Playing Catch-UP

Our extended three week visit to Utah has fortunately afforded us the opportunity to hang out with a lot of family and friends. It has been so much fun playing catch up!
Thursday night we went out to Herriman to hang with Brady's sister Angie, her husband Cody, and their son Kyan. At only 1 1/2 year Kyan is becoming quite the basketball player. Cody taught him how to dunk and now that's all he wants to do! He was so cute shooting with his left hand. For dinner Angie made a delicious vegetartian lasagnia, which Kyan seemed to enjoy a little more than the rest of us!
After putting Kyan to bed we played a fun dice game and watched the movie "Licensed to Wed" with Robin Williams, Mandy Moore, and half of the cast from "The Office". I give the movie a C+. Nice clean flick, at times offensively tacky, but with a good take away message. We love hanging out with Angie and Cody and look up to them so much!
Friday I went to lunch with the girls and Brady met up with some of his buddies. Darci, Jana, Brooke, Ashley and I met at "The Fire House", a recent culinary addition to the Centerville line-up. I ordered the "ratatioui", and awesome vegetarian personal pizza. This restaurant is a must visit and #1 in the area (I know, not exactly tight competition). Rumor has is they have some mean cookie and ice cream desserts!
That evening we celebrated Glen's 49th birthday (sorry Glen, everyone get ready for the big 5-0!). His kids Chris, Spencer, Emily, and Aubrey helped us to celebrate and my mom provided a fantastic turkey dinner, mmmm!
Our friends Jason, Darci and their son Austin came to hang out after dinner. Austin is sooooo cute! He's the kind of baby that makes you think, "hey, I think I could have a baby if they were like him!" Darci is working part time at a Dental office and still cuts hair on the side. Jason sells for IKON and loves his job. They recently put a down payment on a condo in Farmington and hope to move in this summer. They have the most adorable little family and we are so grateful for their friendship. So many loved-ones, so little time!

A Family that Loves to Party!

Ahhh, the day after Christmas... The sales, the wrapping paper collage on the floor, and the new 5 lbs. added to the scale bringing us that much closer to Santa Clause. For most families this would be a time to relax and regenerate after all the parties and last minute gift purchases, but not my family! Party on!!!


The day after Christmas is my cousin Amy's husband Aaron's birthday. We took advantage of this opportunity for yet another fun get together. We met at Typhoon, a Thia restaurant at the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City. All fourteen attendees shared their plates for the ultimate Thai buffet! The popular favorite was the Indian Princess with chicken, mmmhh, so good!


This party was extra special as we were also bidding farewell to my Uncle Pat's nephew Dave Houy. He is off to serve a 60-90 day assignment for the United States Air force this Sunday. He is a Master Sargent, which means he's only 2 steps from the top! Staying on base in Iraq, Dave is an electrical mechanic who leads work on F16's. He also served in 2003 during the war and in 2005 for 4 months and in addition volunteered at the hospital in his spare time in the surgical unit. His wife Jana works full time at the Layton post office and will probably spend a lot of time hanging out with her family in Draper while he is away. Although they are not directly related to us we are so grateful to have them in our lives and think of them as nothing less than family. We are so grateful for David's service and he will be in our prayers as we hope for his quick return.


After saying our goodbyes we were walking to our car when I totally slipped on the ice in one of those horizontal falls but was luckily caught by Brady. Unfortunately I was caught slamming against the car and sustained a royal bruise on my back! Laughing and hoping nobody else had seen me we were off to meet up with Brandon and his girlfriend Danielle to watch a couple episodes of "Arrested Development".


December 26th is also Danielle's birthday and Brandon hooked her up with a new set of head phones which she loved. They seem so happy and are such a cute couple! Danielle has only one semester until she completes her undergraduate degree at Utah State in Interior Design. She is very artistically talented and showed some of her skills in Brandon's Christmas gift. Reminiscent of Andy Warhol, Danielle painted him some colorful sneaker portraits. I don't think I've seen Brandon so excited over a gift. Ahhh, puppy love!

Merry Christmas!

What an amazing Christmas we've had! Brady and I started the celebration by quietly opening the gifts from each other in our room. We had decided to do things simplistically as possible only giving a couple gifts and filling each others stockings. It was perfect! It's amazing how much more special the gifts became when they were so few. We did however have one extra big and special gift. As it is Brady's last year of school and we may be starting a family in the near future, I gave him a trip to anywhere in the world (with a little help from my Aunt Connie and Uncle Pat's Delta hook-up!). I thought for sure he would know immediately where we'd go as he's been talking about Europe recently. Instead, he is taking this assignment very seriously and feels he has to do a lot of research before he makes his choice. I'm pressing hard for Thailand!




At 10am sharp we were able to call Brady's little bro Trent who is serving a mission in Helsinki, Finland. He said the Finnish people do most of their celebrating on Christmas Eve. They also light candles on the graves of their loved ones to pay honor and respect. Trent is loving his mission and has been going out of his comfort zone by tasting the local cuisine; his least favorite...Fish! It's amazing how quickly people can grow on a mission. Once shy and quite, Trent was talking almost non-stop for 3 hours! Only 6 months into his mission, we're looking forward to his growth and the service he will be giving the Lord in the months to come.

We then opened gifts with Brady's parents. They have a tradition in the Cook family of giving a gift to Christ every year (makes sense, we are celebrating his birthday!). We write what the gift will be on a piece of paper and put it in a stocking that has been put aside for him. The gifts we wrote the previous year are then read aloud anonymously and we check ourselves to see if we followed through. Unfortunately, we accidentaly forgot to do it this year, oops! We're going to try to do a make-up on Sunday evening:).



After saying our goodbyes we were off to meet with my mom and step-dad Glen who had just picked up my brother Brandon from the airport. Brandon and Mary had been spending Christmas with my Dad in Florida. They had a great time in 85 degree weather hanging with dolphins, and winning a sand castle (or should I say sand cabin) competition which awarded them a return trip next year!



We found ourselves in yet another blizzard of wrapping paper as we opened the gifts from my side of the family. My favorite gift hands down was my new camera (thanks Mom and Glen!). Brady was given cash for a new suite, which my mom insisted on being present when is purchased. Everyone was so generous, there is nothing else we could possibly need!








The day ended at my Aunt Connie's where we ate ourselves sick and laughed to tears as we caught up with the gang. It was so fun to have a white Christmas in Utah. Our greatest gift this year was being with our family. I hope everyone had a wonderful Chirstmas and that all your wishes come true in the new year!