End of 2009 recap

I guess for my sake really I am going to quickly recap on the events leading up to Christmas of 2009. There was a lot going on and that is why I have neglected the blog.

In October my brother married the love of his life. We were so busy the few months before getting things together. Bridal Showers, dresses, shoes, pictures invites etc. I was happy to help in any way I could.

They had a lovely wedding dinner the night before at the Lion House (the same place we had our wedding luncheon).

They got sealed for time and all eternity in the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple. Everything went so perfectly.
In between the wedding and the reception we rushed up to my cousin's baptism and then headed back for the reception. It was a long day for our kids but we are so glad we were apart of it.

A week or so after the wedding my mother-in-law arrived from England (I make it sound like she was traveling by boat don't I ;)) A couple weeks later Aaron's dad and sister followed. So we spent a lot of time preparing for their arrival and building our loft into a 5th bedroom. It turned out better than I expected. It's been a huge adjustment for them coming only with what they could fit in their suitcases but I can't believe how quickly the past 4 months have flown by.

Since having them live with us I've been able to go out with Aaron a bit more. In November we went up to Park City for a weekend. Aaron had a work party up there and we decided to make it a getaway. Aaron walked through Art Galleries with me in the day and then I went to a Sports Grill with him that evening to watch the big Utah and Real games.  We also got to watch the Olympic Bobsledding athletes train. We had so much fun!

About a week or so after that my Grandpa Bob died. This was a new and hard experience for me. He died of serious lung cancer that had spread throughout his whole body. I was literally with him only a couple of hours before he past away. I had never experience anyone die of cancer before and didn't realize what it can do to the body...  Everything went really well for the funeral and I've realized how strong my grandma is. She is good at hiding her feelings at least. I was able to help out by designing the program for the funeral.  After the burial we were on clean up and were deciding who to have take home all of the large bouquets of flowers. I ended up bringing home a couple of beautiful arrangements. The best was this gorgeous poinsettia tree. It's still alive and constantly growing in my home... The picture at the bottom is of my grandma and 7 granddaughters. I am the oldest of them all, the others are all between ages 12 and 16. I was actually squatting in this picture, my grandma is only 4'10" and I was wearing heels. (Hard to believe, I know...)

Thanksgiving was spent at my parents house. Aaron's family is from England so this is one of our holidays they do not celebrate. My parents were kind enough to invite them along so we all had a lovely turkey dinner together.

Every year we have a large birthday party for my great grandma. December 2009 she turned 103 so we all got together as usual. I think by now she gets a bit overwhelmed with all the people around. She is surprisingly more with it than I think I would be but her poor body can't keep up with her. She has lived so long in a nursing home now that she doesn't really like to go out.

Aaron's work Christmas party always seems to fall on the same day. So right from the birthday party we headed up to the Grand America Hotel. This year Aaron won a nice blue ray dvd player.  It was a great party this year!






Christmas was our next adventure. It was fun to watch Josh and Rachael open their gifts. The best part for me was opening my new camera. Aaron really surprised me by getting me the Nikon D90 I've been wanting. I am so spoiled. We were so lucky to spend Christmas with both mine and Aaron's families. We had a great time!

Joshua celebrated his 4th birthday just a few days after Christmas. A few days later we took him up to Union Station where we toured through the trains and cars. He loved it!

Needless to say it was an eventful way to end 2009. When we had snow we went sledding and had a great time. Josh was so excited when he found a dollar in the snow that he then used to buy hot chocolate. We had lot of other family parties, and fun outings all December long. I can't say we did anything real exciting to start in the new year though. These days I seriously struggle to make it past 11:00p.m.