Christmas & New Years & Birthdays! Oh My!

I spent Christmas Eve at my parents house because Ray worked the night shift both Christmas Eve and Christmas night. Nick and Katie and their girls were there Christmas Eve to open gifts with us and play games. Christmas morning Ray got off work and joined us for an hour or so to open gifts before he went to sleep while the rest of us went to Grandpa Doug's house. It is our family tradition to have breakfast at grandpa's house every Christmas morning. It is really fun to see all the cousins, aunts, and uncles celebrating Christmas together. On the 26th Ray and I went to Naomi's house where his mom and dad had spent Christmas so we could spend a little time with all of them and exchange our gifts. 

Another tradition that we have is our New Years Eve party at our house. (If you can call 3 years a tradition). We invite our extended family over to eat and play games and eat some more. We always have Siagon Subs, my Great Grandma Zina's Cheese ball, chips and dip, and a veggie tray. This year we added sugar cookies to the party which the kids really enjoyed. Those who stayed until midnight rang in 2014 with fireworks! 

January is a busy month for birthdays in our family. We have Kaitlynn (niece) on the 13th, Nick (Julie's brother) on the 17th, and Nick's daughter Sarah & Jennifer (Julie's sister) share the 18th. Kaitlynn turned 10 this year and we had a skating party with her friends and cousins, and aunts and uncles. We love getting together to play games so for Nick and Jennifer we had game night at my parents house. We played a few games of poker and a new game called "Bang".   

Ray's Mom's birthday

So I told my Mom we'd buy them tickets to the "Savior of the World" program at the theater in the conference center. We arranged a double date for her birthday and agreed to meet at The Cheesecake Factory. I then realized that everyone else in the family may want to come since this is Mom's 60th birthday. All the Utah siblings agreed to meet at the restaurant by 5:30 and we didn't tell Mom that the rest of them were coming. Julie and I got there at 5, assuming that 5 is pretty early for a dinner so we would have no trouble getting a table for ten people within 30 minutes. Nope...we were wrong. We were told they couldn't seat a party of ten at all and the best they could do is seating us completely separately in two parties, which ruins the surprise of having almost the whole family there. AAAhh! So I scrambled the best I could. I walked over to Brio, an Italian place almost next door to The Cheesecake Factory and they had room for a party of ten almost immediately because they were still not yet on a wait. So Julie and I called the siblings and I called Dad, who didn't break and tell Mom what was really going on (well done Dad!). He just told her that The Cheesecake Factory was already on too long of a wait and we were switching restaurants. (the whole reason we were going to The Cheesecake Factory was my parents had a gift card....oh well) So Julie and I get seated as Myla and Mike walk in. Melissa and Vince got there next and told us that they rode on the train into Salt Lake and Mom and Dad were on the same car as them! Dad saw Melissa and Vince and stood in front of Mom so she couldn't see them as they passed right in front of her, using the 11 inches in height advantage above her. Melissa and Vince then ran to the restaurant and arrived catching their breath to make sure they got to the table first. When Mom finally walked in she did a proper double-take and her jaw dropped to see all of us there. We don't surprise her often because we know she enjoys planning and anticipating things as much as the event itself but this was perfect. Sadly we got the camera out a little too late to properly catch her lower jaw down at her knees. One of the picture did catch her as she was pointing to Melissa learning they were on the same train. The switch in restaurants was perfect and my Dad made sure to thank the manager for the incredible server and experience we all had, especially while accommodating us at he last minute and the fact that we spilled drinks on the table...twice. -Ray

Thanksgiving In Disneyland

We had a family trip to Disneyland planned for Christmas with the whole family on my side. Then my brother Nick got a new job and was unable to get time off to go and my mom got sick and now has to be on oxygen at night and she didn't want to bother with that on vacation. So that left us and Jennifer (my sister) and Kaitlynn (niece), except Ray would have to fly back home to go to work on Christmas Eve... We decided to cancel the trip all together so we could still spend Christmas as a family. Then Jennifer and I were talking at lunch one day and we were both kind of sad that we were no longer going. So we looked at the school schedule and decided just the three of us would go for Thanksgiving instead.

Jennifer, Kaitlynn and I headed to California on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, we stayed in Las Vegas that night and took Kaitlynn to the M&M store Wednesday before finishing the drive. Ray's Uncle Bill and Aunt Paula let us stay at their house (while they were visiting Utah for Thanksgiving)so we were able to save some money on lodging. We spent one day at California Adventure and two days at Disneyland. Jennifer had an "agenda" all planned out for us so we could make sure to do the things we wanted to do while at the parks. We did pretty good on time in the mornings riding all of the rides we wanted to, but by the afternoon the parks got so busy the lines were too long to bother waiting in. So we enjoyed the shows and other activities. My favorite part was the Animation Academy at California Adventure where we learned how to draw Mickey Mouse and I really liked World of Color. We also decorated Christmas Cookies with Mrs. Claus and got to see some of the characters in their holiday wear. The Christmas Parade was fun to watch also. It rained on our first day at Disneyland so we got some ponchos at the gas station on the way there. We had a lot of fun together!

Sunday we went to the beach and walked around before our long drive home on Monday.

Since it was Thanksgiving I thought I would share some things I am thankful for:

I am thankful that I have a good relationship with my family and that we enjoy spending time together

I am thankful that we had a safe trip

I am thankful that I have an amazing husband who loves me

~Julie~

10 Years

A lot can happen in 10 years:

6 addresses

1 mortgage

2 new (used) cars

2 cruises

1 trip to Lake Tahoe

1 family trip to Disneyland

1 Disneyland trip just the 2 of us

2 MLB games

1 dog

10 neices

5 nephews

4 funerals (grandparents/ great-grandparents)

2 siblings weddings

A lot more fun and exciting things to come and there is no one I would rather do this with!

~Julie

Got Cake?

I make cakes for family & friends. Here are a few that I did this summer. The skeleton skull I made for my work Halloween party. The dumptruck was for a little boy in my ward who turned 5. Next is a graduation cake I made for my cousin who graduated from Spanish Fork High. Then the 80th birthday cake for Ray's grandma (done with the help of my sister-in-law Naomi and Melissa helped with the flowers)

I did these cupcakes for my cousins wedding with the help of my sister Jennifer, neice Kaitlynn, Ray, and some neighbors that let me use their fridge to store the finished ones in before the wedding. Thanks! 265 Cupcakes and a 6" round top to cut.

~Julie

We took a day trip to Moab and Arches National Park on Labor Day. The day was quite an adventure. We (Ray) got pulled over twice for going 5 mph over on the way down to Moab and drove away without a ticket both times. We took on some of the less challenging hikes and vowed to come back leaner and ready to conquer the hike up to Delicate Arch. With a little planning and a healthy amount of luck we managed to avoid the big tour groups and buses around the park. Weather was perfect at the park and then we drove through torrential downpour on the way home. Overall it was the perfect blend of peaceful and adrenaline filled moments. It was exactly the little getaway we needed!

Ray