor watch went in the box and I wrapped it up.  

Aaron unwrapped his "iArm."  I started laughing so hard as he looked at the box and turned it over and over in his hands.  The look on his face was priceless.  I'm sure he was thinking "What the heck?"  By this time I was laughing so hard, I was crying.  He put the box to the side and went to grab another gift.  I, of course, said, "No, you have to open it."  To which Aaron replied, "No, I'm taking it back."  This only made me laugh/cry harder.  He finally got that it was a joke and ended up opening his real present.  I got him good this year!  I am so funny!

My favorite is the girl using her iArm to hold the bucket of water to wash the car!

We had a great Christmas!  I loved having church in the middle of our Christmas morning.  It really made the day special.  I loved being able to spend Christmas eve with the Marshall's and Christmas night with the McGee's.  Ali and Ben were in town this year and it was fun to see them too.  I am so grateful for our loving families and for my sweet kids and husband.  I am one lucky girl!  

Merry Christmas!

Our Great Urban Race Championship in New Orleans

Back in August, Aaron and I won the Great Urban Race - Salt Lake City and qualified to go to New Orleans for the Championship race.  After some deliberation, we decided to go and participate.  We booked out condo, secured our airfare, and got our phone-a-friend all lined up for the big day.  

The race began at 9:00 am, Saturday, Nov. 12 outside of Oceana Grill in the French Quarter.  We were handed our clue envelopes and the countdown began... 3,2,1.  Aaron and I ran around the corner to find a spot to open our envelope and see what was in store for us.  Here is the clue sheet:

 

The rules were the same:  complete 11 out of the 12 clues, you can run, walk, jog, or use public transportation, and a phone-a-friend.  As we browsed the clue sheet, we quickly realized this was going to be a lot harder than Salt Lake City.  We didn't recognize any of the clues or places.  So, we took off in the direction of the only one with an address.  We quickly hopped a bus that took us down Canal Street to a Walgreens to purchase items for the local women's shelter.  While on the bus, Aaron called our phone support to get help and I started working on the word puzzles and used Google to try to figure out some of the others.  

We arrived at the Walgreen's and many teams converged from the streetcar in a sprint towards Walgreen's.  I am sure we were quite a sight.  Aaron stood in line while ran through the store picking up the needed items.  We dropped them off out front and ran towards our second destination:  Clue #3 Voodoo Tattoo.  Thank goodness for my 2 years of junior high French classes.  They really came in handy as I deciphered the phone number for Voodoo Tattoo.

At Voodoo Tattoo, we had to take a picture with "Bruce Willis" and get "inked."  I'm not sure if the alligator is Bruce Willis or the skeleton head.  Aaron ran in the back to get his "tattoo" and I grabbed the needed fliers to prove we were there.  

On our way out of the tattoo parlor, we saw several teams taking a picture in front of this monument.  We ran over to it and quickly realized it passed off a requirement needed for our tic-tac-toe: "Take a photo of one teammate standing by a tomb showing a birth date prior to 1800."  Thank you Father Abram J. Ryan.

Our third stop was the Bayou Beer Garden, where we were greeted with this sign and the instructions of:  "Use each letter only once and figure out the 8 locally brewed Abita Springs beers."  

Wow!  If there was a clue to skip it would have been this one.  We sat down and I quickly googled Abita Springs Beer.  We came up with several of them, but there were 3 or 4 that we couldn't figure out. We called our phone-a-friend to see what they knew and they were stumped as well.  We tried several times to no avail.  We started working with other teams, as everyone was struggling and we finally got it about 40 min later.  We also had to take a picture of both of us the 610 Stompers poster.

At this point we were about an hour and a half into the race and had completed only 3 clues.  Crap!  We ran down back down Canal Street to get to our fourth destination.  We were headed towards a Homeless shelter which we thought was clue # 7.  We ran about 10 minutes down the street, found the shelter, only to realize it was not the place we were looking for.  So, we turned around and ran back to Canal Street.  The entire time we kept thinking, this isn't right.  I guess we should have listened to our first instinct.

Back on Canal Street, we made our way to Chicki Chicki Wawa!, a local dance/night club.  Here we had to learn a quick 3 minute dance and get our picture taken in front of the "This is not that kind of place" sign.  We had fun learning the moves and quickly passed it off.

From here, we made our way to the Garden District where we stopped off at New Orleans Party and Costume.  We had to quickly make a party mask following very specific instructions.  I knocked it out and the employees took our picture.  They also gave us a balloon that we needed to take back with us.

Destination #6 was the Magnolia Mansion in the Garden District.  We had to take a picture of both of us holding wedding umbrellas and pick up 2 strands of beads.

On our way to our 7th destination, we passed a balcony that Aaron easily climbed to pass off the 2nd tile on our tic-tac-toe board:  Take a picture of one teammate standing on the balcony of a building.

Next stop was Juan's Flying Burrito.  We ran to the back where we were greeted by an employee who quickly whipped us up one their chicken and cranberry tacos.  We had to take a picture of both of us taking a bite of the taco and had to grab a sticker which we wouldn't get until we finished the taco.  It was really good, but running after eating that taco was interesting.  You could feel it sloshing around in your stomach with all the water I was drinking.

On our way to our 8th destination, we stopped and took a picture of us in front of this street sign to pass off our last tile of our tic-tac toe board:  Take a photo of both teammates in front of a street sign that contains at least 13 letters.  Tchoupitoulas.  Don't ask me to say it, I don't know how.  I love Aaron's face in this one.  We had been running for almost 4 hours and we were exhausted.  At one point I looked down at my watch and realized we had burned 1500 calories!!  It would be 2,000 by the time we finished!

At our 8th stop, we found Lucy's Retired Surfers Club.  Here we had to take a toy surf board along with a plastic monkey and a mermaid and using the surf board we had to flip the toys into a glass cup.  Trust me, it was a lot harder than it sounds.  I finally made one in and Aaron and I started working on getting the mermaid in.  Aaron finally made the second one in and we were off.  We had about 30 minutes before they shut the race down and at this point we just wanted to finish.

On to M's Ceauxffee and Cafe Teaux, we had to quickly answer these trivia questions:

Aaron had our phone-a-friend on the line helping us out and I grabbed the iPad to help too.  We finally got them right and at 15 minutes to 1:00 we made our way to our last stop:  The House of Blues in the French Quarter.

Here we were given this clue sheet and asked to put them in the right order.  We started doing what we could but at 1:00 the employees stated they were shutting us down.

We made our way quickly down a few streets back towards Oceana Grill and crossed the finish line at 4 hours 4 minutes.  We had finished!  

We were so tired!  We passed off our clues with the volunteers and because we didn't finish the last clue, we were hit with a 30 minute penalty.  So, with that said, we came in 43rd place out of 118 teams.  Not too bad considering some of the teams had "ground support" (cheating in my opinion), and knew New Orleans better than we did.  The first place team finished the race in 2 hours 24 minutes.  The first 8 teams to finish in this race, then went on to compete for the grand prize of $10,000 in the second race.

Aaron and I had so much fun in New Orleans!  Not only did we compete in a fun race, we also got to spend time together exploring New Orleans, eating beignets at Cafe du Monde, and window shopping through the French Quarter.  We also ate yummy meals and listened to some great Jazz music.  I love spending time with Aaron on our vacations.  We really enjoy being with each other!

A few street scenes.  I absolutely love the architecture!  It is so quaint!

Here is what a traditional New Orleans cemetery looks like.  They are all above ground tombs.

Aaron and I found a nice park to explore.

And, of course, I love all the awesome architecture and doors.  You just don't find stuff like this in Utah.

Check out this "sweet" ride 

 

 

And here we are at Cafe du Monde