Five years and going strong. . .

On December 27th Brett and I shared our 5th wedding anniversary. Crazy to say that we have had four kids in those five years! And even more crazy to say that we have moved six times in those five years (ok, not so much more crazy, but still not the norm). Brett surprised me (ok, tried to surprise me, family has a way of ruining surprises) by planning a get away for us. Bruce and Karen watched our kids, even Tanner, so that we could have a night out on the town. Our night started at Rodizio's, a brazilian bbq. It was amazing! It is an all you can eat restaurant were the servers come around with big spears of meat. I don't know how they can cook all that meat and have it come out so tender and yummy. Brett was more adventurous that I was. He even tried the chicken heart.

After dinner we headed over to the theatres to catch "National Treasure: Book of Secrets". It would have been good to watch the first one again before we saw the second. I am one of those people that can watch the same movie over and over and not remember what happened, so I feel like I was a little lost on details. Even with that, it was a great movie though, and it was so nice to be able to watch an entire movie without being interupted by children. As we were walking out of the theatre we ran into Nancy Wood. So fun to be able to catch up on her and her happens! Following the movie Brett drove us to a little bed and breakfast called the "Armstrong Mansion". It was dark when we got there, so I couldn't tell how big it was from the outside, so I was surprise when we had to go up to the third floor for our room. The room we stayed in was called the "August Retreat". The door was open going into our room and the first thing that I saw were rose petals on the floor. There were candles everywhere and a box of chocolates on the bed. (I wish we would have had the camera with us so I could give you the real effect!)

It was a little cozy room and I thought that was it, but when I walked into the bathroom I realized there was another little hallway. I looked around the corner to see steps lined with more candles.

At the top of the steps was a little loft area with a jet tub and table. On the table was two dozen long stem red roses and a bottle of sparkling cider with two goblets. Can you say romantic?
The following morning we woke up and headed to the Salt Lake Temple to do some sealings. What better way can you spend your anniversary than being in the temple and helping others to be able to share eternity together! It was an awesome evening. Thanks for five great years Brett! I am so grateful to know that I have eternity to share with you! I love you Babe!!!

Christmas 2007

(Sorry about the long blog and sooo many pictures)

We had so much fun this Christmas visiting Highland Utah to be with Brett's family. We went up on the 22nd and were able to stay until New Year's Eve. Brett's brother Brian and sister Jill live in the area, so they were nice and close for all the festivities. Craig and his family arrived the day after Christmas to join in. This was my first "white Christmas" (at least that I remember), although it was not snowing on Christmas morning. We spent many days sledding, mostly in Bob Moore's backyard, although we did make the trip up to American Fork Canyon for some awesome sledding.

Sledding in American Fork Canyon

Tradition has it that Santa comes to leave one gift on Christmas eve. It always ends up being pajamas, which is fun for pictures. This is the first Christmas that Spencer really has understood the whole "Santa" thing, so it was so fun to see some of his expressions opening presents and what not. Wish we could have caught them better on camera.

Opening pajamas Santa brought on Christmas eve!

We thought that we had let Santa know that this was going to be a light year, but somehow he still went crazy. It is amazing how the little things add up. Christmas morning was spent with Grandma and Grandpa Bruschke, Brian, Megan, Grayden and Talmage. It was nice to have a little smaller group. Jill and her fam joined us for breakfast and to open presents from Grandma and Grandpa.

Christmas Morning

We also spent a day down in Provo, bowling at BYU and then hitting the Malt Shop. Definitely miss the days of the lunch special, a hamburger, fries and HUGE shake for just over $4! So yummy. While we were down there we visited with Grandma Challis and the Moon's. We miss family more than the Malt Shop! Brett spent a lot of time in front of the TV playing the Wii. He got hooked on some kind of tank game. I guess it is a fun game to play, but not so much to be a by stander.

Random Pics

Coming home from church one day there was a storm going on. We couldn't see too well because the wind was blowing the snow so hard. After attempting to get into the driveway a couple of times we realized that there was about a 2 1/2 foot snow drift keeping us from getting through. For some reason the winds in Highland will cause there to be three feet of snow in one place while you can see the grass in others. Really weird. So Brett jumped on Grandpa Bruce's quad and plowed the driveway so that everyone else could pull in because with all the snow you can't park on the street. He came back in after a couple of hours and informed me that the whole neighborhood had been plowed (I guess Bruce kept telling him to go plow this persons driveway and that persons drive. What a good sport!)

It is hard to put into words all the fun that we had, so hopefully the pictures will do more justice. Thanks grandma and grandpa for the awesome vacation and putting up with us for so long!

So much to blog about. . .

. . .and no pictures to show for it. We downloaded all of our pictures onto Brett's computer from the holidays, so I don't have access to them until the evening. I hate to blog at night because that is the only time I have to spend with Brett, so I haven't posted anything. I will try to get Brett to put all the pictures onto my computer tonight (I will be gone at YW's) so that I can post tomorrow hopefully. To say the least we had an awesome couple of weeks. Can't wait to share it with you!

Can't help but smile at this face. . .

I just wanted to share a picture of one of Tanner's first smiles. Somehow I was lucky enough to have the camera right next to me. Such a cute smiles, but I am bias of course. I cannot believe that Christmas is just 4 days away. I still have a couple little things to do, but for the most part I am done with shopping and what not. My goal next year is to be done with all this nonsense by Thanksgiving so that I can just sit back an enjoy the Christmas season. Merry Christmas everyone!

Fashion Island with the Yee's

On Saturday night the Yee's invited us to go out to Fashion Island with them. It is a Christmas tradition they have started with their kids. Brett and I had never been there, so it was a fun new experience for us. The highlight of the night was the 115 foot Christmas tree. It is over 20,000 pounds and has over 17,000 lights and decorations on it. If you look closely at some of the pictures you can see just how big some of those ornaments are. The kids had fun looking at the tree, as well as running through one of those fountains that spit water up in the air. To start out the evening, Sarah and I needed to stay in the car to feed the babies, so Justin and Brett took the rest of the kids to look at the fish in the ponds. Of course, luck would have it that Bailey would fall in. Brett took of her wet shoes, socks and pants and rapped a blanket around her. Unfortunately, she wouldn't keep the blanket on and ended up most of the night bottomless. So many people were giving us dirty looks for allowing our daughter to run around without pants on in the 55 degree weather. I guess we could have turned around and gone home, but we didn't, and it didn't seem to really bug her, so hopefully she won't have any permanent scares from the experience. We had a fun evening and are grateful for the invitation from the Yee's. If any of you have a free night during this holiday season, I would highly recommend going out to Fashion Island. The pictures just don't do it justice.

Rainy Days

The last couple of days have been cold, gloomy, rainy and beautiful. I love this kind of weather. I don't know if I would if it was like this all the time, but since we don't get it very often, it is awesome. It is perfect soup weather. It is the kind of weather that makes you want to make a fire in the fireplace and cuddle up in a blanket. The sad thing is that we don't have a wood burning fireplace in our house. We did in our house in Clearlake and we had fires almost every morning and night during the winter. But here we just have one of those gas fireplaces that you flip the switch and the fire comes on. Yes, it is nice and convenient to create a "mood", but it is miserable for putting out any kind of heat. Once Brett and I make our millions, we are going to build a house with lots of fireplaces! Ok, we probably won't ever make millions, but when we do finally sent down and have enough money to actually buy a home, I hope there will be a wood burning fireplace in it.

Christmas Decorations

We had fun decorating this year. It was hard with the new house knowing where to put everything. Our decorations are still a bunch of random things that we have collected over the few years of our marriage. Hopefully someday we will have enough to have things in every room of the house. As for now, it is just a couple things in the common areas. Having decorations up finally makes it feel like Christmas. It is so much fun to drive around and see all the Christmas lights and decorations around the neighborhoods, streets and shopping centers. Why can't it be like this all year round!?!