Yesterday we went bowling with Jeremy and Angie and the kids. We had a lot of fun. There were no ramps available for the kids to push the ball down so we had to get creative. Check out Caleb's awesome bowling skills. He actually bowled 82 with those skills. Caleb wanted to help Brynley bowl so he would get the ball for her and they would walk up to the lane. He'd put it down and she would push it and he would push it a little harder right after her. It took about 5 minutes for the ball to get down the whole lane. The just sat and watched it until it finally got to the pins. It was really cute. Here's Caleb and Abby All of us And finally as this wonderful Christmas season comes to a close here is Brynley wishing all of you a late "Merry Kripins!"
We had such a fun Christmas! On Christmas Eve we went over to my parents house with my Aunt and Uncle and cousin, Katie, and also our friends, the Nyes. It was so fun to have them come with us! We ate lots of yummy food, sang carols, read the Christmas story and played Roger and Kelly's Wii. It was lots of fun! This is the kids waiting with their hands out and eyes closed for their Christmas Eve present from Grandma! When we got home that night Santa began his work. Here is each kid's finished product: Let me add a little note about that doll house for Brynley. This dollhouse took Santa almost 3 hours to put together! It was so confusing and in the beginning it was hard to tell which way things went so there was more than a few times Santa had to take it back apart and re-put it together! Talk about frustrating! Then Santa had it all finished and was admiring the finished product when we realized that the bottom back wall was on upside down! We had to take apart one of the sides and turn it around and put it back together again! AHHHH! We finally got into bed around 1am.
Caleb woke up around 6am, like usual. He loved his santa toys and had lots of time to play because Brynley didn't get up until almost 8am and we wouldn't let him open presents. Once she was up she began playing with her dollhouse and hasn't really stopped since! I'm so glad she loves it so much. Caleb also got this talking parrot that is actually pretty funny and he hasn't stopped playing with that. My family came over and had breakfast a hung out for a couple hours. Later in the day brandon's brother and his family (Jeremy and Angie) came over and all the cousins got to play. Caleb and Brynley LOVE their cousins! We had such a wonderful Christmas and we hop you all did too!
Last night we went and saw Santa at the mall. The kids had a lot of fun. There was a very overpriced train that drove around the little "Santa's Village". The kids loved that. Brynley was acting really excited to sit on Santa's lap. When it was our turn she started out walking up to him quickly but as she got closer she slowed down and starting squeezing my hand tighter. By the time we got to him she didn't want to see him at all. She was all prepared to ask him for a christmas tree or a transformer... huh? We kept trying to get her to ask for a doll house... hint, hint. Oh well, she didn't say a word to santa anyway. Caleb loved sitting with santa though. Santa was even thoughtful enough to ask if Caleb wanted the Bumble Bee transformer or Optimus Prime. What a nice Santa!
Today is my and Brandon's 7th anniversary! It's been a wonderful seven years, that's for sure! I just wanted to do a little reminiscing blog entry that we could look back on and laugh and remember so here goes.
2000: I lived in Chattsworth condos with Lisa, Melanie and Melissa while Brandon and I were dating and he lived in Liberty Square. We got married Dec 16 in the Timpanogos Temple. Our wedding breakfast was at Magleby's and our reception that night was at the Flickinger's house in my family's ward. That night we stayed at Hine's Mansion in Provo. The next day we drove to CA. Then we went on a cruise to Catalina, Ensenada and San Diego from Mon to Fri. Saturday was our CA reception. I remember I could barely zip my dress from all the food I ate on our honeymoon! If I remember right, Melanie and Staci had to hold my back while my mom zipped it up! Oops! Sunday we drove back to Utah. Tuesday was Christmas. Wednesday and Thursday we drove to Seattle. Friday was our Seattle reception and we drove home that weekend. Then we had one week before we started school!
2001: We lived in a teeny little one bedroom apt in a complex called College Park. We lived there until July when we began our LONG stay in Wyview. We didn't really meet any friends in this place but I guess that's expected as we were newlyweds. I worked at a Chiropracters office and Brandon worked on BYU campus. We both went to school and Brandon even had a semester of straight A's!
2002: We still lived in Wyview. I graduated from BYU with a BS in Marraige, Family, and Human Development and a minor in Business. We loved living in Wyview. We met many good friends there that we still keep in touch with. Menghinis, Fitz's, Pinions, we love you! The beginning of this year I started working at Nordstrom in TBD. I loved that job and met some great friends there as well. I loved working with my old roomie and best friend Amanda and meeting my now dear friend Camille! Brandon continued his great job on campus. This may have been the summer he worked up at sundance... can't remember. This also may have been the year we went to Hawaii with my family... can't remember what year that was either.
2003: In August I quit nordy's and caleb was born! Our lives would then change drastically for the better! We STILL lived in Wyview. And had many interesting adventures having a baby in a complex with "paper thin walls". Remember you guys who were there? eh, eh? We spent christmas in El Paso with brandon's parents. We loved visiting them in El Paso. It was like a year round resort. We sure do miss that place!
2004: Brandon graduated from BYU with a BS in Information Systems. We still lived in Wyview (for those of you who don't know... three years is an extremely long time to live in wyview) until May when we bought a townhome in Springville. Brandon began working in Jan at Think Subscription which is a small software company where he still works. He's changed positions quite a bit but he is still working at the same place. This year we took our first great vacation all by ourselves. We took an Eastern Caribbean cruise in December and it was fabulous!
2005: This year Brynley was born! Yay! Ok... i'm trying to think of what else happened this year and I'm coming up blank... We didn't move... didn't change jobs... Just kept on keepin on. We met some wonderful friends in our townhome too but i'm going to stop naming names in case we forget anyone.
2006: This year we sold our townhome, lived with my parents for three months and bought our first house! Which i love! I really really love my house. I could live here forever really, i love it that much. Anyway, we moved into our house which was just right across the street from our townhome in Springville. Hmmm... 2006... what else. We spent Christmas in MI with grandma and grandpa and all the cousins and that was wonderfully fun.
2007: Well, here we are. This has been an absolutely fabulous year. We started off great with a cruise with our good friends the Haliday's. (We actually met them on our last cruise and we really love them and have kept in touch and vacationed again with them. And we plan to go with them again soon!) What else. We are still living in the same place, loving our ward, and loving being close to family. We finished the year off with another cruise, just us this time. But you all know about that! We are so excited that Brandon's parents moved to Seattle because that is within driving distance and we plan to visit often!
And that brings us to today, December 16, 2007. I'm not feeling very itchy. In fact I'm feeling the opposite. I could not be filled with more love for my husband and children. I am so thankful for what the last seven years have brought me. I am so lucky that I have been blessed this much. Honey, I love you!
We had a great ward Christmas party on friday night. They did a narration of the Nativity and had people acting out the parts. They asked us all to dress up. Caleb went as a shepherd and Brynley as an angel. They looked so cute. Their favorite part was the treats afterward though!
We decided to actually go out and do something fun last weekend. We invited our friends, Wes and Saundra Nye, to ride Trax up to Salt Lake and go see the children's "I am a Child of God" exhibit at the Church History Museum and then walk around and see the lights on Temple Square. It was a blast. The gets LOVED riding on the "train". The giggled the entire time. First we went to the museum. The exhibit was really cute. There was a nativity where kids could dress up and stand with baby Jesus, a place with blocks to build a temple, an area with puzzles on the wall, a nursery with babies to dress and lots of other activities. The kids liked it.
Then we walked over to Temple Square. The lights were beautiful. The prettiest part was the new area between Temple Square and the Joseph Smith Memorial building with the reflection pond. The lights there were gorgeous. It was freezing but the kids still had a lot of fun running around. About half way through seeing the lights Brynley started getting really tired and whiney so we had to hurry and leave earlier that we would have liked too. Trax was delayed and we were on it for about an hour. Brynley cried "wan go home" for about the last 20 min of the "train" ride. She was so tired... We had a great time on our trip!
We got so much snow on Saturday! Caleb wanted to get up and immediately go outside and play in it. So we got all his snow clothes on and let him go outside. He played out there for a really long time. He even jumped on the trampoline with snow on it. (Yes, i know, i know. We need to take it down we just haven't yet.) He also went sledding down our little mini hill that runs into our fence. That was fun. Anyway, he had a great time.
On Friday Caleb's preschool class visited the Bean Museum. It was a lot of fun. This is the only picture I got of them both kind of looking at me, so that's all you get.
I don't ever post on the blog because I consider this Lindsey's thing, but I must post this picture. Maybe I am easily amused, actually I know I am easily amused by myself, but this picture I took of myself just cracks me up. I hope you find some sort of enjoyment in it even if only to laugh at how dorky I can be. Poor Lindsey...
Please realize that this picture was taken the morning after driving for 13 hrs straight and I hadn't shaved for a week.
My mom does not like this picture, she said it is not how she likes to think of her nice little boy.
Last Tuesday we made the long drive to visit Brandon's parents in Seattle. They recently moved back there from Michigan. For those of you who don't know, Brandon grew up in Seattle but his parents moved to TX in 2000 and then Michigan a couple years ago. Now they're back in Seattle to stay! We had so much fun there! We love going to visit his parents!
The kids did great on the drive. We watched a lot of movies but we didn't watch tv the WHOLE time. We stopped in Pasco, WA at Brandon's cousin Mitch and Nancy's house for dinner. Caleb and Camden hit it off immediately and wrestled the whole time we were there. It was really fun to catch up and visit with them. I am sad I forgot to take pictures. We got to Grandma and Grandpa's late Tuesday night.
Wednesday was a really fun day. We took the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle. The kids absolutely loved it! We stayed in the inside part most of the time but the kids kept running inside and outside. Brynley kept running up to me saying, "I'm on a boat, a boat. On a boat..." Neither of them were swayed by the freezing cold wind that was blowing!
After the ferry we ate at Ivar's and then went over to Pike's Place. This is the kids on the pig at Pike Place.
Thursday was Thanksgiving and we just hung out and cooked most of the day. The kids loved playing with Grandma and Grandpa's toys. Caleb was feeling a little sick and took the first nap he's taken in about a year! (The happiness in the exclamation point is due to the nap not the illness...) We had a great thanksgiving dinner and THE best sweet potato casserole I've ever had in my life! I'm definitely making that one again!
Friday we went up to Snowqualmie Falls. (ok, i have no idea how to spell that and I'm too lazy to look it up online.) It was a lot of fun and it reminded us of Havasupai only it was frosty and freezing. Here's Brynley loving her ride from Grandpa: This is the top of the falls behind us. We didn't get a better picture. Mary and I went and saw Enchanted Friday afternoon. Oh my gosh. I totally loved it. Seriously, loved it.
Saturday we just hung around the house and baked some pies because Cathie and Jerry (Brandon's parents friends and Brandon's best friend growing up's parents) were coming over for dinner and pies. It was fun to see them. Cathie is so thoughtful and even brought the kids cute little Christmas stuffed animals. They loved her right away!
Sunday morning we left bright and early and watched movies for about 13 hours straight. You think I'm kidding but I'm not. Oh well, they were happy.
We had such a great trip! Thanks, grandma and grandpa for having us! Can't wait to come again!
Ok, so I am so not confident in my decorating abilities... that's why I am so proud of my new tree! We went to set up our 6 1/2 foot tree in a different spot this year than last year (to put it in the bay window again we would have to rearrange the furniture and we didn't feel like doing that). The spot that was best was right under the highest part of the vaulted cielings. That tree looked rediculously miniature under the high cieling. We've been wanting to get a nice tree for a few years so we decided to suck it up and do it! They had a 9 foot pre lit narrow tree for only $125 at wal mart. We called Costco and Target before we bought it and theirs were all over $300! So, we hurried and got it.
But now we had to decorate it. They have those "tree in a box" kits at Target and Costco for ($100 and $190 respectively) where it's all the decorations you need for your tree in one convenient little box. We checked those out and I didn't like them. The Target one was all balls (brandon would insert: that's what she said) which looked cheap to me and the Costco one was all gold which I wasn't going for. I checked out Roberts and their trees were too themed; i wanted more of a classic tree not like a cowboy tree or a nature tree or a princess tree or whatever they had. But all the decorations at Roberts where on sale through last night. So last night an hour before they closed I went to Roberts to try and be creative. I knew I wanted muted green, red and gold for the colors and I wan't kind of fancy but not too much. Here's what I came up with: (And I got it all at 40% off so it only cost me $140 bucks! It's not as full as I'd like but I plan to add on another year.)
All Aboard! Sunday Nov 4th we left on our Western Caribbean Cruise! We sailed on Carnival's Liberty. It was a really big, nice ship and we loved it! Loved the food, the staff, everything about it! I am doing a day by day synopsis so I hope you're all comfortable!
Sunday we woke up in Ft. Lauderdale and went for a run. (I am going into this vacation with a strategy. 45-60 min of cardio a day. I am still going to eat whatever I want but hopefully my workouts plus other activity will keep some pounds off. Turned out it worked! I only gained 4.5 lbs instead of the 7-8 i usually gain!) After our run and shower we took the shuttle to the port on got on the ship!
Of course we went straight to the food! They have this deli on board that makes the best sandwiches ever. That is where we ate most of our lunches. The also have lunch buffets, a grill with burgers and hot dogs, a fish and chips stand and a pizzeria. Those are all open all the time. So for lunch we had sandwiches and dessert. Then we set off to explore the ship. Here are some pictures of the inside of the boat: Soon it was time for muster! This is where you have a saftey drill and they show you what to do if there is an emergency. A necessary evil. Then we headed up to the deck for a Bon Voyage party! Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot! After the party we headed back to our room to unpack and take a nap. We take long naps on vacation.
Then we woke up and got ready for dinner. Our waiter is Robert from Jamaica and our assistant waiter is Rico from the Philippines! They were awesome!
Caleb wanted to help Brynley bowl so he would get the ball for her and they would walk up to the lane. He'd put it down and she would push it and he would push it a little harder right after her. It took about 5 minutes for the ball to get down the whole lane. The just sat and watched it until it finally got to the pins. It was really cute. 
Here's Caleb and Abby 
All of us 
And finally as this wonderful Christmas season comes to a close here is Brynley wishing all of you a late "Merry Kripins!"
