Wordless Wednesday - My mom and Grandma 1941

Birthday Trip to Cali Recap

Wow. So it was two weeks ago today that I was in San Francisco for my birthday! And its been two weeks since I've done anything responsible - well responsible like, clean my bathroom, wash my bed, clean my room, do laundry, buy groceries, and blog! And tonight was the night to rectify that!! I am proud to say I got it all done! I would have liked to have done my taxes too and get the copies of a survey form made, but that didn't happen. You can tell I even got side tracked with my two previous posts before the real one that I needed to write up! Ugh. I digress.

Here are some highlights and pics from my trip to see Joni and Adam and their three kids: Adam, Whitney and Ethan.

Day 1 - Friday, January 18th, my actual Birthday!:
Wake up to a chorus of "Happy Birthday" and a monster balloon.
French toast with fresh strawberries and blueberries.
Quick run to take Ethan to school - in our jammies.
Getting ready for the day while sharing a bathroom with my sis.
Driving around in a convertible with the top down.
Extremely successful shopping ($7 work pants and $12 skirt from Ann Taylor Loft).
Almost buying some big, furry boots.
Gourmet birthday cake with the kids and opening presents.
Trip into the city for dinner at Scala's with Joni and Adam.
Walk around Coit Tower.

Day 2 - Saturday, January 19th:
A couple of fabulous hours in the Legion of Honor (SF's Art Museum) musing over Monet, Renior, Rodin, etc.
Pics on the grounds of the Legion of Honor and gazing at the Golden Gate Bridge from a distance .
Pier 39.
Dinner at Neptune's Palace with their fabulous crab cakes.
Stroll through the aquarium that was making us motion sick.
Watching To Catch a Thief with Joni.

Day 3 - Sunday, January 20th:
Playing ping pong and the Indiana Jones pinball machine with Whitney and Ethan.
Beating Adam's high score on the Indiana Jones pinball machine (I think my score was 275 million).
Attending church and listening to Ethan's primary talk.
Savoring a lamb dinner.
Family Home Evening with a lesson by Ethan.
Watching an episode of the Walton's.

Day 4 - Monday, January 21st:
Watching Ethan tackle the skate park like a pro on his skateboard in Petaluma.
Experiencing my first Trader Joe's and restraining myself to what will fit in my carry-on sized luggage.
Off to the airport to catch my delayed-by-a-snowstorm-in-SLC flight.

Me, Simpsonized

So this is the other crazy website listed in the Daily Universe today: simpsonizeme.com. Who has time to come up with these crazy websites? But it sure was fun all the same! Check me out as a Simpson's character. I use to love watching the Simpson's when I was in high school and college - I've since grown out of it. Sigh. :o)

Which celebrity do I look like?

So today's Daily Universe covered 5 websites that you can waste time on and one of them was this website where I could submit my picture and see which celebrities I looked like. They gave me ten options to choose from and 2 of them were men! How rude. Do I really look like a guy??? :o)

Birthday Fondue Dinner

Last night, my roommate Jen and I hosted a little full-course, fondue dinner with my closest girlfriends for my birthday. It was so much fun! And I was actually successful at making the cheese fondue! Woo hoo! (From left to right: me, Ashlee, Janie, Jen, Jana, Lindsey, Camille and Linda)

Double the Fun Winter Weekend

Snowshoeing at night is super fun and it leaves all day Saturday saved for skiing! And that is precisely what I did this past weekend. Snowshoeing about 4 miles Friday night and then skiing on Saturday.
I love my life!

Snowshoeing was loads of fun. Until it started to get late - according to my body. I became so loopy! On occasion Potter, Lindsey's Great Dane, would step on my snow shoe and I would fall flat on my face and bust up laughing! But then I fell on my face numerous other times and I couldn't blame Potter for it. I must have accidentally spiked my Belgian Dark Hot Chocolate. :o)

Skiing on Saturday at Sundance was pretty fun! And guess what - I had my first ever celebrity sighting! Jed, Linda and I were eating lunch in the top lodge and I walked toward the back to use the loo and there was . . . . drum roll please . . . .Robert Redford! He was talking to someone and I walked right past him. He's pretty small actually. And we went back outside to commence our skiing again at the same time he did. Jed said he heard Robert talking about bringing Bono and his nephew up skiing next weekend. Yup, as in U2's Bono. I guess it all comes with the Sundance Film Festival that starts this weekend. Pretty wild, huh?

Tragic Christmas Recap

So this is my sad/tragic Christmas recap:

I went skiing the day before I drove home to Idaho at the Canyons . . . and .. . my ski buddy TORE HER ACL!!! Poor me, I know. I know. Tell me about it. Forget that she is out for the rest of the season and is scheduled for surgery this month and will go through weeks of painful therapy. All I can think is - I'm out a committed, and fabulous ski-buddy. Not to mention it all occurred at the end of a fabulous day of skiing. The snow was sooooo good. The bumps were phenomenal. Sigh.

And then two days before I was scheduled to drive back to Utah, my car gave me a scare. It wouldn't start!! So I had it towed to the Honda dealership and had it fixed first thing New Year's Eve morning. It ended up being the battery. That is definitely the most expensive battery I will ever pay for . .. but I knew I was paying for expediency when I took my car to the Honda dealership. Who knew that when the battery was low that it might have enough juice to turn the engine over, but not enough to recognize the microchip in my key and therefore activate the immobilizer in my engine and prevent it from starting? That would be my car thinking it was being stolen. Good little protective car.

Other than that, my Christmas was good. Family get together on Christmas Eve, as is tradition. Finger-food-lunch and tour of the grandkids' Christmas loot at my sister's house on Christmas day with a new, up-and-coming tradition of a full-course Fondue dinner that night. Went to the gym. Watched the Masterpiece Theatre edition of Jane Eyre with my sister. Going to the gym and shopping with my other sister. You know . .. that kind of stuff. Low key. Fun. Family. Just what a Christmas vacation should entail. :o)

(I wasn't very diligent taking pics during Christmas, so enjoy the shot of my 27-year-old, fuzzy Christmas stocking. Ha! I think it is almost as old as the pillow I still sleep on!!)