2-m-0-e-0-h-9

On the scale of "this was the absolute worst year of my life" to "this was the most fantastic awesome year of my life" this year was rated "meh".  There were a lot of fun things we did.  And then there were some not so fun things that happened.  But overall I would describe this year as just a year.  Nothing devastating, nothing spectacular.

We didn't go too many places, but we had some of our favorites visit us!

When we did go on vacation, we went to Utah (for 9 days...) but we got to see some of our buddies we miss sooo much!

And we got to make a new friend

We also went to a real live ranch while we were in Utah.  Not exactly my idea of the perfect getaway, but it was a once in a lifetime opportunity that I will never forget.

My favorite trips of the year were being in NYC for this:

And going to Phoenix this year for Thanksgiving (you know it's a great trip when you were sad to leave and wanted to stay an extra few days).

Brent had an awesome year at work and still loves his job.  I'm so proud of him for all the long hours and hard work that he puts in to provide for our family.

A couple of us had some medical issues:

But thankfully we recovered.

Although we had another frustrating year of unsuccessful fertility treatments, we learned a lot about the power of a positive attitude and relying on someone other than yourself.

Even though my reproductive oven hasn't decided to start baking anything, we did get to add this guy to our family. 

And this little girl loves him so much!

Even though these girls could do without him.

I'm glad this year is coming to a close.  I have a feeling that 2010 is going to be an awesome one and I can't wait to see what is in store for us.  Happy New Year and hasta la vista 2009!

The Christmas that Almost Wasn't

Ok, that's a little dramatic.  But when it happened, I was pretty sad.  It all started Christmas Eve when I got Brent's big present ready and stuck it in his stocking.  Later that evening Brent told me that he was going to go get my stocking ready and wrap one more present.  Well I completely forgot that I had put his present (in an UNSEALED envelope) in one of the stockings.  He happened to grab the same stocking and when he looked inside he thought it was something from last year.

So he opened the envelope and saw ...Seattle to San Francisco....2010.... and ran up to the bedroom.  He held it up and asked what it was and I started bawling.  So Brent got his big present Christmas Eve.  And I learned to do a better job wrapping presents and putting them out when they're actually going to be opened :)  It's funny now, but it was pretty upsetting then.  The one cute thing was that I had been tracking where Santa was all day on Google and when this happened I looked and he was in Seattle :)

We woke up Christmas morning at 6:30 and were ready to go! 

We opened presents and had homemade egg mcmuffins for breakfast.  Around one my mom, dad and Bubba all ate lunch with us. 

The furries got to wear their Christmas Pj's and LOVED every minute of it (ok, probably not really, but they humored us). 

We ended Christmas by going to Sherlock Holmes with the fam.  Talk about a great way to end the day (ahhhh Robert Downey Jr...).  The movie was sooo good!  I would definitely want to own this one (and not only because RDJ is in it :)). 

We had a great Christmas and are looking forward to the new year!

'Tis the Season!

What kind of mother would I be if I didn't take some pictures of my furries during the holidays? 

Macie Claus

And the Reindeer

Please ignore the giant pile of blankets.  It was hard enough to get them in the same picture, I couldn't be picky about what the background was :)

Merry Christmas!!!

What's the difference...

What's the difference between Santa and Tiger Woods? 

Santa stops after three Ho's.


Bahahha!

Thanksgiving in the Desert!

Since Seattle had a record breaking month for rain in November, we were sooooo lucky this year to be going to Phoenix for Thanksgiving!!!  Jordan, Karin (Brent's sister), Matthew and Isabelle were nice enough to host Thanksgiving for us and Brent's parents and we had the BEST time.  

Our flight left Wednesday morning at 5:00am so we decided not to sleep that night.  I'm not sure if that's the smartest decision we could have made, but luckily it ended up being ok. 

Some of us ended up being more awake than others. 

That night we went to Cafe Rio (!!!) and a Suns game!  I lucked out and got to sit by Karin at the game so I had someone to talk to.  Brent tells me I get really chatty during sporting events for some reason, so I had a buddy to chat with.

 

The next day was Thanksgiving and we had AWESOME food.  Karin and Jordan are such good cooks.  Matthew also provided the entertainment by singing a song about frowny faces and pumpkins over and over (it was hilarious). 

                           

Here's a shot of the little entertainer:

The next morning Brent, Karin, Jordan and I got up at 2:15 to go shopping on Black Friday.  Crazy!!  We went to Kohl's and got everything we needed and then Jordan was very nice and took me to Best Buy where we waited in the longest line I have ever seen outside of a store.  But I got what I needed and Jordan got a few things, too so it worked out well.  Brent and Karin went to Walmart while we were there so after we met up at Target.  We finally got home at 6:30am and went back to bed for a little. 

Later that day we got to see Brent's friend for his mission, Pete and his with Angie and their cute girls Brynn and Shea. 

 

That night we headed to get the only hamburgers I will eat at In-n-Out.

 

After In-n-Out we went to the Mesa Temple to look at all the Christmas lights.  It was packed, but it was really cool to see all the lights.

 

The next day we had a BBQ (awesome food AGAIN) and watched BYU crush Utah (ok, maybe not crush.  But we still won).  Later that night we played a marathon game of Phase 10 that Brent's dad ended up winning (but really we all won, since the game ended). 

We were sad to leave but Seattle welcomed us back with these views of Mt. Rainier and Mt. St. Helens.

The highlight of coming home was picking up the furries at the Pet Hotel.  They were soooo excited to see us and soooo ready to get out of there!  Chip got some training while he was there.  We've been practicing every day so now he's gotten really good at laying down, leaving things alone when I say 'leave it' , and he can wave bye!  It's really cute.

Thanks Jordan, Karin, Matthew and Isabelle for such an awesome vacation!