Giving Thanks!

Becky says it's my turn again...

I've heard it's always good to start out with a joke so here you go (you'll probably need to click on them to see the punchline)...

Thanksgiving was with the Packers this year and we spent the day up at Mom and Dad's. It was fun to have the whole family around and to have my cousins Joelle and Paul join us. The day started with a 8am Turkey Bowl @ Sugarhouse park. Thankfully (I'm still in the Thanksgiving mood) there were only 2 minor casualties: the 1st being a cell phone (thankfully not mine) that was enhanced to include a nice cleat mark in the display area, and the 2nd my big toe nail that was also maimed by a rogue cleat.

Ok, I should correct myself before I get in trouble, the day actually started at 5:30am when Becky got up to make the rolls. If you haven't tried Becky's homemade rolls (which I understand are the same as Cindy's. Thanks Cindy!) then you are missing out. They were fantastic and in my opinion, are very much worth every minute of sleep that I didn't lose when Becky got up early to make them.

So...rolls, turkey bowl, then on to the Packers' for lunch at 1pm. We had a fantastic meal so thanks to all those that made food for it. I thought the meal was one of the best that I can remember. After lunch, in typical Thanksgiving fashion we lounged around reading books, watching a movie, playing games, and playing with the nieces and nephew. Oh yeah, Becky made her first gum-drop turkey. Gum-drop turkeys are a timeless Packer family tradition. The picture below is of our Thanksgiving decorations and will give you a good idea of what a gum-drop turkey is (minus the head that I ate before Becky took the picture). Unfortunately we don't have any other pics of the day.

Friday was pretty uneventful, Becky joined countless other Black Friday shoppers around 7am and managed to get most of her Christmas shopping done without much hassle. I stayed home (asleep in bed) and held down the fort until she came home several hours later.

Saturday was one of the best football games that we've seen in a long time. Rise and Shout cougar fans!! We watched the game from Jake and Stacey's while eating Cafe Rio and what a game it was. Towards the end of the game Becky decided I wasn't safe to sit by so she moved to the far side of the couch. It was pretty intense. She moved back when we took the lead again and the game was in the bag. Chalk up another W for the Y. We also ran into this hooligan on the way to the game...the flag attached to the truck is the Ute flag, the animal tied to the back is... wishful thinking. Maybe next year Mr. Ute. Go Cougars!!

California Round 2 + Early Christmas

I flew out to San Jose again this week - fortunately, this time was for training so I wasn't working as much. I flew out there Monday night, and was able to meet up with a couple of former roommates for dinner after training on Tuesday. It's funny to see how things have changed, and yet not changed since I left almost a year ago. None of us are living in the "Naked Lady House" anymore, but in some ways it felt exactly the same. It was fun to catch up with them. I was supposed to have training Wednesday morning until noon, but when I got there it was a training the 3 of us from Salt Lake had already done, so they let us leave. We hurried to the airport to try and catch and earlier flight home, and unfortunately, there were only 2 open seats on the earlier flight. Me being the gentleman that I am, let the two guys have the seats and I spent the next 5 hours having a fabulous time in the San Jose airport. I guess that's what you get for equality in the workplace! (in all honesty, they are nice guys and would have let me go if I wanted to - they just both had good reasons for needing to get back earlier so I let them take the seats).


While I was in training on Tuesday, we had a short break and I decided to indulge in my addiction of checking the classified ads for furniture (instead of chatting with my adoring husband who also happened to be online at the same time and was waiting to hear how my training was going). I found a table and chairs I liked that seemed like a good deal, so I sent the link to Nate. When I finished training that evening and called, he was on his way over to look at them. I trust his judgment and had seen pictures, but I was still slightly nervous when he called back shortly after and said he had bought them. We went and picked them up when I got home the next night, and luckily I like them :) Apparently the kids in the family we bought the table from are granted quite a bit of freedom, and one of the chairs was covered in kids' paint, and most of the others had paint spots on them. It took us several hours and almost a whole can of furniture cleaner to get the dust and paint and grime off, but they look pretty spiffy now!

Before:




After: (I'm not sure how to rotate it...)

The table: (this is from their craigslist ad - we don't have room in our apartment so its legs are off and it's against the wall behind our couch)

Here are four of the six chairs set up with our table now. It just looks slightly better than the metal folding chairs we were previously using (yes, that is homemade bread placed strategically in the picture ;)


We're pretty excited about our purchase.

I also went to a bridal shower for my former roommate Elise on Thursday - it was fun to catch up with her and her twin Kristina. I'm excited for Elise's wedding reception this weekend, and that she's moving to Utah!

And, in conclusion, favorite quotes from Primary today:

Primary President, trying to introduce the Sharing Time on Thanksgiving: "What is happening on Thursday?"
Cute little Sunbeam: "It's going to snow!"

later...
Primary President "Who passes the sacrament?"
same little Sunbeam: "The sacrament boys"

a quick update

It's been a while since we posted anything, and I'm at work waiting for a HUGE email file to send before I can go home, so I'm going to give you a quick update of what we've been up to the last few weeks.

1. Another Jazz game with EY (this one trying to convince recruits with offers to sign with us).
2. Dinner with the Morris siblings last Sunday - I got a message from Dave on Friday saying he was coming to pick Camille up at the aiport and "we thought it would be a good idea if we came over for dinner". We were happy to have them over though - it's always fun to hang out. We went on a walk and got in a good game of 10,000. And I used the excuse to pull out some of my cool serving dishes I got as wedding presents.
3. My trip to San Jose to help out with one of my clients - I was only there 3 days, but they were LONG days with lots of work :(
4. BYU football game on Thursday - I think this is the first game we've been to together where it didn't rain on us, hooray!
5. House inspection Friday - it wasn't an official one, but we met with our sales guy / now friend to go through the house and look at what's been done so far - framing, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and A/C), electrical, and plumbing. When he suggested going through it I was thinking that it might not be very helpful because I wouldn't know what to change, but we did decide to move a few things (does anyone know what a "half-hot" is? I bet Kim does. We moved it to a different spot so it's not where our TV will go. Now I can sound smart with my new-found electrical knowledge :) and added an electrical outlet on one wall, etc. Minor stuff, but much better to find it now when it can be changed. After our meeting we went to a couple of friends' houses who moved into soon-to-be-our neighborhood recently. It made me impatient for the next few months to pass by, and excited to decorate!
6. Babysitting niece Abby on Saturday - we learned the joys of going shopping with an almost-one-year-old. She was actually really good for us, no crying or whining - just too many fun and exciting things in the store for her to try and reach out and touch. She didn't especially like sitting in her stroller the whole time :) She sure is cute though.

I think that's about it. Sorry there aren't any pictures this time. I'm headed out to CA again tonight for a couple of days - at least this time it's just for training so I'll have time to see some of my Stanford Ward friends :)