Ready for 2010

Yesterday I was talking to a good friend of mine from Texas. Somehow we got talking about how neither of us had purchased a 2010 calendar and we both agreed that we felt LOST without it.

I can't live without a big calendar hanging in my kitchen that I can glance at all day long. I tried using the calendar on my ipod, which is nice and I will continue to use it, but I also need my old fashioned calendar on the wall. It's comforting and I like to see everything for the month all at once, all the time.

The rest of our conversation was sort of funny. It went something like this:

Me: "The other part of the problem is that I have a calendar holder that looks really silly hanging empty on my wall."

Erin: "Me too, I bet we have the same one."

Me: "I doubt it, I bought mine in Utah at Provo Craft."

Erin: "No way (laughing), so did I."

Me: "I painted mine black."

Erin: "So did I, but I also distressed the edges."

Me: "I did too."

We went on like this, describing ours to each other til she finally snapped a quick picture of hers and emailed it to me.

While we were still chatting, I opened the email and sure enough, IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME! Not only did we both buy the same calendar holder in a completely different state from the states that we each live in, but we also have the same thing hanging from the same center peg. It's a wrought iron decoration that's from another store in Utah called Rod Works. Really, it's almost too much.

Here's mine.

I laugh about it, but I'm so glad to have such good friends who like the same things as me.

I'm happy to say that today I went out and bought myself a new 2010 calendar. I feel so much better, like now the year can officially start and I can once again be accountable to be where I am supposed to be (anything that I've forgotten so far doesn't count). And, my calendar holder looks much better now too.

Oh, and I'm pretty sure I got the same calendar as Erin.

Happy New Year!

We traveled to Kennewick to be with my family for New Year's Eve. Here are some of us at midnight... Woo Hoo!

The kids had fun with glow sticks and watched movies while the adults played board games. We ate lots and lots of good food and enjoyed our own Martinelli's sparkling cider, right from the bottle.

My kids were thrilled to have a little snow to play in. My dad had them playing a game of fox and geese. It's a game I grew up playing. Anytime it snowed, my dad would make a path and all the neighbor kids would come to join in on the fun. We'd play for what seemed like hours.

There's one fox and everyone else are geese. You have to stay on the path, but run from the fox. If you get tagged, you become a fox and help to get the rest of the geese. The last one is the fox for the next game.

It's more fun when the snow is a little deeper but the kids didn't seem to mind and had a blast.

Jared helped the kids to make 3 giant snowmen. I think they used all the snow in the backyard. The boys were thrilled when he told them they could chop one down.

Since we weren't together for Christmas, we had our family gift exchange on New Year's Day.

I gave Anthony this cool shirt. I love that he has no idea Chris is behind him.

Anthony wrapped up 3,000 pennies for Chris... awesome!

My parents loved the testimony book we all put together for them.

Instead of decorating a gingerbread house this year, my mom found gingerbread trains. The kids (and Jared) got pretty creative.

Here's a closer look.

Yes, our train had double mounted machine guns. I'm still not sure why.


My kids love their cousins, as you can see....

It's always a lot of fun to get together with our families. We missed Doug and Des, but it was fun to see all of the rest of my family.

Happy New Year!